Conway Castle and Town
Of the two castles, Conway, which stands, as we have seen, on the better site, was the more economically defended. The leading features of the plan at Carnarvon are the two large gatehouses and the Eagle tower at the western angle, which was virtually a strong tower or keep. The King’s gatehouse formed the main entrance. Queen Eleanor’s gatehouse stands at the highest point of the castle, and is now inaccessible from outside: when in use, it must have been approached by a steeply rising bridge across the ditch.[272] There is also a postern, through which provisions were, no doubt, brought to the kitchen, in the basement of the Well tower, which caps the angle of the curtain between the King’s gatehouse and Eagle tower. At Conway, there was no separate strong tower, nor was there a real gatehouse: the gateway is in a narrow end-wall, and the towers on each side are in close connection with its machicolated rampart-walk. There is also a second and smaller gateway in the wall at the opposite end of the castle, opening on a platform at the edge of the rock, from which a stair led to the water.
Where the curtain was so well defended as in these two castles, a double entrance was a source of strength rather than weakness. The problem for the enemy was how to distribute his forces, so as to keep the whole enceinte under observation. To concentrate an attack upon one gateway was to run the risk of being outflanked and taken in the rear by a sortie from the other. Strong as Château-Gaillard and other castles of the transition had been, they had simply met the prospect of attack with successive lines of defence. Carnarvon and the castles of the Edwardian period generally were not entirely a refuge for a besieged garrison: they were shelters which provided a base of operations for offensive as well as defensive stratagem. The most imposing feature of the defences of Carnarvon castle is the long irregular line of the south and south-west wall, fronting the river Seiont ([258]). Here the curtain is pierced by three rows of loops, one above another. The lowest open from a gallery in the thickness of the wall: the middle row from an upper gallery, which is now open internally, constructed on the top of the very massive lower wall; while the top row is pierced in the merlons of the battlements ([259]). The wall could be guarded simultaneously by three rows of archers, one above another—not an inviting prospect to a besieging force. It is obvious that such a castle, large enough to shelter an army, could also be held by a relatively small body of men, so excellently was the area of defence concentrated, and so readily could every part of the curtain be reached from the interior of the fortress.
Carnarvon
carnarvon castle: towers and rampart-walk
