Military Architecture in England During the Middle Ages

by A. Hamilton Thompson

Beaumaris Castle; Plan

Nowhere, however, can the beauty of the concentric plan be so well appreciated as at Beaumaris ([278]), one of Edward I.’s latest Welsh castles.[290] The site is flat and low, on a tongue of land at the northern entrance to the Menai straits. There is no attempt at any elaborate outer system of defence, such as we see at Caerphilly. The defences consisted of a ditch, filled with water at high tide, and an inner and outer curtain, the inner curtain, as usual, commanding the outer. The inner ward is square: it has a drum tower at each of the angles, and another in the centre of each of the east and west sides. The north and south curtains are broken by gatehouses, also flanked by drum towers.[291] The north gatehouse was the largest, and upon its first floor was an imposing hall. The curtain of the outer ward, surrounding the inner curtain, was adapted to the projection of the intermediate drum towers and the gatehouses of the inner ward by the construction of each face with a salient angle in the centre ([277]). There are no traces of any cross-walls barring the passage of the outer ward. The outer curtain, which, owing to the flat site, is not the mere low bastioned wall of Caerphilly or Harlech, has a drum tower at each angle. On each of the north, east, and west curtains, there are three smaller drum towers, the central one of which caps the salient. The plan is thus of a most symmetrical and uniform kind. The south curtain of the outer ward, however, has no intermediate drum towers, and its salient is nearly capped by the outer gateway. This gateway, however, flanked by rectangular towers,[292] is set obliquely to the wall. Entering the outer ward, immediately on our right is the small rectangular barbican, pierced with cross-loops, which covers the inner gateway, so that two right-angled turns must be made before the inner ward is entered ([277]).

Beaumaris Castle

This entrance, most carefully protected, shows even higher skill than the barbican of Conway and the elaborate passage from the water-gate at Harlech. But there are two further remarkable defences in this castle. We have seen that, as at Caerphilly, there is a large gatehouse at either end of the inner ward. The rear gatehouse, which, as already noted, is the more important, has no barbican. The rear gateway of the outer ward is set obliquely to it, in the north curtain east of the salient, and is simply a large postern in the wall. Outside it, however, the wall is reinforced by four buttresses, each of which is pierced by a loop; the outer buttresses are looped to the field, the inner towards the gateway. The westernmost buttress projects beyond the rest, and it is clear that the design was intended to conceal and protect the postern from attack, and that the western side, in the direction of the interior of Anglesey, was that on which an attack was most to be expected. The other defence is the spur-wall, which, running almost at right angles to the south wall of the outer ward, shut off the main entrance and the beach on which it opened from the beach on the eastern side of the castle. The wall is pierced by a passage, is looped in both faces, and is flanked by a half-round tower on the west face.

Although, at first sight, the towers of Beaumaris, on its absolutely level site, look low and unimportant, and present an extraordinary contrast to those of Harlech, Carnarvon, or Conway, the area of the castle is actually large, and no other Edwardian castle presents so perfectly scientific a system of defence. The outer curtain, in addition to the rampart-walk, has loops pierced at regular intervals in its lower portion; the rampart-walk is partly carried by continuous corbelling upon the inner face of the wall. The inner curtain, moreover, is pierced, on the level of the first floor of the gatehouses and towers, by a continuous vaulted passage, looped to the field. This extends round the whole ward, and is broken only at the north-west angle, where it meets the northern gatehouse. Everywhere in the walls of the castle where a loop could be of use, it was made. Of the points noticed, both the entrances are unusual, and the design of the postern at the rear seems to be unique. The spur-wall, though less elaborately treated, is found covering a main entrance at Kidwelly and elsewhere; and the long passages in the thickness of the wall are found in portions of the defences at Caerphilly and Carnarvon. The towers at Beaumaris are entered by straight stairs from the gorge; and throughout the castle, in the gatehouses, great hall, and basements of the towers, the method of carrying a wooden roof upon detached stone ribs prevailed, which is very noticeable also at Conway and Harlech.

Kidwelly castle[293] ([267]), another late thirteenth-century building, stands on a steep hill, the east side of which slopes abruptly to the Gwendraeth Fach river. The castle is on the opposite side of the river to the town of Kidwelly, and a long base-court, of which part of the gatehouse remains, descended the slope towards the bridge. At the head of this ascent a barbican and drawbridge formed the approach to a strong gatehouse, flanked by two battering towers, and further protected by a spur-wall across the end of the ditch. The gatehouse is in the extreme south-east angle of the outer ward, which, describing a wide curve, covers three sides of the nearly square inner ward, and is separated from the suburb of Kidwelly on this side the river by the ditch. The site was narrow, as at Chepstow, and the eastward slope so steep that the outer ward was not completed along this side, but its curtain was continued by the eastern drum towers and curtain of the inner ward. Three half-round towers were made in the curving curtain of the outer ward; at the opposite extremity to the gatehouse, near the north-east angle, a postern, flanked by small drum towers, gave access to a northern earthwork, which may be compared with the horn-work at Caerphilly, but had no retaining wall.

Kidwelly, with its outworks in front and rear, at once recalls Caerphilly. The irregularly concentric plan, with the inner ward on one side of the interior of the outer, is very unusual, but provides a link between the concentric plan and the extension of the early plan of Chepstow. The provision of both front and rear gateways is a feature of Caerphilly, Chepstow, Beaumaris, and Conway; and, as at Caerphilly, Rhuddlan, and Beaumaris, the inner ward also has front and rear entrances. These, however, at Kidwelly, are mere doorways in the wall. The inner ward was small, with very large and perfect drum towers at its angles: the domestic buildings arranged on either side of it left only a narrow passage through the middle. A tower, of which the two upper stories formed the chapel, was built out upon the east slope, from the corner of the ward next the south-east drum tower. The gatehouse, then, which here, as at Harlech and Beaumaris, contains a large hall and other apartments, and, in addition to a vice to the upper floors, has an outer stair and landing against its north face, was on the outer, not the inner, line of defence, and was protected by the ditch, the barbican, and the base-court beyond. There are remains of buildings, probably intended for the garrison, in the outer ward. The basement of the gatehouse, which is below the level of the ward, contains vaulted chambers. In one of these is a lower vault, which has had a domed roof, and may have been used for stores or a reservoir: in another there appear to be indications of the mouth of a well.

Kidwelly Castle; Tower at south-west angle of inner ward