THOMAS PENNANT
1783

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Continue my journey on a turnpike road. Cross, at Pont Newydd, the Gwyrfai, which flows from Llyn Cwellyn; and soon after cross the Seiont, and reach CAERNARVON.

This town is justly the boast of North Wales, for the beauty of situation, goodness of the buildings, regularity of the plan, and, above all, the grandeur of the castle, the most magnificent badge of our subjection. The place sprung from the ruin of the antient Segontium; but it does not owe its name to Edward I. as is generally supposed. Giraldus Cambrensis mentions it in his journey of the year 1188;¹ and Llewelyn the Great dates it from a charter in the year 1221.² I greatly suspect the Caernarvon of those times to have been no other than the antient Segontium, whose name the Welsh had changed to the apt one of Caer ar Fon, or, The strong hold opposite to Anglesey. But the present town was in all probability a creation of our conqueror. A judicious warrior such as Edward, could not fail profiting of so fit a situation for a curb on the new-conquered country. It had natural requisites for strength; being bounded on one side by the arm of the sea called the Menai; by the estuary of the Seiont on another, exactly where it receives the tide from the former, on a third side, and part of the fourth, by a creek of the Menai; and the remainder has the appearance of having the insulation completed by art. Edward undertook this great work immediately after his conquest of the country in 1282; and completed the fortifications and castle before 1284; for his queen, on April 25th in that year, brought forth within its walls Edward, first prince of Wales of the English line. It was built within the space of one year, by the labor of the peasants, and at the cost of the chieftains of the country, on whom the conqueror imposed the hateful task.³ Henry Ellerton, or de Elreton, was appointed master mason of the castle,⁴ and perhaps was the architect; and under him must have been numbers of other skilful workmen: for I dare say that the Welsh peasants were no more than cutters of wood and hewers of stone. It is probable that many of the materials were brought from Segontium, or the old Caernarvon; and tradition says, that much of the lime-stone, with which it is built, was brought from Twr-Kelyn in Anglesey; and of the grit-stone, from Vaenol in this county. The Menai greatly facilitated the carriage from both places.

The external state of the walls and castle are at present exactly as they were in the time of Edward. The walls are defended by numbers of round towers, and have two principal gates: the east, facing the mountains: the west, upon the Menai. The entrance into the castle is very august, beneath a great tower, on the front of which appears the statue of the founder, with a dagger in his hand, as if menacing his new-acquired unwilling subjects. The gate had four portcullises, and every requisite of strength. The court is oblong. The towers are very beautiful; none of them round, but pentagonal, hexagonal, or octagonal: two are more lofty than the rest. The Eagle tower is remarkably fine, and has the addition of three slender angular turrets issuing from the top. The Eagle upon the tower, (says my antiquary friend) is, with good reason, supposed to be Roman, and that Edward found it at old Segontium. Edward II. was born in a little dark room in this tower, not twelve feet long, nor eight in breadth: so little did, in those days, a royal consort consult either pomp or conveniency. The gate through which the affectionate Eleanor entered, to give the Welsh a prince of their own, who could not speak a word of English, is at the farthest end, at a vast height above the outside ground; so could only be approached by a draw-bridge. In his sixteenth year, the prince received the homage of his duped subjects at Chester,⁵ invested, as marks of his dignity, with a chaplet of gold round his head, a golden ring on his finger, and a silver sceptre in his hand.⁶

The walls of this fortress are about seven feet nine inches thick; and have within their thickness a most convenient gallery, with narrow slips, for the discharge of arrows. The walls of the Eagle Tower are near two feet thicker. The view from its summit is very fine, of the Menai Anglesey, and the nearer parts of the British Alps.

The first whom I find appointed by Edward to be governor of the castle, was John de Havering, with a salary of two hundred marks; for which he was obliged to maintain constantly, besides his own family, fourscore men, of which fifteen were to be cross-bowmen, one chaplain, one surgeon, and one smith; the rest were to do the duty of keepers of the gates, centinels, and other necessary offices.⁷

In 1289, I find that the king had appointed Adam de Wetenhall to the same important office.⁸

The establishment for town and castle was as follows:

The constable of the castle had sometimes sixty pounds, at other forty.

The captain of the town had 12l. 3s. 4d. for his annual fee; but this office was sometimes annexed to the former, and then the fee was 60l. for both.

The constable and the captain had twenty-four soldiers allowed them for the defence of the place, at the wages of 4d. per day each. Surely this slight garrison was only during peaceful times!

The porter of the gates of the town had for his annual fee 3l. 10s.⁹

I can discover no more than two instances of this place having suffered by the calamities of war. In the great insurrection of the Welsh, under Madog, in 1294, they surprised the town during the time of a fair, and put many English to the sword;¹⁰ and, according to Mr. Carte,¹¹ took the castle, that of Snowdon (Conway), and made himself master of all Anglesey.

In the last century, Captain Swanly, a parlementarian officer, took the town in 1644, made four hundred prisoners, and got a great quantity of arms, ammunition, and pillage. The royalists afterwards repossessed themselves of the place. Lord Byron was appointed governor; was beseiged by General Mytton in 1646, and yielded the place on the most honourable terms. In 1648, the General himself and Colonel Mason were besieged in it by Sir John Owen; who hearing that Colonel Carter and Colonel Twisstelton were on the march to relieve the place, drew a party from the siege, in order to attack them on the way. The parties met near Llandegay: Sir John was defeated, and made prisoner; and after that all North Wales submitted to the parliament.¹²

The quay is a most beautiful walk along the side of the Menai, and commands a most agreeable view.

Caernarvon is destitute of manufactures, but has a brisk trade with London, Bristol, Liverpool, and Ireland, for the several necessaries of life. It is the residence of numbers of genteel families; and contains several very good houses; a very antient one, called Plas Pulesdon, is remarkable for the fate of its first owner, Sir Roger de Pulesdon, a distinguished favorite of Edward I. He had been appointed sheriff and keeper of the county of Anglesey¹³ in 1284. What office he held here, I am unacquainted with; but in 1294, being directed to levy the subsidy for the French War, a tax the Welsh had never been accustomed to, they took up arms, and hanged de Pulesdon and several of his people. This was a signal for a general insurrection: Madoc, a relation of the late Prince Llewelyn, headed the people of this country. Edward marched against them in person, and with great difficulty reduced the country to submit again to his yoke.¹⁴

The church is no more than a chapel to Llan Beblic; and probably originally only a chapel to the garrison.

Edward I. bestowed on Caernarvon its first royal charter, and made it a free borough. Among other privileges, none of the burgesses could be convicted of any crime committed between the rivers Conwy and Dyfy, unless by a jury of their own townsmen.¹⁵ It is governed by a mayor, who, by patent, is created governor of the castle. It has one alderman, two bailiffs, a town-clerk, and two serjeants at mace. The representative of the place is elected by its burgesess, and those of Conwy, Pwllheli, Nefyn, and Crickaeth. The right of voting is in every one, resident or non-resident, admitted to their freedom.¹⁶ The first member was John Puleston: and the second time it sent representatives, which was in the 1st of Edward VI. it chose Robert Puleston, and the county elected John; ¹⁷ as if both town and county determined to make reparation to the family for the cruelty practised on its ancestor.

The mother church of Caernarvon is about half a mile south-east of the town; is called Llan Beblic being dedicated to St. Peblic or Publicius, (according to our historians) son of Maxen Wledig (Maximus the Tyrant) and his wife Helen, daughter of Euddaf. It is said that he retired from the world and took a religious habit.¹⁸ Richard II. bestowed this church, and the chapel of Caernarvon, on the nuns of St. Mary's in Chester, in consideration of their poverty.¹⁹ I find in the recital of another charter of the same prince, that his grandfather Edward III. had bestowed on those religious the advowson of Llangathen in Caermarthenshire:²⁰ both which, on the dissolution, were annexed to the see of Chester, and remain to this day under the patronage of the Bishop of Chester. In the church is the tomb of a son ²¹ of Sir William Gryffydd of Penrhyn, who died in 1587; and Margaret, daughter to John Wynne ap Mereddyd, Their figures are in white marble, lying on a mat, admirable carved. He is in armour. She has on a short quilled ruf, and quilled ruffles at her wrists; in a long gown, and a sash round her waist.

Near the steep bank of the river Seiont, at a small distance from the castle, is an ancient Roman fort. On two sides the walls are pretty entire; one is seventy four yards long; the other, which points to the river, is sixty-four. The height ten feet eight inches. The thickness six feet. Much of the facing is taken away, which discovers the peculiarity of the Roman masonry. It consists of regular courses, the others have the stones disposed in zigzag fashion. Along the walls are three parallel lines of round holes, not three inches in diameter, nicely plaistered within, which pass through the whole thickness. There are other similar holes, which are discovered in the end of the wall; and seem to run through it lengthways. I can discover the use of neither one or other. Those that run through the walls are suposed to be for the purpose of annoying an enemy with arrows; but from the smallness of the diameter, a compass of aim in directing the shot is wanting. Near the corner of one of the walls is a heap of stones, the ruins of a tower; for on digging, some years ago, the foundation of a round one was discovered. It was paved, and in it were found the horn of a deer and skeletons of some lesser animals. This place seems intended to secure a landing-place from the Seiont, at time of high-water; and I was informed, that in Tre'r Beblic, on the oposite shore, had been other ruins, the work of the same people. This very curious antiquity, is at present most shamefully disfigured by walls, and other buildings, insomuch that I fear that my description will in a manner become unintelligble.

At a small distance above this, and about a quarter of a mile from the Menai, is the antient Segontium, to the use of which the fort had been subservient. It forms an oblong of a very considerable extent, seemingly about six acres, placed on the summit of rising ground, and sloping down on every side. It is now divided by the public road; but in several parts are vestiges of walls; and in one place appears the remnant of a building made with tiles, and plaistered with very hard and smooth mortar: this seems to have been part of a hypocaust. The mortar in all other parts is very hard, and mixed with much gravel and sand. At present a public road passes through the midst of this antient station, beyond which the Romans had only a small out-post or two in this county. A gold coin, of about seventeen shillings weight, was found here, inscribed T. DIVI AVG, FIL AVGVSTVS.

Camden suspects that this might have been the Setantiorum Portus of Ptolemy, being willing to read it Segontiorum;²² but the situation of the former is certainly at the mouth of the Ribble. He may be right in supposing it to have been in after times named Caer Custenin, or the Castle of Constantine,²³ and that Hugh Lupus, who certainly invaded Anglesey in 1098, had here a temporary post. How far the relation of Matthew of Westminster, that Constantius, father of Constantine, was interred here, may be depended on, I will not say; nor whether, as the historian farther asserts, that Edward caused the body to be taken up, and honourably re-buried in the church, I suppose of St. Publicius.²³ Mr. Rowlands says, that Helen, the mother of Publicius, had a chapel here, which he tells us was in being in his days.²⁴ A well, near the fort, bears the name of that princess; and some very slight remains of ruins are to be seen adjacent. Tradition says, the chapel stood on that spot.

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¹ Iter. Cambr. 865.

² This charter is to the Canons of Penmon. Sebright MSS.

³ Sebright MSS.

⁴ Sebright and Gloddaeth MSS.

⁵ Powel, 382.

⁶ Dodridge's Wales, 6.

⁷ Sebright MSS.

⁸ Ayloffe's Retuli Walliae, 98.

⁹ Dodridge, 56.

¹⁰ Powel, 380.

¹¹ Carte, ii. 237.

¹² Whitelock, 87. 208. 311.

¹³ Ayloffe's Retuli Walliae, 89.

¹⁴ Matt. Westm. 423.

¹⁵ Sebright MSS.

¹⁶ Willis's Notitia Parliam. iii. Part i. 76.

¹⁷ The same, Part ii. pp. 9, 10.

¹⁸ Rowlands' Mona Antiqua, 165.

¹⁹ Sebright MSS.

²⁰ The same.

²¹ This son (for the name is defaced) seems from the pedigree of the family to have been Sir Rhys Gryffydd.

²² ii. 798.

²³ Nennius.

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Thomas Pennant - A Tour in Wales 1778 - 1783.

INDEX