Conwy Town Walls โ€” city walls
David Dixon ยท CC BY-SA 2.0

Conwy Town Walls

  • Elevation6 m
  • 2 min read
  • 53.281ยฐ N 3.831ยฐ W
  • UNESCO World Heritage

Interesting facts

  • Edward I founded the town on the site of Aberconwy Abbey, a Cistercian house favoured by the Welsh princes, which he moved about eight miles inland.
  • The accounts never separated the walls from the castle: together the two projects cost around ยฃ15,000, an enormous sum for the late 13th century.
  • Each summer gangs of labourers were gathered from across England at Chester and marched into Wales for the building season.
  • The west side was built first, in 1284โ€“85, because it was the most exposed; a Savoyard mason, John Francis, finished the south wall in 1286.
  • Medieval records say the walls were 'daubed', which suggests they may originally have been whitewashed rather than left as bare stone.
  • A row of stone corbels along the top carries an unusually wide, flat wall-walk, an uncommon design among medieval town walls.
  • During Owain Glyndลตr's rising in 1401, Welsh forces held the town for two months, and residents later claimed ยฃ5,000 in damage.
  • Thomas Telford cut two new gateways through the walls in 1826 for traffic from his suspension bridge; one was demolished again in 1958.
  • Digging the railway tunnel beneath the western wall in 1845 opened a deep crack in one tower, which was finally underpinned in 1963.
  • Planners of the time gave Conwy a T-shaped street layout that is almost a mirror image of Beaumaris, another of Edward's new Welsh towns.

Why it is worth it

The town walls of Conwy are a remarkably complete medieval circuit: a ring of stone about 1.3 km long, with 21 towers and three gateways, still wrapped around the small town at the mouth of the Conwy river in North Wales. Edward I had them built between 1283 and 1287, together with the castle at their corner, as part of his conquest of Wales; the works were directed by Master James of St George. The circuit forms a rough triangle, climbing from the quay up the hillside and back down to the castle, built of local sandstone, limestone and rhyolite.

Many details reward a close look. The towers are open at the back, spanned originally by removable timber bridges, so that any stretch of wall could be cut off if an enemy got onto it. The Upper Gate keeps a rare surviving barbican. Along the southern wall, a unique row of twelve medieval latrines, built for the royal staff, projects from the parapet โ€” a rare glimpse of everyday life in the Edwardian town. A hall built into the walls for Edward, known as Llywelyn's Hall, did not stay: in 1316 it was taken down and moved to Caernarfon Castle.

The walls saw action in 1401, when Welsh rebels allied to Owain Glyndลตr seized the town and burned its gates and bridges. Their military role faded under the Tudors, and later centuries piled houses against them. In 1848 Robert Stephenson carried his railway through the walls under a mock-Gothic arch designed to sit politely with the medieval work. In 1953 the Ministry of Works took the walls into care and cleared away the accretions, and since 1986 they have formed part of the World Heritage Site of the Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd. Walking the wall-walk gives views over slate roofs to the castle, the estuary and the mountains of Eryri.

Getting there

Conwy is about 5 km from the resort of Llandudno. The walls are cared for by Cadw, and several stretches of the wall-walk can be walked from points around the town. Conwy railway station stands inside the walls on the North Wales Coast Line, though not every train stops there; Llandudno Junction, a few minutes away by train, is the main interchange. The nearest major airport is Liverpool John Lennon (LPL), about 66 km away in a straight line.

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Nearby places

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Wales 16The Most Beautiful Places in the United Kingdom 154The Most Beautiful Castles, Palaces and Fortresses in Wales 5The Most Beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Wales 5The Most Impressive UNESCO-Listed City Walls 5The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Castles, Palaces and Fortresses in the United Kingdom 5The Most Impressive City Walls 11The Most Beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the United Kingdom 22The Most Beautiful Castles, Palaces and Fortresses in the United Kingdom 24The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Castles, Palaces and Fortresses 92The Most Beautiful Castles, Palaces and Fortresses 302The Most Beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites 557

From the encyclopaedia

The Conwy town walls are a medieval defensive structure around the town of Conwy in Wales. The walls were constructed between 1283 and 1287 after the foundation of Conwy by Edward I, and were designed to form an integrated system of defence alongside Conwy Castle. The walls are 1.3ย km (0.81ย mi) long and include 21 towers and three gatehouses. The project was completed using large quantities of labourers brought in from England; the cost of building the castle and walls together came to around ยฃ15,000, a huge sum for the period. The walls were slightly damaged during the rebellion of Owain Glyndลตr in 1401, but political changes in the 16th century reduced the need to maintain such defences around the town. The fortifications were treated sympathetically during the development of the road and railway systems in Conwy during the 19th century and survived largely intact into the modern period. Today the walls form part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site administered by Cadw. Historians Oliver Creighton and Robert Higham describe the defences as "one of the most impressive walled circuits" in Europe.

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