Qualla: Caernarfon Town Walls

Caernarfon Town Walls: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tom Parnell from Scottish Borders, Scotland, CC BY-SA 2.0. Walk the lane behind the Royal Welsh Yacht Club on a winter afternoon and you can put your hand on stone that was cut, dressed and set in place between 1283 and 1285 - more than 740 years ago. The town walls of Caernarfon are one of the most complete medieval circuits surviving anywhere in northern Europe. Eight towers, two twin-towered gatehouses, an 800-yard ring around the original Edwardian planted town. They were built in two short construction seasons by the same workforce that was raising Caernarfon Castle next door, and they have outlasted everything they were designed to defend against.

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Image: Tom Parnell from Scottish Borders, Scotland | CC BY-SA 2.0

Caernarfon Town Walls: The Walled Town of Edward I

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tom Parnell from Scottish Borders, Scotland, CC BY-SA 2.0. Edward I conquered Gwynedd in 1283. Within months, his master mason James of St George - the most accomplished military architect in late medieval Europe - was laying out a new town immediately north of the castle, with English settlers, a market grant, and a high stone wall to k...

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Image: Tom Parnell from Scottish Borders, Scotland | CC BY-SA 2.0

Caernarfon Town Walls: The East Gate and the Buried River

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, CC BY-SA 4.0. The principal landward entrance was the East Gate, originally a portcullis-defended gatehouse looking out over the river Cadnant. The river is now culverted - flowing in a brick conduit beneath Bridge Street - and the gatehouse was modified with Gothic decoration in the 19th cent...

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Image: Nilfanion | CC BY-SA 4.0

Caernarfon Town Walls: Saint Mary's in the Wall

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eirian Evans, CC BY-SA 2.0. In the north-west corner of the circuit, the 14th-century chapel of St Mary's was built directly into the defences. It uses the only fully circular tower in the walls as its vestry - a unique architectural marriage of garrison church and town wall. The chapel began in 1307 as a p...

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Image: Eirian Evans | CC BY-SA 2.0

Caernarfon Town Walls: Towers Repurposed

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eirian Evans, CC BY-SA 2.0. Several of the towers along the west side of the walls have been quietly converted into other things. One was absorbed into the former Caernarfon Gaol in the 19th century and now forms part of the County Offices. Another has been the home of the Royal Welsh Yacht Club since the 1...

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Image: Eirian Evans | CC BY-SA 2.0

Caernarfon Town Walls: World Heritage and a Yacht Club

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Llywelyn2000, CC BY-SA 4.0. UNESCO declared the castle and walls together a World Heritage Site in 1986, grouping them with Beaumaris, Conwy and Harlech as the Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd. The citation calls them 'the finest examples of late 13th century and early 14th century military ...

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Image: Llywelyn2000 | CC BY-SA 4.0