The great hall on the right measures 130 feet long and 30 broad, and is lighted by six lancet-shaped windows, opening out upon the creek, and three pointed windows, of exquisite tracery, looking towards the ample court. Eight Gothic arches, four of which remain entire, supported the roof of this magnificent apartment. A lofty Norman arched window at each end, and two broad carved fire-places, completed the architectural decorations and appearances of the hall. The spacious hall was the scene of the Christmas revelries to which Edward and his queen invited the English nobility and their high-spirited dames, while the monarch was forging the chain that was for ever to enslave the prostrate Principality. The walls, on all sides, are covered with a green drapery of luxuriant ivy, and a meadow of grass lies in the open area of the courts. The warder’s duty is supplied by a whole tribe of crows, whose solemn parley is heard the instant a stranger’s foot approaches the domain they have usurped; and the ivied walls are nearly alive with blackbirds, and birds of all colour, whose notes resound for the live-long day throughout these otherwise deserted ruins. Two entrances, both contrived for security, led into the fortress; one by winding narrow stairs, up a steep rock, from the Conway, and terminating in a small advanced work before one of the castle-gates, covered by two round towers—the other towards the town, protected by similar works, with the addition of a drawbridge over a broad moat.
Notwithstanding its grandeur and importance, this castle makes no great figure in history. Soon after its erection, the royal founder was besieged in it by the Welsh, and the garrison nearly reduced to an unconditional surrender by famine. Finally, however, they were extricated from their perilous situation by the arrival of a fleet with reinforcements and provisions. In 1399, Richard the Second, then in Ireland, commanded the troops, raised in his behalf against the haughty Bolingbroke, to assemble at Conway, and their numbers were considerable; but the vacillation and feebleness of purpose of that monarch induced many of them to abandon him on his arrival; yet the remainder was still sufficient to have made head against the usurper, had not the king, who feared to fight his own battles, basely abandoned his followers, and rushed blindly into the snare laid for him by his enemies. During the civil wars, Conway Castle was at first held by Archbishop Williams for the king; but the warlike churchman, being superseded by the fiery Rupert in the command of North Wales, went over in dudgeon to the republican party, and personally assisted the gallant General Mytton in the reduction of the castle. While the republic flourished, this noble fortress was suffered to retain all its ancient grandeur undiminished; but on the restoration, a grant having been made of it, by the Stuart, to the Earl of Conway, its new possessor ordered his agent to remove the timber, iron, lead, and other valuable materials, and send them to Ireland, ostensibly for his master’s service, though it is generally supposed they were intended for his own use. A suitable fate attended this desecration of one of the finest structures of antiquity, the vessels which conveyed the materials being wrecked, and the whole of the property entirely lost.
This ancient castle is the fictitious scene of the drama of the Castle Spectre, and of The Bard of Gray.
The suspension bridge, by Mr. Telford, is constructed on the same principle as that of the Menai, though on a smaller scale, and presents an appearance singularly elegant, lying at the foot of the antique castle, and surrounded by scenery of the most picturesque description. It is 320 feet in length between the supporting towers, and 18 feet above high-water mark. The chains on the western side pass upwards of 50 feet under the castle, and are fastened in the granite foundations on which it is built. On the farther side they are bolted into an insular rock, which rises in the bed of the river, and forms the strait through which the gushing waters pass on their way to the sea.
The piers of the bridge, and the toll-house at the western extremity, are built in strict keeping with the architecture of the castle. An embankment, formed of hard clay, faced with solid masonry of stone, and stretching from the insular rock to the western shore of the county of Denbigh, a length of 671 yards, with a breadth of 30 feet, and an extreme elevation of 54 feet, exhibits one of the finest and firmest chaussées in the world.
The church, though ancient, contains scarcely anything worthy of notice, except the following inscription, engraved on a stone in the nave of the building, which, though found in Pennant and other tourists, is so curious as to deserve repetition: “Here lyeth the body of Nicholas Hookes, of Convey, gentleman, (who was the forty-first child of his father, Wm. Hookes Esq. by Alice, his wife,) the father of twenty-seven children, who died the 27th day of March, 1637.” In the market-place is an old building called Plâs Mawr, which was erected more than two centuries ago. It is deserving the notice of the antiquarian. The town is surrounded by a very thick wall, strengthened by twenty-four towers, most of which remain in tolerable preservation.
Miss Costello seems to have been thoroughly enraptured with Conway, of which she says, “I think no description, however enthusiastic, can do justice to one of the most romantic and interesting spots that exists perhaps in Europe. Although the modern bridge, which carries the road across the river to the castle walls, looks, as it is of course, of a very different date from the antique structure, yet there is something so singular, so beautiful, and so aërial in a suspension bridge, that it can scarcely be thought out of character with the Moorish-looking towers and turrets to which it leads, which are as light and graceful as itself, in spite of their immense strength and power. With all the legends of supernatural buildings with which Wales abounds, it would not be difficult for the imagination to conceive that the Genii threw these delicate chains over the wide space that divides the castle from the opposite rocks, and thus obtained a triumph over the giant who kept the fortress. Both near and at a distance it has a beautiful effect, and is even more graceful than the surprising work over the Menai Straits.
“The castle, although on the shore of the broad river, which is here, at high water, half a mile wide, stands on a lofty rock, which forms the strong foundation of the fabric, and defends the town, which must however have been well capable of defence in itself, to judge by the huge walls which surround it, and which are still entire, and the enormous towers placed from distance to distance along their whole extent. The shape of the town is fancifully said to resemble a Welsh harp, to the form of which it really has much affinity; and as there are no suburbs nor a single straggling house beyond the allotted precincts, it is plainly defined and has a peculiarly striking aspect, quite unlike that of any other town I ever saw.
“In all lights and from all points the castle looks well: but the best view of it is perhaps from the opposite shore, where all its towers, and battlements, and minaret turrets, come out in great relief, particularly with a sunset sky behind them, when they stand forth most gorgeously. With the river full of water, and the sun going down red and glowing, as we saw it the first evening we arrived, nothing can be conceived more magnificent than the scene:
“‘Seem’d all on fire that castle proud,’