Conwy's town walls are a medieval defensive structure around the town of Conwy in Wales. The walls were constructed between 1283 and 1287 after the foundation of Conwy by Edward I, and were designed to form an integrated system of defence alongside Conwy Castle. The walls are long and include 21 towers and three gatehouses. The project was completed using large quantities of labourers brought in from England; the cost of building the castle and walls together came to around £15,000, a huge sum for the period. The walls were slightly damaged during the rebellion of Owain Glyndŵr in 1401, but political changes in the 16th century reduced the need to maintain such defences around the town. The fortifications were treated sympathetically during the development of the road and railway systems in Conwy during the 19th century and survived largely intact into the modern period. Today the walls form part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site administered by Cadw. Historians Oliver Creighton and Robert Higham describe the defences as "one of the most impressive walled circuits" in Europe.
History
13th century
Before the English construction of the town of Conwy, the site was occupied by Aberconwy Abbey, a Cistercian monastery favoured by the Welsh princes. The site also controlled an important crossing point over the river Conwy between the coastal and inland areas of North Wales, and was defended for many years by Deganwy Castle. The English kings and Welsh princes had vied for control of the region since the 1070s and the conflict had been renewed during the 13th century, leading to Edward I intervening in North Wales for the second time during his reign in 1282. Edward invaded with a huge army, pushing north from Carmarthen and westwards from Montgomery and Chester. Edward captured Aberconwy in March 1283 and decided that the location would form the centre of a new county: the abbey would be relocated eight miles inland and a new English castle and walled town would be built on the monastery's former site. The ruined castle of Deganwy was abandoned and never rebuilt. Edward's plan was a colonial enterprise and placing the new town and walls on top of such a high-status native Welsh site was in part a symbolic act to demonstrate English power.
Traditionally Conwy's design and defences have been thought to have been inspired by the growth of the bastides. The bastides were new planned towns created in both France and English-held Gascony during the period, characterised by grids of straight streets, often defended by combinations of castles and town walls. More recent research, however, has shown that English town design played a more significant role in shaping Conwy and other Edwardian town plans. Analysis of the new towns in Wales and England of the period has identified common similarities in their design, with most featuring a "T"-shaped street plan stretching away from the coast or river, aligned with a castle that is usually positioned at a top corner of the "T". The street plan of Conwy forms a mirror image of Beaumaris, for example, although ditches and palisades protected Beaumaris rather than a stone wall.
The walls of Conwy were built at around the same time as the castle itself, under the overall supervision of Master James of Saint George, Edward's chief architect in North Wales. Each summer huge numbers of labourers were mobilised from across England, massed at Chester, and then brought into Wales for the building season. The first phase of work on the walls in 1283 involved digging ditches and erecting a palisade around the future town to secure the area in order to allow further work to commence. The stone walls and towers were then constructed in three phases. Between 1284 and 1285, Richard the Engineer, Master James' second in command in North Wales, built the western side of the walls; this was the most vulnerable side of the town and was deliberately given priority. In 1286, John Francis, a Savoyard mason, finished the south wall and in 1287 the remainder of the walls along the eastern quayside were completed under the supervision of Philip of Darley. Edward's accountants did not separate the costs of the town walls from that of the castle, and the total cost of the two projects came to around £15,000, a huge sum for the period.