All aboard a 13th century spaceship

Beaumaris Castle

King Edward I was known as Longshanks because of his extraordinary height. Medieval Welsh folk had a few less complimentary names for him. He certainly had a rather brusque way of dealing with planning disputes.

Back in 1295 when he started building Beaumaris Castle, he didn’t bother consulting the neighbouring village of Llanfaes. He forcibly moved the entire population 14 miles away to Newborough.

Beaumaris was the last of his “iron ring” of castles along the North Wales coast. Technically perfect and constructed to an ingenious “walls within walls” plan, it was the 13th century high-tech equivalent of a spaceship landing unceremoniously on Anglesey today.

The finest work of Edward’s military architect, James of St George, it employed no fewer than 450 stone masons, 375 quarrymen and 1,800 unskilled labourers.

And then the money ran out.

So it’s an unfinished masterpiece.

Today you can still see the classic proportions, the water-filled moat, the arrow slits and murder holes. But the upper floor of the north gatehouse was never built. The towers of the inner curtain wall never reached their full height. And they never got their turrets.

What’s left is quite awe-inspiring enough. So impressive that Beaumaris, along with the castles of Harlech, Conwy and Caernarfon, is a World Heritage Site.

That means it’s “of outstanding universal value to all humanity”.

No wonder it attracts 90,000 visitors every year. And a lot of its biggest fans are not serious-minded scholars of medieval military architecture – but children.

“Maybe it’s because it looks like a child’s drawing of a castle,” says Stacy Birkett of site custodians Cadw. “It’s a lovely place to explore, with its spiral tower and narrow passages. And the views across the Menai Strait are stunning.”

Kids love history when their imagination is allowed to run riot. See (and hear) the proof inside a converted grain silo in the castle gatehouse, now doubling as a film theatre.

As part of the Songs from Stone project, three local primary schools visited Anglesey’s historic monuments and made stop-motion animated movies of their experiences complete with soundtracks of whistles, squeaks and bangs.

At nearby Beaumaris Gaol, the only sound is likely to be your heart pounding. It’s supposed to be haunted. And even sceptics will get a spooky thrill from the condemned cell, the dark punishment cell and the still-working tread wheel.

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