One broad, handsome, and spacious avenue passing up the centre of the
town, is finely terminated by the castle gate, an interesting contrast to
the many gay, graceful, modern erections which decorate each side of the
approach.
Edward the First caused three noble fortresses to be erected in North
Wales, to curb the spirit of the stubborn Welsh; and chose Conway,
Caernarvon, and Beaumaris for their sites. Of these, Caernarvon Castle
is by far the most majestic and spacious pile: Conway enjoys the most
picturesque position; while the interior of Beaumaris Castle strikingly
suggests how perilous and uncertain must the tenure of human life have
been in the feudal ages. The royal founder appointed Sir William
Pickmore, a Gascon, to be constable of the castle and captain of the
town, situations subsequently held, probably with emolument, but without
conferring any military renown upon the possessors. In the reign of
Henry the Seventh the garrison, which consisted of twenty-four men, was
withdrawn, during the constableship of Sir Rowland Villeville. The Earl
of Dorset being constable of the castle in 1642, his deputy, Thomas
Chedle, furnished it with men and ammunition; but Thomas, the first Lord
Bulkeley, succeeding in 1643, his son Colonel Thomas Bulkeley, with the
gentlemen of Anglesea, held it for the king until the year 1648, when it
surrendered upon honourable terms to General Mytton. The property of the
castle is still in the crown, but the constableship was deservedly
restored to the Bulkeley family, and is now vested in Sir Robert B.
Williams Bulkeley, Bart., the representative of that ancient and noble
house. Edward is supposed to have imbibed that Asiatic style, which
pervades the architecture of his royal castles, during his expedition to
the Holy Land.
The site of this fortress was adopted for a twofold purpose, both as
being well adapted for defensive operations, and convenient for the
landing of supplies, by means of a canal which communicated with the sea,
a portion of which called “Llyn-y-Green” was till lately perceptible. An
outer ballium of low but massive and embattled curtains is flanked by ten
circular bastion towers: those which occupy the angles exceeding
considerably in diameter all the intermediate ones.
The Postern gate opened to the west or land side, and was situated
between two ponderous square towers, which were again flanked by turrets
of dissimilar shape and of unequal dimensions. Several portcullises
appear to have been lowered within the long arched-way of this entrance.
Fronting the sea there was a second entrance, protected by two vast
circular bastion towers, besides the additional security of successive
portcullises. A massive square building overhangs this entrance on the
left, and a long embattled curtain, extending to the right, formerly
sheltered those employed on the canal or fosse, in supplying the garrison
with stores. This last singular and irregular work is called “the
Gunner’s Walk,” and several large rings, still firmly fixed in the
masonry, very sufficiently show that here the supply barges of the
garrison were anciently moored.
The envelope is separated from the keep or citadel by a broad intermural
ambulatory, extending entirely round; a second entrance of fine
proportion opens a communication with the inner court, beneath a spacious
castellated building, the ground plan of which may yet be distinctly
traced. This is a level area one hundred and ninety feet square, from
the four corners of which small triangles are cut off by the enclosing
wall. On the north-west side of the court, projecting from the curtain
wall, stands a stately edifice, spiritedly and gracefully designed. The
front consists of two stories; the upper adorned with five pointed
windows of large dimensions, furnished with architraves of cut stone, and
lighting the great council hall, which measures seventy feet in length:
the basement is pierced by four smaller windows and the principal
entrance door, while the whole is terminated by two beautiful round
towers, with tapering bases, in the style of modern architectural
pavilions. A ground plan precisely corresponding with that of the
council hall may be traced amidst the ruins on the opposite side of the
court, but how far their decorations resembled each other must continue
to be matter of conjecture. To all these ancient castles a chapel is
uniformly found attached, a circumstance which some historians attribute
to the superstition, others, more charitably, to the piety of our
ancestors. The little ecclesiastic edifice included within the walls of
this castle rather argues the possession of the latter quality, from its
unostentatious style and circumscribed dimensions. The walls and roof
are still entire, the former decorated with pointed recesses, and the
latter groined and supported by ribs springing from pilasters; while
three lancet-windows, or rather loop-holes, at the eastern end, appear to
have been the only means for the admission of light, that this modest
little oratory ever possessed. From the thickness of the wall
surrounding the inner court a gallery is gained, by means of which
communication is preserved with every part of the citadel, and several
square apertures, opening into recesses in the side walls of the gallery,
are conjectured, by Grose the antiquarian, to have been the mouths of so
many dungeons, yawning for their prey.
Part of the inner area is desecrated into a tennis court: desecrated, for
a ruin is a sacred thing, rooted for ages in the soil, identified with
it, and considered as a work of nature rather than of art. It is a
deposit, of which the very proprietor is esteemed but the guardian, for
the amusement, admiration, and instruction of posterity.