Harlech Castle

Over the summer, I was working at the National Eisteddfod, the annual Welsh cultural festival, which was taking place on the Llŷn Peninsula in north Wales.

It’s a part of Wales I hadn’t really been to before, so after I finished work, I decided to stay in nearby Harlech for a long weekend to better explore the area.

I’d been dying to visit Harlech for years, mainly because of its impressive-looking castle, which I’d spied from a distance some 20 years before.

I started my visit not at the castle, but from a viewing point a short walk away, which the owner of the B&B where I was staying strongly recommended visiting.

The viewing point lies some 200 yards beyond the fish and chip shop in the upper part of the town and offers a lovely view of the castle and the surrounding area.

Harlech Castle was built in just seven years between 1282 and 1289, one of four major castles built by Edward I in north Wales after he successfully conquered the country.

All four castles (the others are Beaumaris, Caernarfon and Conwy) were designed by Edward I’s Savoyard architect Master James of St George and all four are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Harlech Castle has an envious strategic location, sitting on a sheer rocky mound high above the north Wales coast.

Like the other castles built by Master James, Harlech is a concentric castle, which means it’s essentially a castle within a castle.

It has quite the storied history having changed hands repeatedly over the centuries.

In 1404, the castle was captured by Owain Glyndŵr, the Welsh rebel leader. The castle became his home and headquarters for the next five years, and even served as the location of his Parliament in August 1405.

During the Wars of the Roses, the Yorkists besieged the castle (a Lancastrian stronghold) and the subsequent stand off inspired the folk song ‘Men of Harlech’.

The fortress was also a royalist base during the English Civil War and holds the distinction of being the last castle to surrender to Oliver Cromwell’s Parliamentarian army in 1647.

Today it’s in the care of Cadw, the Welsh heritage agency.

I started my visit looking around the inner gatehouse (above), where there was a small exhibition about the castle’s history on the ground floor.

From there, I made my way up the narrow, winding stairs to the top of one of the towers, which boasted superb views over the town below, Eryri National Park and the coast.

Having seen everything there was to see in the gatehouse, I headed to the inner ward to begin exploring the various rooms and features that lead off from it.

It was the height of summer and the castle was busy, so I found myself going around in a random order as various parts of the castle became free.

Parts of the castle seemed to be closed to the public, either because of restoration works or the weather (it was super windy the day I visited), so it didn’t take long to explore it all.

One of the castle’s most intriguing features is the Way from the Sea, a series of 108 steps leading to the bottom of the crag.

When the castle was built, the sea was further inland and used to come up to the edge of the rocky mound, so the stone staircase was used to ferry goods up to the castle.

The staircase leads up to the outer ward, which envelopes the inner ward and provides stunning views (above) over the town, the coast and the mountains in the distance.

Having seen all there was to see in the castle, I stopped off at the award-winning ice cream shop opposite, Hufenfa’r Castell.

The shop sells superb homemade ice cream in a variety of flavours, as well as delicious homemade chocolates. The honeycomb ice cream (above) was delightful.

Harlech is an impressive castle, but it’s not nearly as interesting as the excellent Conwy, Caernarfon and Beaumaris, so I was a little disappointed by my visit as I was expecting something similar.

While its location is second to none, there wasn’t anywhere near as much to see at Harlech as at the others (possibly because sections were closed to the public) and it lacks a standout feature.

As far as Welsh castles go, it’s fine. It’s just a bit small and, dare I say it, a bit boring.

Info

Harlech Castle, Harlech LL46 2YH
£8.70 adults, £6.10 children
cadw.gov.wales/visit/places-to-visit/harlech-castle