Harlech Castle’s battlements spring out of a near-vertical cliff-face. Edward’s tried and tested ‘walls within walls’ model was put together in super-fast time between 1283 and 1295 by an army of nearly a thousand skilled craftsman and labourers. ‘Men of Harlech’, Wales’s unofficial anthem loved by rugby fans and regimental bands alike, is said to describe the longest siege in British history (1461–1468) which took place here during the War of the Roses.
None of Edward I’s mighty coastal fortresses has a more spectacular setting, Harlech Castle crowns a sheer rocky crag overlooking the dunes far below – waiting in vain for the tide to turn and the distant sea to lap at its feet once again. Harlech was completed from ground to battlements in just seven years under the guidance of gifted architect Master James of St George. Its classic ‘walls within walls’ design makes the most of daunting natural defences.
