Castles

Laugharne Castle: The "Brown as Owls" Fortress Where Dylan Thomas Found His Voice Dylan Thomas called it "the brown as owls castle" — a phrase that tells you as much about the poet's way of seeing as it does about the castle itself. Thomas...

Beaumaris Castle: The Most Perfect Fortress Never Finished, on the Isle of Anglesey In 1295, Master James of St George began designing the most geometrically perfect concentric castle in the history of medieval military architecture. The inner ward was rectangular,...

Edinburgh Castle: A Thousand Years Above the Capital, on Scotland's Volcanic Rock Castle Rock rises 130 metres above Edinburgh on a volcanic plug formed 350 million years ago — three sides sheer cliff, the fourth a long ridge descending to what became the Royal...

Conwy Castle: Eight Towers, Britain's Earliest Machicolations and a King in Hiding In 1399, King Richard II returned from Ireland to find his throne under threat from Henry Bolingbroke. He came to Conwy Castle — the massive fortress that Edward I had built in the...

Caernarfon Castle: Edward I's Imperial Vision, Above the Menai Strait Edward I of England spent approximately £25,000 building Caernarfon Castle — a sum equivalent to around 90% of England's entire annual royal income. The construction took 47 years, from...

Harlech Castle: The Invincible Fortress That Fell to Owain Glyndŵr, Above the Bay In 1404, after four years of the most sustained Welsh uprising against English rule since the Conquest, Owain Glyndŵr took Harlech Castle — the fortress that Edward I had built in seven...

Raglan Castle: Where Henry Tudor Was Raised, Among Wales's Grandest Ruins Before Henry Tudor became King Henry VII of England — before he won the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 and founded the Tudor dynasty that would rule Britain for 118 years — he was a boy living...

Castell Coch: William Burges's Fairytale Towers, Rising from the Welsh Forest Above Cardiff The 3rd Marquess of Bute was the wealthiest man in Britain in the 1860s — the fortune built on Cardiff's coal docks, which had made the city the world's greatest...

Caerphilly Castle: Wales's Largest, with a Leaning Tower That Beats Pisa Caerphilly's leaning tower tilts more dramatically than the one in Pisa. It is not as tall and it is not as famous, but as a structural consequence of a failed Civil War demolition...