We visited Beaumaris Castle on the last day of our vacation in North Wales. The Castle sits at the east end of the town of Beaumaris, and is a massive sprawling construction. It was never completed as per the original plan as they ran out of cash, but what is there is still pretty impressive.
Work started on it in 1295. It has a moat, an outer wall and then an inner castle, with its own defensive walls.
In the pic above you can see the outer wall, which is not overly high, and upon which you can walk around, and the gap between it and the inner castle wall. The outer castle wall is around 3-4m thick, with towers at key points.
The pic above shows one of the towers. You can see the arrow slit windows on the ground floor, and the supporting structure which would have held the timbers for the first floor.
The entrance is quite pretty, and and considerable structure in itself, with defensive towers either side.
The view above shows the entrance from up on the walls.
The inner castle encloses quite a large courtyard, with the main buildings to one side (opposite the entrance side).
The structure remains fairly intact, although no floors remain - although you can still go up in the towers via their stone spiral staircases, and also along the passageways that run within the main walls.
The inner passageways are quite narrow. You can see how they have constructed the ceiling by brining in the width at the top to allow spanning stones to be placed across the top.
The image above shows two great fireplaces which would have been inside a particularly large room or hall. The castle was littered with fireplaces and the amount of wood needed to run them each day must have been colossal.
Similar to Harlech Castle, this castle was built by Edward the 1st during his invasion of Wales. Its construction was considerable and required a workforce of between 1,500 and 2,000 men.
The main towers on the inner castle are monstrous, with the walls being around 2m thick (and more).
The town is right on the edge of the village, and you can see here on the south-east side where the outer grounds have now been used for a children's play-park. Thats probably one of the best play park back drops I've ever seen !
It was the structure above that really dominated the scene for me. It was quite incredible really.
The castle had quite a history, and although not complete, it resisted a Scottish attack in 1381, and also the forces of Owain Glyndwr (Welsh) who lay siege to the castle in 1403.
The castle also played a part during the English Civil Wars in the 1600s - although did not see much action due to its remote location from England.
The castle is now maintained and operated by CADW (an organisation establish to protect historic buildings in Wales).
Similar to Harlech Castle, its so large, that even with quite a few people around, it still feels fairly empty, and we were able to wander around and enjoy it mostly to ourselves (no queuing or waiting anywhere).
I'd certainly recommend it to anyone visiting the area - we loved it !
