Conwy Castle, like its fellow Welsh castles of Beaumaris and Caernarfon are World Heritage sites and looked after by Cadw. Built between 1283 and 1287 under the orders of Edward I as part of his conquest of Wales it’s an impressive medieval fortress that absolutely dominates the skyline and is very well preserved for its age, including the most intact set of medieval royal apartments in Wales.
St Mary’s Church is a lovely building right in the centre of Conwy, steps away from the castle and the B&B where I was staying. Before the castle existed the site of the church was the Cistercian Aberconwy Abbey dating from 1172 (Llywelyn the Great mentioned earlier was buried there in 1240). Henry III’s army would go on to ransack the abbey in 1245 and in 1283 Edward I would conquer the town and build his castle. The abbey site would become St Mary’s Church in 1284.
Bodlondeb (which means contentment) is 19 acres of woodland just to the west of Conwy Quayside; there are many footpaths through and around the woods and the one I took came off the Wales Coast Path. It was getting on in the afternoon and I hadn’t planned to visit the woods but as is often the case I saw a trail and decided to follow it!
The Wales Coast Path follows, or at least runs close to, the coastline of Wales, making Wales potentially the first country in the world where its possible to walk the entire length of its coast – all 870 miles of it. It was launched in 2012 and I have done parts of it before along Anglesey, though always as in this case as a by product of being near the coast rather than a deliberate plan. As such I found myself walking along a small section in Conwy (I would go on to walk a rather larger section later in the week in Llandudno).
Plas Mawr is an Elizabethan town house in the centre of Conwy. Welsh for “Great Hall” it was built around 1576. Maintained by Cadw, the historic environment service of the Welsh Government, it is free for Cadw members and due to reciprocal arrangements members of English Heritage (like myself), otherwise it is £8.50 for an adult ticket.
Conwy is a lovely small town on the North Wales coast with a skyline dominated by Conwy Castle and the town walls which date from the 13th century and both of which will feature in a future post. On the banks of the Conwy estuary the town (and castle) had a good defensive position on rocky elevated ground and also where a narrowing of the river allowed for crossings at slack tide.
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