#castle caernarfon

[wgm-beautiful-world]

Castle of Caernarfon or Carnarvon built in 1283 by King Edward I of England - Gwynedd, Northwest Wales

[sowhatifiliveinfukuoka]

My former life...

Caernarfon, Gwynedd, Wales (flickr)

Caernarfon Castle

[rowynnellis]

I’m just a fancy little goblin out for a walks ✨

[ultimecias]

caernarfon castle today 🏰🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 the weather was surprisingly nice for october!

[wezg]

Review: Queens of the Crusades – by Alison Weir

I had previously read Alison Weir’s most excellent book specifically on Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine many years ago so the author was familiar to me. I chanced upon this title in my local library (Caldicot) and thought I’d give it a go. It covers the lives of several British Queens, or rather the historical period in England during which they lived. The period is one of the most interesting…

[dlyarchitecture]

[angiethewitch]

I am absolutely disgusted to learn that crown owns our castles and the profits are sent to Westminster. Wales is struggling, our economy is struggling, our people are struggling, our health services are struggling, and that money could go to the betterment of our lives - instead it goes to England.

despite the fact we maintain the castles and land, we don't own them. they are in OUR country. ownership should belong to us, the people who built them. we maintain them. we work in them. theyre ours and we should be able to use the profits generated by them to help welsh people, not allow the money be funnelled into the monarchy.

the fact the crown owns so much of wales is such an outdated and medieval concept and has no place in modern society.

petition here:

please sign. I am disgusted.

[spottinghistory]

Historic site of the week: Caernarfon Castle

Caernarfon Castle in Gwynedd, Wales, is recognised around the world as one of the greatest buildings of the Middle Ages. It was a motte-and-bailey castle from the late 11th century until 1283 when King Edward I of England began to replace it with the current stone structure.

This fortress-palace on the banks of the River Seiont is grouped with Edward I’s other castles at Conwy, Beaumaris and Harlech as a World Heritage Site. But for sheer scale and architectural drama Caernarfon stands alone.

[whencyclopedia]

Harlech Castle

Harlech Castle, located in North Wales, was first built by Edward I of England (r. 1272-1307 CE) from 1283 CE. Largely completed by 1290 CE, the castle received some further additions up to 1330 CE. A classic example of a concentric medieval castle, Harlech skilfully used local topography, the sea, and imposing towers to represent a formidable challenge to any attackers, as proven in the lengthy sieges of the Welsh rebellions and the Wars of the Roses during the turbulent 15th century CE. Harlech Castle is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

Edward I's Castle Building

From 1272 CE Edward I, the new king of England, conquered most of Wales and joined it with the county system present in England. Following the death of Llywelyn, the Prince of Wales, in 1282 CE, the only part of Wales which remained free was the wild mountainous north and here the king built several major castles which included Caernarfon Castle, Conwy Castle, and Harlech Castle. Work began on Harlech Castle in June 1283 CE, the vast team of labourers, masons, and craftsmen being supervised by Master James of Saint Georges (c. 1235-1308 CE), the experienced architect and engineer who had previously built castles in Europe and who would be involved in many of Edward's other Welsh castles.

As with any major castle, the choice of location would be the key to its chances of withstanding siege or attacks. Harlech was built on one of the most secure spots any castle was erected upon, sited on a rocky crag which rose straight out of the sea (today the sea has receded). There was also vital access to a small port or quay which meant that in times of trouble the castle could easily be supplied by boats (although one does not envy the porters who had to climb the 100+ steps with their heavy loads). The king visited the site in person to check progress over three days in August 1283 CE, and by the end of the first major building phase, he must have been happy with the results as he made Master James constable of the castle in 1290 CE, a position he would hold until 1293 CE.

Harlech would, by 1303 CE, eventually cost 8,184 pounds to construct (around $11 million today) but that was still a third cheaper than the cost of Caernarfon or Conwy. This is because the castle was both smaller and less ornate in its stonework and design. Even more significantly, the castle used local stone and so avoided the heavy costs of transportation of cumbersome materials. Another 400 pounds were spent on the castle between 1303 and 1330 CE.

Continue reading...

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

fave cadw site(s)?

What a SPECTACULAR ask omg okay

In no particular order:

Caerleon Roman Fortress. Local to where I grew up, so a special place in my heart anyway given that I've been there so often, but it's also incredibly well preserved and presented given that the modern town of Caerleon is on top. Plus, the mythical seat of King Arthur, so that's fun. My sister and I spent a lot of time pretending to be lions in the amphitheatre and mauling each other

Caerwent. Similar reasons! Less local, but I did Classics as a teen and it's an excellent Roman town ruin for a school trip, PLUS it was the cantonal capital of the Silures - the Celtic tribe that lived in my region

Bryn Celli Ddu. Iron Age burial mound on Anglesey. Every time I've been I've bored the tits off of whoever I've been there with explaining the site, which just goes to show I need better friends

Caernarfon Castle and Town Walls. This is technically two sites but fuck it. I absolutely adore Caernarfon. I am politically not supposed to because Gogs, but it's just wonderful. You should all go. Borrow my car.

Castell Coch. Local again, I've been loads, but it's batshit. Built by a rich lunatic who looked around Wales, the Castle Capitol of Europe, and went "Where are the fairytale turrets" because he profoundly didn't understand the function of a castle. He also built the Animal Wall in Bute Park in Cardiff

Tretower Court, I've only been once but it was GREAT

Caerphilly Castle. Second biggest in Europe! Leaning tower! Fab.

[philibetexcerpts]

On 1 July 1969, the investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales took place at Caernarfon Castle in Wales.

[jonathanwrotethis]

Beaches, Castles, and Journeys Home

The weather turned during our final full day in the holiday cottage on Anglesey. While my other half holed up in the lounge for the better part of the day, I braved the elements for at least a little while and walked down to the nearby beach to watch waves breaking on the shore, and to sort through the shells, driftwood and pebbles that had washed ashore.

Later in the day we pulled coats on and set out for the local pub – our last meal “out out” before returning home. It felt like a clockwork toy winding down – going through the motions of “having fun”, but already turning our thoughts to packing bags, and returning to the real world.

This morning we woke bright and early, bags mostly packed from the night before, had a wash, got dressed, and threw our belongings into the back of the car. Traveling without the children made everything remarkably quick and easy. Before 9am we found ourselves turning the key in the door for the last time, and making our way down the lane and away from our bolt-hole for the final time.

We did have one more adventure up our sleeve though. A visit to Caernarfon Castle on the way home. Just down the coast of the Welsh mainland, after crossing the Menai Strait once more, we stopped at Caenarfon and went for an explore.

The castle has stood for over 700 years – originally built by King Edward I, and cemented into the relationship between England and Wales with the birth of his son, the first true “Prince of Wales”.

It’s a mightily impressive castle – among the biggest in the British Isles, and among the most complete. We spent quite some time climbing the various towers, walking the ramparts, and reading about it’s history.

Finally – after topping up on tea and cake – we got back in the car and started the long journey home. Somewhere in the region of four hours on the road, with a break in the middle for more tea and cake.

We got home just before dinner this evening, and I got told off for immediately resuming normal duties in the kitchen – washing up, putting away, and trying to return the house to something vaguely like “normal”.

Not being in the mood to prepare or cook anything after a long day on the road, we all went to the pub for dinner, paid for by pretend aeroplane money (another story for another day).

Of course we came home to all sorts of drama. Not our drama though – for a change – drama for friends of our children. We heard breathless accounts of what was going on, helped write text messages, helped called parents, and then told our daughters “now you know what it feels like for us when YOU make a bad decision!”.

Anyway.

Time to go collapse into bed, I suppose. My own bed. And sleep.

As much as it was good to get away, it’s also good to be home.

[sowhatifiliveinfukuoka]

My former life...

Caernarfon, Gwynedd, Wales (flickr)

Caernarfon Castle

[schweizercomics]

As of this week, I'm back from the Welsh mountains of Snowdonia, where my family and I went three weeks ago for a harp festival in which my daughter was participating. We spent most of our time in the castle city of Caernarfon, where the festival took place, and stayed across the street from a really big, really lovely old church at the base of Twthill, “Wales’s smallest mountain,” site of a Yorkist victory during the War of the Roses.

One of the days that we were there, I took a bus to nearby Bedgellert, ostensibly named for a noble but unjustly murdered 13th century dog, and set out to reach the top of Dinas Emrys, which lay outside the town and near a defunct Victorian copper mine (which I also crawled around in).

(outside the mines, before I started walking)

I wandered through a lot of countryside, woods, and sheep farms. The standard Welsh joke is "Don't like the weather? Wait five minutes," and that was the case - ten minutes heavy wind and rain, ten minutes sunshine, off and on for about four hours.

In the next pic, you can see the hillock of Dinas Emrys from before it crests upwards...

...and here it is from the top. The tree sits just outside the tower ruins (the pit to its immediate left).

I've never had such a beautiful walk to such a satisfying end. Not only was the peak gorgeous, but it also had the bonus of being a historical/mythical destination right up my alley.

The top of Dinas Emrys is where the oldest English/British histories (the 9th century Historia Brittonum and Geoffrey of Monmouth's famous History of British Kings* place the tower of Vortigern (and subsequently Ambrosius, in many versions the older brother and predecessor of Uther Pendragon), which in the legends had to be rebuilt numerous times because of the red and white Dragons that fought at the pool below it and which were taken by a (then young) Merlin as an omen for Welsh/Briton victory over eastern invaders.

*My pal Benito Cereno is currently translating Geoffrey's book from Latin, with some commentary, on his Patreon, and you can read his translation of the story here.

The sun was finally (consistently) shining by the time I got to the top, so I took off my shoes and socks to dry them, lit my pipe, set up my easel, and did some sketches of both the tower ruins and, once I climbed down to it, the hidden pool below.

I was quite happy with the travel easel I'd built and carried for the last eight or nine miles, until the heavy wind took it off the side of the mountain and broke it. It's fixable, but not without tools that I didn't have in the mountains, so that was that.

I haven't finished most of the Dinas Emrys sketches - like a lot of my travel stuff, I pencil (and sometimes ink), throw a couple of spots of color, and take photos to use as reference, so that I can do more pieces on a limited traveling schedule. But I'm looking forward to finishing the drawings of the pool especially - it felt like I was in a fairy tale down there, and I hope I can convey it (although the leafless, windswept [I think] hawthorn trees, reaching toward the pool like hands, aren't like any trees I've ever tried to draw before this trip, and trying to get them right is part of the reason I ain't yet done).

The trip back down was less idyllic, partially because going down over wet rocks is, while less strenuous than going up, more demanding of care and attention, so I had to watch my feet more than the surroundings, especially having taken a fall up by the ruins. But I'd count the trek as one of the genuine high points of my life. I was elated and in awe for hours at a stretch, and absolutely overcome with the beauty of it. And, while the rain might've been unpleasant and chilly at times, it meant that the sun fought through water and clouds to create the most incredible vistas, and the rain meant that the colors of the mosses and grasses were at their most vivid.

I'll have castle drawings down the line, too, and some others from around the harbor town, and I can't stress how much we enjoyed our time in Wales.

I did take a few days to go up to Leeds, do a signing at Traveling Man, and visit the  Royal Armouries a few times to do drawings. One of the folks who came to the signing, Dr. Tzouriadis, is a currator at the armouries and was kind enough to give me a tour on my last day in Leeds, including getting to see the research library, which I now know to make an appointment for visiting the next time I'm there (I likewise learned about the British Library reading rooms and research collection, and got a card for it for the next time I'm in London).

Dr. Tzouriadis was incredibly generous with his expertise, and I learned or clarified a lot of really neat things that'll influence how I draw swords and armor in the future. And I've had some practice this trip thanks to the incredible collections with which I had a chance to spend some time.

Each day over the month of May, I'll be posting one drawing of a sword (or other edged weapon) from either the Royal Armouries, the Tower armory, or the British Museum. It's jumping the gun a bit, but here's a sneak preview of the first one:

They're toned with a single color (indigo) so that I can collect them into a book in black and white and make both its manufacture and selling cost a bit less than I could were I to do color - it also cuts down on the time spent making them. I'll likely put them up for sale each day as I post them, likely for the same price (50 plus shipping?), as a means by which to recoup some of the (substantial) cost of the trip.

While in Leeds I also got to meet cartoonist James Lawrence, have dinner with cartoonist John Allison, and briefly stop by OK COMICS in the arcade, which was an incredible store with an amazing selection of books.

After Wales we went to London (Penny's first time), and Penny was unfortunately ill for a couple of days, so I spent time at the museum doing sketches, and visiting the library treasures gallery. We saw a couple of musicals that Penny was keen on seeing, went to Charles Dickens's house, visited the Tower, ate some cheap meat pie with jellied eels in Greenwich, toured Westminster and St Pauls (I went to a Eucharist service at the latter, as well as one in Wales in a lovely little church built into the castle wall more than seven hundred years ago), and a handful of other things, including seeing the Tempest at the Globe Theater - my first time seeing a play at the Globe, and my first time seeing the Tempest performed.

I also got to visit a whole store devoted to Tove Jansson's MOOMIN, where I got a mug and a biography of Jansson, and it was next door to the Benjamin Pollock's Paper Theater shop. I went to London disappointed that the Pollock paper theater museum had closed only months before after decades of operation, and didn't know that there was an (unaffiliated since the 80s) shop, so stumbling upon it was a real treat (stumbling is how I like to do cities - I walked crisscrossed the town between the Euston and the river and found some great shops, including a lot of bookstores).

Now that I'm home, I'm very keen to get back to work. I'll be doing Patreon commissions, coloring a book for my friend and frequent collaborator Kyle Starks, and just settling back into being able to work, which I missed an awful lot despite the wonderful trip.

[royally-obsessed]

on this day in 1969

Charles's Investiture

The investiture of Prince Charles, Prince of Wales took place in Caernarfon Castle, north Wales, on 1 July 1969. The ceremony formally presented the title of Prince of Wales to the 20-year-old Charles, eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II.

[mothmiso]

Wales 2018 (2) (3) by GRAHAM DICKINSON

Via Flickr:

(1) River Glaslyn. (2) A view from Caernarfon Castle. (3) Snowdonia National Park.