Category Archives: History

Day trip: Flint Castle – Edward I’s first permanent Welsh foothold

The Who, When and Why of Flint Castle

Artist reconstruction of the southeast and northeast towers of Flint Castle by A. Hook. Source: Ancient and Medieval Architecture

When Henry III died in 1272, Edward was on his way home from an underwhelming crusade, having narrowly survived an assassination attempt, and he took his time to return to England. He was not crowned until 1274.

Henry III and Edward had been troubled throughout Henry’s reign with rebellions in Wales, masterminded by Llywelyn ap Gruffud, known as Llywelyn the Last. Several treaties had failed to achieve long term peace, and although the Treaty of Montgomery of 1267 looked as though it might hold, Llywelyn ap Gruffud was labelled an outlaw in 1276, and war was declared in 1277. A peace was brokered, but although Edward had every reason to believe that the treaty might secure peace between England and Wales, he began to build a series of castles in northeast Wales, beginning at Flint in 1277 and rolling out along the coastlines throughout the next two decades.

Why here? The location of Flint Castle

Strategic importance of the castle

View down the Dee estuary towards Chester showing Flint Castle in the foreground. The build-up of marshland is a recent phenomenon. In the 13th century, the castle was right on the edge of the river, accessible by boat. Source: Coflein

The unoccupied site for Flint Castle was chosen for its excellent views for miles around, and the slab of bedrock on the edge of the estuary, on which the castle would be built. Although the castle was sited on a floodplain rather than on a more traditional hill, its location on the Dee floodplain still provided clear lines of sight in all directions. It would be impossible to sneak up on Flint Castle unless it was foggy. With tall towers on all four corners, any approach by land or water would be easy to spot, and the town that Edward had planned from the beginning sat on the landward side of the castle, preventing any large-scale onslaught from going unnoticed.

Map of the Welsh Cantrefi showing the location of Flint Castle. Source: Wikipedia.

Although Flint was in English hands in the heart of Llywelyn’s former territory, it was only a day’s march from Chester, one of the great earldoms along the Welsh border. The castle could be supplied with food and other essentials from Chester by boat, and the estuary provided a potential, although not terribly reliable route of escape, should it be needed. In addition, a small garrison was maintained at Ness on the Wirral, opposite the site of Flint Castle. When the tide was out, the river between Flint and Ness could be forded. Most importantly, Flint Castle was a stepping stone into Wales, allowing Edward to build his series of castles one day’s march from one another. This simple linear network, which could be supported by the sea, began to enclose Gwynedd, particularly as Edward and his magnates began to repair or rebuild Welsh castles that they had defeated.

Castles under siege were always at risk from running out of supplies, but the potential of being restocked from the sea was one form of additional security, and the castle had two wells, one in the centre of the inner ward, and one in the detached southeast tower.

Economic potential of the area

Flint Castle northwest corner

Although Flint Castle was a military installation, Edward intended for it to have a town accompanying it, to take advantage of the area’s natural resources. A new town would need to attract inhabitants, and as well as incentives, the land itself would need to be able to support the town.

Although there was no settlement at Flint, which was named by either Edward or one of his entourage, it would be wrong to think of the land along the estuary as deserted when the castle was first thought up in 1277. As far back as the Domseday survey of 1086 the nearby hamlet Atis Cross had a church, a corn mill and a a hide of land, something in the range of 120 acres, belonging to Hugh Lupus of Chester, and there was a lead smelting works here. Nearby Coleshill (Cwynsyllt) was also mentioned in the Domesday book, and Hen Blâs motte and bailey castle at Bagillt, just over a mile away, which lies within the township of Coleshill Fawr, may have served as the llys (court) for the commote of Coleshill. Archaeological excavations in the mid 1950s concluded that the castle was replaced by a fortified manor house in the early 13th century, which was in turn abandoned in the late 14th century. In 1132 the abbey of Basingwerk was built here, and in the 13th century it had water mills and a nearby windmill. This was potentially a prime area for water mills, as water dropped at speed from the hills towards the Dee, ideal for turning water wheels for processing grain or sheep’s wool. The area was also suitable for agrarian development, sharing with Anglesey a lowland, fertile location that could be cleared for fields and farmed.

The designer and the design

1919 plan of the castle grounds that were passed into state care, showing all four towers, the inner keep, the well and the remains of the connecting walls. Only part of the outer keep is preserved. The same area remains under Cadw guardianship today. Source: Coflein

Although much of the castle was deliberately torn down following the civil war in the 16th century to prevent re-use, many of the key features are still visible on the ground. Castle architecture has some basic requirements that are shared by all castles, but Flint itself showed a number of innovations that make it stand out today. Most of Edward I’s castles in Wales were designed primarily by Master James of St George, but Flint Castle was the brainchild of Richard L’Engenour (d.1315), a wealthy resident of Chester, an architect, master mason and military engineer, the owner of three farms in the Chester area, who in 1304 became Mayor of Chester. It is probable that Edward’s input is reflected in features of the castle that resemble the castle of Aigues-Mort from which Edward left on crusade in 1270.

The wide open site placed few constraints on its designers and builders. The castle has a number of notable features, including a double moat and the massive offset donjon, that were innovations in British castle building. Although Flint began with the castle, a town was always part of Edward’s plan for Flint, so the layout of castle and town were conceived of together.

The castle comprised an inner ward (or bailey) and an outer ward, separated by a moat and drawbridge. The outer ward protected the main gate into the castle and acted as an interface between the inner ward and the outside world. It was shaped rather like a funnel, allowing access via a single gatehouse into what was effectively a holding area, narrowing into a path that connected it to a gate into the inner ward, which was overseen by the battlements and by the southwest and southeast towers. It would have had buildings to house and feed troops stationed there, together with stables for horses and a gaol for holding prisoners.

The rectangular inner ward was made up of round towers built into the walls on three corners, and a detached round tower on the south-eastern corner. Sturdy curtain walling connected all four towers, with the detached tower joined to the inner keep by a footbridge. Some foundations remain within the inner ward, plus the all-important well. On the day that I visited in mid June, the water of the well in the inner ward was clearly visible at about 5ft (152cm) below the ground surface. Buildings within the inner keep would have included a bakehouse, brewhouse, kitchen, chapel and a hall. Both wells, the one in the inner ward and the one in the donjon, were fed by the freshwater Swinchiard Brook. Uniquely, the castle had two moats. An inner moat protected the main castle and an outer moat protecting access from the town.

The southwest tower and a stretch of the curtain wall.

Each of the towers was different. Although all had spiral staircases leading to battlements for defence, each had its own function. The southwest tower is, according to Vicky Perfect, recorded in the payroll as the Prison Tower, so may have served as a gaol before a more formal building was added to the outer ward. It originally had three storeys. The basement, where prisoners were presumably held, had no steps, which would certainly have frustrated attempts at escape. The northwest tower, also known as the Garrison Tower, had four points of access, which was useful for deploying troops to the battlements in a hurry, and its basement was probably the store for weaponry. The northeast, Eagle Tower, was three storeys high, with a basement that was accessed via a trapdoor. Guests and servants were housed here, and there was a fireplace on the second floor with a chimney up on to the battlements. A spiral staircase ran up one side. The potentially standalone southeast Great Tower (also known as the castle keep or donjon), is of particular interest. Its isolation from the rest of the castle was an additional form of security against any successful incursion, accessible only via a drawbridge, now replaced by a permanent bridge. Sitting within its own portion of moat, it is unique in Britain. It is a truly massive piece of architecture, about 20ms in diameter, was accessible only on the drawbridge, and contained a central space some 6m diameter. It was several storeys high.

Southeast Great Tower, donjon or keep. In the centre and on the right, images sourced from Coflein

The donjon or southeast Great Tower

On an everyday basis the Great Tower was the home of the Constable, but also housed the king’s chamber, which was completed in 1286. The walls of the keep were 7 meters thick at ground floor level, but were still 5 meters thick at upper levels. To add to its independence from the rest of the castle, and to provide the king with some privacy when he was in residence, it was provided by its own well. Holes in the floors above it allowed water to be drawn rather than carried, and a wooden wheel was fitted to raise and lower the pail. It was also provided with garderobes (toilets) and its own chapel. Its basement, shown right, had a barrel-vaulted ceiling, limewashed to provide reflective light, but also illuminated by torches. At times of siege, livestock could be moved into the tower to provide supplies on the hoof.

A watergate was built into the north wall, with steps down to the river frontage. This was for loading and unloading boats directly into the castle. A smaller watergate was also built into the donjon, again reflecting its design as a standalone unit.

Building the castle

The first stage in the construction of the castle was to clear an overland route to Chester. Although the castle could be supplied by boat, there was no road to Flint from Chester. The tidal character of the river meant that the castle could only be reached at high tides, so an overland route was vital. More immediately Edward was unwilling to run the risk of penetrating the alien countryside where he could be attacked by those with superior local knowledge. The road allowed him to travel with realistic protection to his new castle, and to enable his army advance unhindered along the Welsh coastline. A road was carved out of the densely vegetated coastal landscape. It took 10 days to clear the route to Flint, and from there the castle was linked with routes to Rhuddlan, Degannwy and eventually to Conwy.

The next step was to dig a deep ditch around the chosen site at Flint to protect builders and visitors alike, which took three weeks. The castle was to be built on bedrock, which gave it a solid base on the otherwise soft floodplain.

View from Flint Castle across the estuary and the River Dee to the Wirral

Wood for scaffolding, lifting equipment and for the defences that would surround the planned town was sourced mainly from the Forest of Toxteth (now part of Liverpool). The fill of the walls of the castle was built mainly of yellow sandstone, much of which Vicky Prefect says was sourced from Ness on the Wirral, opposite, across the estuary, and other locations on the edge of the Wirral. Ness could be reached over the sands when the tide was out by fording the river, but stone could also be brought in by boat. Edward kept a small garrison at Ness. Other sandstone was available locally, along with other natural resources including lead ore, lime for mortar and white limewash for walls (both lead and lime available from Halkyn Mountain). Although yellow sandstone dominated, red sandstones were employed for some parts of the outer and inner walls, some of which came from Burton Point, a bit upriver from Ness, with the inner space between them filled with mixed rubble, including stones from the beach and broken building materials.

Many of the original payrolls for the construction of the castle have survived, meaning that details of names, home towns, job roles, and salaries of the workers who built the castle have survived. Just as the king could demand that his noble subjects should provide men for his armies, he could assemble workforces of specialist craftsmen from across England, whether they wanted to go or not. The building site and the craftsmen were protected by armed forces. This formula worked so well at Flint that the same model, and many of the same craftsmen, were used at the subsequent castles. Here’s Vicky Perfect’s description of the first weeks of work in the summer of 1277:

The workforces were placed under the control of various knights, and split into groups under their twenty men (foremen). . . . In week one of the the build a total of 1858 men were involved in the first stage of the building of the castle. Most were dykers who were required to help prevent the water from filling in the newly dug foundations. The first order of 10,000 sandstone blocks was placed at the quarry of Ness prior to 25th July 1277. Large numbers of carpenters and wood cutters were employed, some working in the forest s at Toxteth cutting the timber and building the 250 rafts needed to transport the stone across the water. Many others were working on site, constructing the stockade required to keep the men safe and making the lifting machinery to move the sandstone blocks into place. There were also numerous masons, working the stones delivered from Ness Quarry. Smiths were employed to make and mend the metal tools required for the project.

By week two, the workforce had increased dramatically to 2,911, indicating the urgency of making the site safe. More specialist workers were brought to the site, such as Carbonarii (miners) to mine the coal to fuel the smith’s fires. The number of dykers working on the site doubled, including a group from Holland.

The well in the Great Tower.

The rest of that chapter is worth reading in its entirety, providing some fascinating facts and figures including lists of some of the workers, their trade, the number of them employed and how much they were paid. For example, in the first two weeks, the castle employed dykers, smiths, carpenters, masons, woodcutters, miners, cinder carriers, masons and constables, paid from 2d to 8d a day, the latter reserved for the specialist Dutch dykers. Other specialists were brought in as work progressed. John le Blund, for example, was brought from London and paid 19 shillings for dressing stones for the well in the Great Tower.

The castle was not completed until the mid 1280s, by which time it had been painted with white limewash, and the towers, which had been provided with temporary roofs of thatch, were now provided with lead roofing. In 1302, following storm damage, lime was brought to repair the castle walls. In 1304, wood from Ewloe produced 60 boards, 12,000 pieces of wood for tiling, 1000 lathes and four louvres for repairs so kitchen and stabling.

The town

John Speed early 17th century map of Flint. Source: Coflein. Click to enlarge.

An accompanying town, (or “implanted bastide”) was part of Edward’s original plan for the castle. The idea of establishing defended new towns around castles in hostile territory came from Gascony, where Edward had already founded a number of new defended towns. Pioneer settlers were granted considerable commercial privileges as incentives, and were expected to help defend the town should it come under attack. These new towns reinforced the network of castles with economic as well as military foundations, and the enclaves of English commerce also introduced English urban traditions within rural Wales. Flint and Rhuddlan were two of the earliest examples.

Writing in 1924, Patrick Abercrombie commented that “There is no town in this country that is of greater interest to the student of Town Planning than Flint. Laid out by Edward I, in 1277 as an appendage to his mighty castle, it has preserved its mediaeval plan almost intact. Like most artificially planted communities, there was no fundamental human need in this place for a town, which accordingly grown in the past little beyond its original size.” It is a fascinating idea that new towns, built from scratch, arrived with the Normans. According to Francis Pryor, a total of 172 of these towns are known in England and 84 in Wales, and Edward was the “last great instigator” of the new towns. As well as the layout of the towns, functional considerations were also important, and Edward believed that to support markets, good road links were vital. Communications became one of his mantras, vital for a peripatetic king and court, but also for the movement of troops and the commercial viability of new settlements.

Excavations in 2015 explored what are thought to be part of the town’s defences. Source: BBC News

An indication that the beginnings of the town, which were already established by early in 1278, was a proclamation of a weekly market each Thursday and an annual fair. Edward decreed that the burgesses of Flint should hold a market on Thursday of each week, and an annual week-long fair at the time of the Pentecost (50 days after Easter Sunday). The castle constable was to serve as mayor, one of Edward’s own brothers was installed as chaplain at the castle, and agents were appointed to rent out plots of land to any pioneering English inhabitants who were prepared to chance their luck even though the defences were incomplete. To encourage take-up, in 1282 these agents offered plots in the town free of rental for ten years, followed by a reduced rate in subsequent years, and residents came under English, rather than Welsh jurisdiction. Burgesses (property-owning merchants) were exempt from the payment of tolls. In 1284 the town received its first royal charter, which conferred full English-style free borough privileges. The settlers had their own guild and courts. Conveyances of property suggest that many of the settlers were from Cheshire, who took advantage of the provision of land in the royal demesne and forests. Others probably came from Shropshire. A town mill was constructed, and permission was granted for another, which incurred an annual rate of ten pounds. Even with these benefits, it was obviously an uphill struggle to attract residents at first, in spite of the fact that by 1300 much available land in England was in use and the expansion of population during the 13th century meant that it was becoming increasingly difficult to find land. By 1292, however, the town had taken off and there were 74 burgesses registered for tax in Flint.

The main source of information for the town’s layout is John Speed’s sketch of 1610, shown above. The Norman new towns were built as grids. The maps show that Flint still preserved its Medieval layout, and that it was one of the most symmetrical known, with a very precise underlying geometry. Four parallel roads ran perpendicular to the river, whilst Edward’s coastal road passed through the middle of the town parallel to the river. Whether the dog-leg was original or developed between the 1280s and Speed’s map of 1610 is unknown. One of the four parallel roads, along the route of modern Church Street, connects the entrance to the town with the entrance to the outer ward, passing in front of the Church of St Mary’s and the town square.

Tithe map of Flint area, showing the original Medieval field systems. Flint castle is handily under the left-hand red blotch, and the grid layout of the town is easily seen, as are the neatly arranged fields. Source: People’s Collection Wales

The economy of most of north Wales was based on livestock herding. Nearby Basingwerk Abbey depended for some of its locally derived income on its 53 heads of cattle and its 2000-strong herd sheep. However, some lowland areas could be developed for mixed farming. Anglesey was “the bread basket of Wales,” and the river lowlands at Flint were potentially ideal for agrarian land use. In order for agriculture to underpin the activities of the settlers at Flint, clearance of neighbouring land took place to create new fields, the outlines of which survive, remarkably, on the 1839 tithe map, shown above. This shows Flint town’s four parallel roads immediately in front of the castle, but extended on either side beyond the bissecting coast road. The surrounding land is similarly divided up on a grid pattern of long, thin fields. Although residential, commercial and industrial growth have obliterated much of this, some of it still survives to the south of Flint town.

Access from the outer ward into the inner ward

Writing about the design of Flint Castle’s town, Caroline Shillaber concludes that “Viewed in historical perspective, Edward I appears as the forerunner of British planners who regard the creation of new towns as a function of national government, who locate and plan the towns to serve an overall administrative policy, who lay out the towns in accordance with the needs of the people, and who devise economic conditions conducive to their growth and development.” Some areas were riskier than others, however, as the settlers in Flint discovered in 1294 when renewed hostilities between England and Wales resulted in the town being burned to the ground. Even though residents received compensation and the town was rebuilt, it must have been a daunting thought to stay in a town where its supposed protectors were willing to burn it down if the need presented itself.

A tax assessment of the town had been made in 1293, naming residents like Adam the carter, Benedict the miner, Godfrey the carpenter and Nicholas the smith. The assessment recorded 76 households. Only five of those named were Welsh, like Madog ap Iorwerth and Einion Cragh, indicating that even in an English enfranchisement Welsh people held property. Things changed after the town was burned down after 1294, perhaps due to bad feeling about the devastation of the town thanks to Welsh hostilities. This is reflected in a petition of 1297, written when the town was still being rebuilt. The English burgesses of Flint complained that in an English town, Welsh individuals had “bought land in the town and bake and brew, contrary to their charter and custom,” although there was actually nothing in the 1284 town charter to restrict the nationality of residents.

Matthew Stevens gives an account of an Englishman named Richard Slepe who had been in Flint town from its inception, and had remained after the town had been burned down. His daughter Agnes had married a Welsh man, Adda ap Einion. When Richard died in 1327, Agnes and her husband inherited Richard’s properties, but because Adda was Welsh, they were confiscated by local officials. They appealed the decision but were turned down. Enfranchised Welsh towns, occupied by the English, made no concessions to a mixed-nationality marriage, a situation that continued until the 1536 Act of Union giving Welsh nationals equal rights to English.

The castle under attack during the reign of Edward I

In March 1282 Llywelyn’s brother Daffyd launched a ferocious assault on Hawarden Castle, and this was followed by further attacks on Flint and Rhuddland castles, in which Llywelyn appears to have participated. Attempts by Archbishop Pecham to negotiate a peace failed, and Edward through everything he had at the brothers, as described on my previous post. Llywelyn was killed in battle in December 1282, and Dafydd was captured and put to death the following year. The Flint area, including Basingwerk Abbey, was trampled underfoot, but Basingwerk was given significant compensation and Flint Castle was repaired and construction work completed by 1284.

As mentioned above, in September 1294, those who had been lured to settle in Flint met the dangers of living in the shadow of a strategic military facility head-on when the constable of the castle, William de la Leye, ordered that the town be set on fire to prevent forces led by Madog ap Llywelyn from using it as a protective screen. Madog ap Llywelyn, one of Llywelyn the Last’s more remote cousins, considered himself to be a successor of Llywelyn and made a bid for power, supported by other Welsh landowners. Some of them joined Madog on an opportunistic basis, with territorial claims in mind, but all of those who retaliated at this time acted in response to a massive tax demand, and a culling of Welsh men to supply troops for his activities in Gascony. Attacks were co-ordinated and took place at castles both built and appropriated by Edward, at Aberystwyth, Builth, Castell-y-Bere, Denbigh, Criccieth, Harlech, Caernarfon, Morlais, Flint and Rhuddlan. It was a serious rebellion, and it demanded a serious response. Edward immediately diverted the troops waiting to ship out to Gascony, sending them instead to Wales, where they advanced from three bases. Madog’s revolt was put down after some delay in March 1295, with Madog surrendering in July. Edward compensated seventy five burgesses with £521.00, and the buildings were all re-built, but life next to a strategic outpost of an invading nation cannot have been particularly reassuring.

View along the Dee towards the west from the inner ward

Edward I died in July 1307 at the age of 68 and was succeeded by his son Edward II (April 1284 – September 1327), who had been declared Prince of Wales in 1301. Edward’s reign was colossally unpopular and he was forced to abdicate in January 1327 in favour of his 14-year-old son, Edward III. Following the quashing of the rebellion of Madog, North Wales remained more or less at peace until the rebellion of Owain Glyndŵr under the reign of Henry IV in 1400. Flint Castle continued to be strategically important, and retained a garrison. The town, protected by the castle, was a financial and administrative centre during the 14th and 15th centuries, meaning that even in times of peace the castle retained its importance and was accordingly well maintained. Future archaeological excavations may provide information about the original town, both before and after the fire.

Back in the wars after Edward I

Richard II

Richard II at his coronation. Source: Wikipedia

In terms of great events after Edward, Flint Castle’s next claim to fame was as the venue for the abdication of Richard II (1367-1400) in favour of Henry Bolingbroke, who became Henry IV. Richard II was the grandson of Edward III, and on the death of his own father, Edward the Black Prince, became heir to the throne, succeeding in 1377 at the age of 10. He was deposed in 1399. Flint Castle itself had had nothing to do with Richard II’s career up until that point. Richard’s regency was managed by a number of councils. One of his most important advisors was his uncle John of Gaunt.

The regency councils saw England through the continuing eruptions of the Hundred Years War and the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, and Richard himself was forced to deal with a number of substantial disruptions, including the threat of invasion from France. As he came into his own power, Richard’s mistrust for the aristocracy lead him to select both his friends and personal guard with care, causing discontent amongst the powerful aristocracy. When a group of them took control of the government in 1387, refereed to as the Lords Appellant, Richard was able to reinstate himself, but punished the conspirators with exile or execution. One of the exiled was his cousin Henry Bolingbroke, son of his advisor John of Gaunt.

The coronation of Henry IV, from a 15th-century manuscript of Jean Froissart’s Chronicles. Source: Wikipedia

On the death of John of Gaunt, Richard denied Henry Bolingbroke his inheritance, and this was enough to push Henry to open rebellion, landing in Yorkshire in June 1399. Richard II seems to have been very unpopular, and it does not appear to have taken Henry a substantial amount of effort to depose his cousin. While Richard was in Ireland, Henry moved south. Richard landed in Wales in July 1399 and entered negotiations with the Earl of Northumberland before surrendering to Henry on 19th August at Flint Castle. Shakespeare puts these words into Richard’s mouth (Act 3, scene 3):

Cousin, I am too young to be your father,
Though you are old enough to be my heir.
What you will have, I’ll give, and willing too;
For do we must what force will have us do.

Henry Bolingbroke, in Shakespeare’s version, shows all due reverence and offers the king dignity and reverence, but the reality is that Richard was forced to resign in exchange for his life and was forced follow behind Henry to London, where he was incarcerated in the Tower of London.

Owain Glydwr

Northwest tower

In 1400, a wealthy and London-educated Welsh nobleman was the source of the final great rebellion. Owain Glyndŵr was the descendent of Llywelyn the Great and the princes of Powys, Owain Glyndŵr (c.1359–c.1415), and had served as a soldier under Richard II revolted against King Henry IV of England, using guerrilla tactics and his knowledge of the terrain to inflict damage on English forces. As with Madog in 1294, his primary grievances were unfair taxation, land disputes, and systematic neglect by the English government. Owain’s first move was to attack key English castles, including Flint, placing it under siege in 1403. The burgesses retreated into the castle whilst the town was plundered, inflicting damage that again took substantial time to repair. Owain inflicted a number of defeats on the English forces with the aid of foreign assistance, and for a few years controlled most of Wales. He called a parliament in Machynlleth in mid Wales, which was also attended by foreign dignitaries, where he named himself Prince of Wales, presented his plans for an independent Wales, which included building two national universities and the reintroduction of the traditional Welsh legal system. In the long term, however, even with foreign military aid Owain was unable to compete with England’s superior forces and the king began to regain control of Wales. Owain Glyndŵr continued to be a thorn in England’s side until 1412, when he disappeared after escaping a siege at Harlech. He became something of a folk hero and a powerful symbol of Welsh nationalism and heritage.

The English Civil War (1642-1651)

Colonel Roger Mostyn (c.1623-90)

When Charles I acceded to the throne in March 1625, he came into conflict with Parliament from very early in his reign. Like Henry III, he believed that the king ruled by divine right, and this in turn meant that he was answerable only to God, and not to any earthly authority. His marriage to a Catholic did not help his popularity. Constant bickering over religion and funds for Charles’s various projects, none of which Parliament was willing to fund to the king’s satisfaction led to the deterioration of the relationship, and in 1642 the country was torn in two, when civil war broke out.

By this time Flint Castle had been abandoned and was in very poor condition. It was still, however, located in an excellent strategic position and local landowner Roger Mostyn made the decision to repair the castle and install a garrison as a contribution the Royalist cause. A useful store for supplies for Chester, the castle changed hands several times during the conflict. Back under Roger Mostyn, Flint found itself under Parliamentarian siege on 1st June 1646 and held out for nearly three months until all supplies had been exhausted and the garrison under Roger Mostyn surrendered rather than starve. Although the Parliamentarians allowed them to leave unharmed, they were taking no chances regarding the castle, which was immediately slighted (rendered unusable).

The king was defeated at Rowton Heath, south of Chester, on September 24th 1645. John Taylor in A Short Relation of a Long Journey, which he wrote in the summer of 1652, painted a thoroughly gloomy picture:.

Surely war hath made it miserable; the sometimes famous castle… is now almost buried in its own ruins, and the town so spoiled that it may truly be said of it, that they never had any market (in the memory of man). They have no sadler, taylor, weaver, brewer, baker, botcher, or button maker; they have not so much as a signe of an alehouse . . . and this (me thinks) is a pitiful description of a shire town.

Future archaeological excavations may provide information about the original town, both before and after the 1294 fire.

An object of artistic interest

J.M.W.Turner’s painting of Flint Castle. Source: williamturner.org

Although it’s life was over as a military installation, Flint Castle joined other nearby ruined castles and abbeys, like Beeston Castle in West Cheshire and Valle Crucis Abbey near Llangollen, as popular tourist destinations, which were also popular with artists. The best known of these was J.W.W. Turner (1775-1851), who painted both of the previously mentioned sites, and created a typically atmospheric view of Flint Castle too. It is fairly typical of Turner’s paintings of this period, produced in the 1830s. It shows the main subject of Turner’s interest in the background, with contemporary activities in the foreground. Rather than place his ruins centre stage, Turner usually placed them where they eye was drawn to them, but in much less detail than the activities taking place in his foregrounds. The man on the right looks towards the castle. The sun rises at the castle’s side. A line of blue-grey along the horizon draws the eye from left to right, tying the composition together. The castle’s silhouette contrasts spectacularly with the yellows, reds, oranges and golds of the rest of the composition. Everything in the painting draws the eye away from the more detailed and busy foreground to the static silhouette of the the castle’s profile. Both beautiful and clever. This was not Turner’s only study of Flint Castle, but it is my favourite.

View of Flint Castle by Richard Reeve 1812. Source:

I also very much like Richard Reeve’s earlier, far more prosaic and much less virtuoso portrait of Flint Castle. Painted in 1801, instead of Turner’s juxtaposition of past and present, it blends the two, showing everyday life in in harmony with the ruins. In Reeve’s view, the castle, the the beached boats drawn up on the shore alongside, the cottages in the foreground and the horse and cart driving away all occupy the same time zone without difficulty. The men pulling in the nets are so accustomed to the castle’s looming presence that it is a mere backdrop to their activities.

Although no-one of Turner’s luminary talent has been drawn to the castle since the 19th Century, probably because of its urban and industrial surroundings, plenty of artists and photographers continue to find inspiration from Flint Castle.

Flint Castle today

Today the castle is a tourist attraction managed by Cadw. It is beautifully maintained and money has been lavished on creating staircases that give safe access to and within the towers. The views from both the inner ward and the towers are superb.

There is not much in the way of explanatory signage. If you want to be informed, it is best to do the reading in advance. There is a Cadw guidebook that takes in Ewloe castle as well, but it is out of print and difficult to get hold of. Former mayor of Flint Vicky Perfect has dedicated a small but excellent book to Flint Castle, which is very well researched and written, and includes photographs, illustrations and maps (details of both books are in Sources at the end).

Visiting

Map showing the location of Flint Castle relative to Chester and Holywell (Basingwerk Abbey, marked as “Abbey” at the top left of this map, on the coast at Holywell, can be combined with Flint Castle for a visit). Source: streetmap.co.uk

You have to watch carefully for the road signs directing you to the castle (little Celtic cross symbols) because they are easy to miss. Alternatively, as we did, check it on the map first to get an idea of the location and then just rely on GPS (I use the free Google Maps app on my iPhone, which works a treat). There is a good car park overlooking the castle and estuary, with picnic benches on the grass below.

Short walk taking in Flint Castle, and suitable for those with mobility issues, although accessing towers within the castle requires the ability to tackle staircases. Even without entering the towers, the sense of the castle from within the inner keep is excellent, and the views from the inner keep across the estuary towards the Wirral are lovely. Source: Flintshire County Council

Flint Castle itself is a bit of a mixed blessing for those with unreliable legs. One of the best things about Flint Castle is that it is possible to walk up staircases (both original stone ones and bright, modern metal ones), some of which are quite steep. Although access is on the flat into the outer and inner wards, and the views from the inner ward are lovely, it is difficult to really experience all the components of the castle unless you tackle some stairs. On the other hand, the walk shown here (from the Flintshire County Council website) shows a walk that includes that castle but could easily be done for those with unwilling legs.

Access to the castle is free, but check the Flint Castle pages on the Cadw website to check if it is closed for certain seasons or specific dates. The car park is also free of charge. There was a mobile café van whilst we were there, but there are no other café type facilities on the site. There is a nice café at Basingwerk Abbey in Holywell if you are combining the two on a single visit to the area.

A section of the Wales Coast, marked with green diamonds, heading west from Flint Castle (marked at left with a white cross on a blue background). Source: Wales Coast Path interactive map

If you like walking, the castle is handily located on the Wales Coast Path, and although the Welsh side of the Dee is characterized by light industry, the views from the Wales Coast Path are across the estuary towards the Wirral. We’ve not yet done any of the Wales Coast Path in that part of Wales, but the views from the castle argues that it has lots of potential, and I am hoping for sea and marsh birds too. I cannot state whether or not it is suitable for those with unwilling legs, but it does seem plausible, because it is all on the flat.
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1726 print of Flint Castle. Source: Coflein

Sources

Books and papers

As usual, the main sources used are shown in bold.

Note: Vicky Perfect’s book on the castle (listed below) is great guide to Flint Castle in one convenient publication, with excellent illustrations. In particular, Chapter 3 “The Building of Flint Castle” makes excellent use of primary sources to provide a fascinating insight into the resources required, the techniques used and the men involved in the construction work (including details of some of their roles and daily pay).

Abercrombie, P. 1924. Flint. The Town Planning Review, Vol. 10, No. 4 (Feb., 1924), p.241-244
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40101411

Butlin, R.A. 1978. The Late Middle Ages, c.1350-1500. In Dodgshon, R.A. and Butlin, R.A. (ed.) An Historical Geography of England and Wales. Academic Press, p.119-150

Davies, J. 2007 (3rd edition). A History of Wales. Penguin

Dyer, C. 2002. Making a living in the Middle Ages. The People of Britain 850-1520. Yale University Press

Jack, R.I. 1988. H. Wales and the Marches. In Chapter 4, Farming Techniques in Hallam, H.E. (ed.) The Agrarian History of England and Wales, Volume II, 1042-1350. Cambridge University Press, p.412-496

Jenkins, G.H. 2007. A Concise History of Wales. Cambridge University Press

Hume, P. 2020. The Welsh Marcher Lordships. I: Central and North. Logaston Press

Morris, M. 2008. A Great and Terrible King. Edward I and the Forging of Britain. Penguin

Perfect, V. 2012. Flint Castle. The story of Edward I’s first Welsh castle. Alyn Books

Pryor, F. 2010. The Making of the British Landscape. How we have transformed the land, from prehistory to today. Allen Lane

Renn, D.F. and Avent, R. 2001 (2nd edition). Flint Castle – Ewloe Castle. Cadw

Rowley, T. 1986. The High Middle Ages, 1200-1500. Routledge and Kegan Paul

Saul, N. 1997. The Oxford Illustrated History of Medieval England. Oxford University Press

Shillaber, C. 1947. Edward I, Builder of Towns. Speculum, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Jul., 1947), p.297-309
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2856866

Stephenson, W. 2019. Medieval Wales c.1050-1332. Centuries of Ambiguity. University of Wales Press

Vening, T. 2012. The Kings and Queens of Wales. Amberley

Walker, D. 1990. Medieval Wales. Cambridge Medieval Textbooks

Websites

Ancient and Medieval Architecture
Flint – Castle (particularly useful for images) (Janusz Michalew)
https://medievalheritage.eu/en/main-page/heritage/wales/flint-castle/

BBC News
Historic Flint Castle defences found under block of flats. June 7th, 2015
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-north-east-wales-33032562
Flint Castle: History behind castle chosen for sculpture. By Matthew Frank Stevens (Senior Lecturer in History, Swansea University). 1st November 2019
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-50260758

Cadw
Flint Castle
https://cadw.gov.wales/visit/places-to-visit/flint-castle
Flint. Understanding Urban Character.
https://www.flintshire.gov.uk/en/PDFFiles/SHARP/Flint-Understanding-Urban-Character-(Cadw-2009).pdf

Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust
Historic Settlement Survey – Flintshire
https://cpat.org.uk/ycom/flints/flint.pdf

Coflein
Site Record: Flint Castle (with some excellent image and plans)
https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/94448/

Curious Clwyd
https://www.mythslegendsodditiesnorth-east-wales.co.uk/

Halkyn Mountain
https://www.halkynmountain.co.uk/

Wales Coast Path
Home page
https://www.walescoastpath.gov.uk/?lang=en
Interactive Coast Path Map
https://www.walescoastpath.gov.uk/plan-your-visit/interactive-coast-path-map/?lang=en#

The historical background to Edward 1’s castles in northeast Wales

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The southeast tower of Edward I’s 1277 Flint Castle on the Dee estuary, complete with modern viewing platform at the top, reached by a modern spiral staircase. My photo.

This post started off as a modest little piece about Flint Castle accompanied by some nice photos (now posted here), with the intention of following up with other posts about Rhuddlan and Hawarden castles (all three started by Edward I in 1277). It quickly became clear that the background history that lead up to the establishment of Edward I’s castles in northeast Wales in such quick succession was far too complicated (and interesting) to condense into a couple of paragraphs. All three castles deserve context, so before posting about each castle in turn, this post looks at the complicated relationship between England and Wales that led to Edward’s ambitious and enduring Welsh castle-building programme. This is inevitably a wildly simplified story, focusing on only the key players and either ignoring or fuzzing over those details of English and Welsh history that have no or little bearing on the story of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd’s ambitions, Edward I’s debts and the resulting construction of Edward’s castles in Wales.

On the English side of the story, the royal succession of Henry III and Edward I is very straight forward, although marriages and changing aristocratic loyalties during this period are often a cat’s cradle of shifting allegiances. On the Welsh side, there are an awful lot of Llywelyns, Grufydds and Dafydds, particularly in the next few paragraphs, not only because sons were often named for their fathers and other male relations, but because their last names were the first names of their fathers. Hence, Llywelyn ap Grufydd means Llywelyn son of Grufydd and Grufydd ap Llywelyn means Grufydd sone of Llywelyn. Hopefully the family tree below will help with the potential confusion of similar Welsh names, and will also indicate which English and Welsh generations are contemporary. In purple is the Welsh male line at the heart of political dispute. In grey is the English line of royal inheritance. Other colours are used to show others who are connected to these lines.

Ancestry of Llywelyn ap Grufydd, also known as Llywelyn the Last (shown at centre, lowest level). Key players in the Edward I’s castle expansion into Wales are outlined in red. I have missed off Henry III’s wife (and Edward I’s mother), who was a French noblewoman, Eleanor of Provence (d.1291).

Henry III at his coronation. Source: Wikipedia

In the next few paragraphs I have also colour coded the generations of the Welsh players in the text immediately below to indicate generations. Llywelyn ap Iowerth (Llywelyn the Great) the Great is purple, the next generation is green and their children, including Llywelyn ap Grufydd (Llywelyn the Last or II), are orange.

Between 1218 and 1240 peaceful relations had been established and were maintained between Llywelyn ap Iowerth (Llywelyn the Great) and Henry III, but the situation deteriorated after Llywelyn the Great’s death. Llywelyn the Great died in April 1240 of natural causes, leaving two sons, his legitimate son Daffydd ap Llywelyn by his English wife Joan and his illegitimate son Gruffud ap Llywelyn by Tangwystyl. Llywelyn the Great had disinherited Gruffud ap Llywelyn in 1220 to ensure that Daffydd ap Llywelyn would succeed him, an arrangement that was rubber-stamped by the Pope, thanks to the intercedence of Henry III. When Dafydd ab Llywelyn inherited his father’s seat, Henry re-organized.

Llywelyn the Great on his deathbed, with his sons Gruffydd and Dafydd in attendance. By Matthew Paris, in or before 1259. Source: Wikipedia

Dafydd’s disinherited half brother Grufydd ap Llywelyn was handed over to Henry III for imprisonment in the Tower of London, together with his son Owain, to prevent any attempt to oust Dafydd and destabilize Gwynedd, and Dafydd’s own rights were severely curtailed. Grufydd died at the Tower in an escape attempt in 1244.

Frustrated by his lack of freedom, Dafydd formed an alliance with other Welsh leaders against Henry III. In 1245 Dafydd died of natural causes in 1246, but his sons continued the dispute until 1247 when the Treaty of Woodstock re-established peace. Dafydd had died without an heir, and Grufydd’s four sons inherited Gwynedd, all that was left of Llywelyn the Great’s legacy. This fragmentation of power suited Henry III perfectly. Under Welsh law, the land could have been divided four ways between the sons, and inevitably became the source of ongoing dispute. In the short term most of Gwynedd was divided between two of Grufydd’s sons: Llywelyn ap Grufydd (Llywelyn the Last or Llywelyn II) and Owain. A third brother, Dafydd, was also a minor beneficiary.

The Treaty of Woodstock came with a price to Gwynedd, which was required to make a provision of knights and foot soldiers to England and, most wounding, to relinquish the vast area of northeast Wales known as the Perfeddwlad (the Four Cantrefs), which lay between the Dee and Conwy rivers. Henry must have hoped that this would provide him with a permanent foothold in Wales. He passed the Perfeddwlad to his son Edward, and built two new castles to protect his territory at Dyserth (northeast of Rhuddlan) and Deganwy (just north of Conway). The remainder of Gwynedd was divided between Llywelyn the Last and Owain ap Gruffudd, with a promise to re-divide Gwynedd when Dafydd ap Gruffudd came of age.

Map showing north Wales immediately after 1247. Click to enlarge or see on the following page. Source: Wikipedia

Drawing of a stained glass window in Chartres Cathedral showing Simon de Montfort. Source: Wikipedia

At the same time Henry III’s interests in what is now France were under review, and brought Simon de Montfort, who later had an important role in Welsh history, into the picture. Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester had been appointed guardian of Henry’s duchy of Gascony in what is now France in 1248, a position of enormous trust and responsibility. de Montfort was married to King John’s daughter, Henry III’s sister Eleanor, reportedly a love match. Unfortunately, Simon de Montfort was ill-suited for a task in which diplomacy rather than brute force was required, and when conflict broke out in Gascony, covertly supported by Alfonso X of Castlile (now part of Spain), de Montfort responded not with negotiation but with military might. The way out of a rapidly escalating situation was to come to reach a diplomatic compromise with Alfonso X. In return for Alfonso X abandoning any claim on Gascony, a marriage was arranged between Alfonso’s half sister Eleanor and Henry’s son Edward, a condition of which was that Henry would endow Edward with lands worth £10,000 annually. Edward and Eleanor were married in November 1254 and Edward found himself master of Gascony, all royal lands in Ireland, the earldom of Chester, Bristol Castle, manors in the Midlands and, significantly for this story, all the royal lands in Wales. Edward, continually finding his independence squashed by Henry, was still subject to the king’s will in these territories, but they gave him a sense of purpose.
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The rise of Llywelyn the Last

Edward I, from Westminster Cathedral. He was known as “Longshanks” and when his body was exhumed in modern times for research purposes, it was confirmed that he was 6ft 2″ (1.8m) tall. Source: Wikipedia

Wales remained subjugated and relatively unproblematic for the English until the three brothers who had inherited Gwynedd, came into conflict with each other. Llywelyn ap Grufydd (Lywelyn the Last / Llywelyn II) emerged triumphant and proceeded to take over the entire of Gwynedd. His success appears to have given him him confidence to sent up to Henry III. In November 1256 Llywelyn advanced on and took the Perfeddwlad (the Four Cantrefs), besieging Henry’s castles at Deganwy and Dyserth. Financial constraints prevented Edward from assembling an army immediately, while Llywelyn was gathering supporters by returning lands to the dispossessed. Now at full steam, he headed south on a land grab from the powerful Marcher lordships that straddled the English-Welsh borders and had taken over much of south Wales. Edward, with castles in Carmarthen and Cardigan, now sent an army, which Llywelyn eliminated with ease in June 1257. A second army was sent by Henry and Edward, which met the Welsh in north Wales in August 1257. Initial English successes were reversed by the failure of supplies to arrive to sustain the English, and Henry retreated, taking the army with him. Llywelyn had won the latest fight for control in Wales, and Edward was yet again frustrated by his father’s lack of support, a recurring theme in the relationship between the king and his son.

By March 1258, Llywelyn’s triumphs had earned him great popularity in Wales and gave him the confidence to style himself Prince of Wales. His triumph over some of the Marcher territories, however, pushed those aggrieved earls to align with Edward’s interests, and whilst Llywelyn was still congratulating himself, trouble was brewing at his new borders. Edward, in the meantime, was raising money by mortgaging some of his properties to the wealthy Marcher lords, and in doing so gained some independence from his father. Both Edward and Llywelyn were able to take a breather and reinforce their positions whilst Henry III was again struggling with his brother-in-law, the clever and slippery Simon de Montfort, this time accompanied by some of his most powerful peers. Initially, this was handled diplomatically, and the outcome was the remarkable Provisions of Oxford of 1258, a form of bloodless coup that created a council of 15 to mitigate the power of the king, reinstating some of the principles of the Magna Carta. Whenever the king’s seal of authority was used, it was only when the council of 15, or parliament, had agreed. At the same time, Henry was engaged in establishing long term peace in France, negotiating the Treaty of Paris, in which he withdrew his claims to Normandy, Anjou, Poitou and Maine, whilst securing Gascony.

Seal of Henry III. Source: Wikipedia

Edward, eternally frustrated by his father’s refusal to share his ambitions, found something of a kindred spirit in Simon de Montfort, not least in their joint opposition to the Treaty of Paris. The treaty was dependent on the agreement of Henry’s sister, de Montford’s wife, and this was withheld until December 1259, when de Montfort eventually relented. Whilst Henry was safely away in France, Edward and de Montfort attempted to hijack the annual council, in spite of Henry’s specific instructions that the council should await his return. It looked as though war might break out, prevented only by Henry’s return to England. Edward’s authority was stripped from him by his father, and de Montfort was imprisoned pending trial.

Attention was soon focused elsewhere however, when in 1260 Llywelyn, impatient of the delays and determined to gain English recognition and promises of security for his position, attacked the royal castle at Builth in Powys and annihilated it. It was a very risky strategy, and could have led to English invasion. Indeed, Edward was poised with an army in Chester for precisely this task. Llywelyn was lucky. Henry III called off the attack, and a two year ceasefire was put in place. Edward was furious and drew closer to Simon de Montfort. Together, they approached the earl of Gloucester and in the October of 1260, they mounted a bloodless coup against Henry III and took over the parliament. When peace was re-established, however tensely, Edward departed for France, apparently to recruit followers. Henry III, meanwhile had been scheming and in 1261 received a letter from the pope that allowed him to dissolve the Provisions of Oxford, and with it the council. All the much-needed reforms that had been introduced were swept aside.

Arms of the lords of Gwynedd. Source: Wikipedia

Whilst English politics were continuing to unravel, Llywelyn was on the simmer again, frustrated that the two year truce had been not been replaced by a permanent peace and recognition of his position. In particular, he was nursing a sense of betrayal that lands in south Wales granted to him in the truce were being attacked by the Marcher lords. In 1262 Llywelyn was on the march, and was soon claiming new territories in the far south. It is difficult to imagine what Llywelyn thought he could possibly achieve by antagonizing some of the most powerful and independent lords in the land, but author Marc Morris suggests that he may have seen a copy of a letter written by Henry III that stated that the truce was a mistake and that lands ceded to Llywelyn, at least for the duration of the truce, should be recovered by the Crown. The letter exists, could have been shown to Llywelyn to make mischief, and would certainly provide a plausible explanation for Llywelyn’s offensive.

The death of Simon de Montfort. Source: English Heritage

By the time that Edward returned, accompanied by French knights, the Marcher lords and those disaffected by Henry III’s cancellation of years of reform had reached breaking point. Henry was unrealistic if he thought that the nation would sit by and watch him restore his unfettered and unpopular rule. The Marcher Lords turned to Simon de Montfort who was in exile, but returned in April 1262 to lead them. They gathered in Oxford to renew their commitment to the 1258 Provisions, warning that anyone who failed to follow suit would be in the line of fire. This message was directly primarily at Henry III. They were refused and, fully prepared, now launched into open armed rebellion. The royal family were defeated and submitted in London in July 1262. Unfortunately, Simon de Montfort was better at leading rebellions than running a country, and in spite of the council being reinstated, political and social chaos followed. The king of France was brought in as an arbitrator, and ruled in favour of Henry III, determining that the Provisions should again be set aside, but this failed to satisfy the rebels, and resulted in outright war. It was by no means a foregone conclusion who would win, and in 1264 it looked as though de Montfort was teetering on the edge of triumph after the Battle of Lewes. In 1265, however, at the Battle of Evesham the royalists overcame de Montfort’s armies, and de Montfort himself was killed.

Wales after the Treaty of Montgomery in 1267. Source: Wikipedia

Llywelyn took advantage of the chaos to resume hostilities in support of his own ambition, retaking the Four Cantrefs in 1263, and in the process destroying Henry III’s castles of Deganwy and Dysterth. Amongst many other mistakes made by de Montfort was the formation an alliance with Llywelyn, formalized in the Treaty of Pipton in June 1265. Although Simon de Montfort was defeated and killed in battle only weeks after the treaty was signed, Henry III was advised to honour the Pipton agreement in the Treaty of Montgomeryshire in 1267. This not merely achieved peace, but also secured a significant financial contribution from Llywelyn for the privilege. With the principality of Wales now formed, Llywelyn the Last was officially recognized as Prince of Wales, with the right to homage of all the Welsh lords, and became a vasal of the king. It was the first time an English king had recognized a Welsh prince as Prince of Wales, but the cost to Llywelyn’s estates was a massive 25,000 marks (£16,666.00) payable in instalments. The National Archives Currency Convertor estimates that this figure is equivalent to £12,000,000 in today’s money. He was also required to settle land on his brother Dafydd.

Unsurprisingly, although Llywelyn had made his peace with Henry, the Marcher lords were not so sanguine about the land that they had lost in the negotiations. In particular the powerful Marcher lord and earl of Gloucester, Gilbert de Clare, was angered by the loss of land in Glamorgan, and in 1268 went into what were now Llywelyn’s territories and began to build a castle. Concerned that this blatant act of defiance would undermine the Treaty of Montgomery, Edward returned to the negotiating table, and ruled in Llywelyn’s favour. It would have been difficult to have done anything else, given the terms of the treaty.

Edward left on crusade in 1270, leaving Wales in the care of trusted caretakers, visiting the formidable French castle Aigues-Mort, which made a considerable impression on him. Back in Wales, with the treaty backing his position, Llywelyn entered Glamorgan in 1271 and destroyed de Clare’s castle, reclaiming his land. He reckoned without de Clare who, in spite of the ruling, took advantage of Edward’s absence and responded in kind, retaking the land and making a new start on the great castle of Caerphilly. Other Marcher lords, who must have been watching with interest, began to snatch bits of their own former territories back from Llywelyn, matters made easier by Edward’s absence on crusade and in Gascony until 1274 and Henry III’s apparent apathy on the matter. Edward’s English magnate caretakers were far more sympathetic to the Marcher lords than they were to Llywelyn, and stood by whilst the Treaty of Montgomery was violated.
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The ascent of Edward I and the decline of Llywelyn

Edward’s two year absence in a somewhat abortive crusade took place only after he had raised the finance for the expedition, with great difficulty. Henry III died on 16th November 1272 at the age of 65. Having narrowly survived an assassination attempt, Edward returned without haste, pausing to resolve issues in his Gascon estates, arriving in England on the 4th August 1274. His coronation took place on the 9th August 1274.

Coronation Throne of Edward I. Source: Westminster Abbey

One might have thought that with Edward’s return, Llywelyn would have had half a chance of arguing for the enforcement of the Treaty of Montgomery and the restitution of lands that had been awarded to him under that treaty. Instead, Llywelyn’s response to Edward’s return led not to resumption of the status quo but to renewed conflict between the two. Author Marc Morris puts this down to the state of the finances of both parties. Llywelyn had paid 5000 marks of his debt of 25,000 marks (£16,666) from the Treaty of Montgomery, and the rest was payable in annual instalments of £3000 a year, which was far more than the Welsh economy could generate, even without Llywelyn’s own costs as ruler of Wales. He had stopped paying in 1271, in violation of the treaty, and was three years in arrears by the time of Edward’s coronation. Letters to Llywelyn in 1272 demanding a resumption of payments failed to achieve this objective. As a matter of pride, he said that the stoppage in payments was for political reasons, rather than poverty, and he may indeed have felt some justification due to the violations of the treaty by the Marcher lords. Attending the coronation would have put himself in the position of having to answer directly to Edward for the outstanding money, and Llywelyn clearly decided not to run the risk. He did not attend the coronation.

Edward had his own pressing financial problems. He needed the money owed by Llywelyn to pay off his own debts, incurred mainly during his crusade. When Edward called Llywelyn to court to pay homage to him as the vassal of a newly appointed, and Llywelyn declined to appear, he realized that this source of income was in jeopardy, and that the peace with Wales might also be under threat. Although Edward could muster an army, it would have been costly, and such an outlay was something he must have been keen to avoid, particularly as it would have been difficult to enforce the repayment of the debt. A diplomatic solution was more attractive, and might see the resumption of payments, even if the sum was lower than had been originally agreed.

A planned meeting between the two in Shrewsbury had to be cancelled when Edward became ill. No-one will ever know for sure if Llywelyn would have turned up, but in the light of later events it seems unlikely. At the same time, Llywelyn’s popularity within Wales was on the wane, and he discovered that he had become the target of a well organized plot to remove him from power. It was led by his brother Dafydd, with particular support from Grufydd ap Gwenwynwyn, lord of Powys. Dafydd was a permanent source of simmering resentment against his brother’s rise to power at his own expense. The lands allocated to him in the Four Cantrefs had clearly not satisfied him. It was not the first time that Dafydd had switched sides, and it would not be the last. Realizing that Llywelyn had discovered the plot, both Grufydd and Dafydd fled to England, where requests for their return to meet Welsh justice were rejected. In 1275, Edward again made arrangements to meet Llywelyn, this time in Chester, where Llywelyn could make the required homage and discussions could begin. Again, he chose a border town that would have been easy for Llywelyn to reach. Llywelyn was near the border when he wrote to refuse the meeting, saying that he felt unsafe in England, which now housed those who had plotted against him. A week later Edward left Chester, angry both at the slight and the waste of his valuable time, but was still reluctant to force the issue and put peace in jeopardy.

Eleanor de Montfort, daughter of Simon de Montfort and, from 1278, Princess of Wales. Source: Wikipedia

It was Llywelyn who tipped the balance. Single, and aged 50 years old, with no son, and with the treacherous Dafydd as his heir, he decided in 1275 to get married. He had left it late, but he might have had the choice of the best Welsh families for a bride. Instead, he chose an English one, and his choice seems reckless in the extreme, as it was certain to upset and infuriate Edward. It did. Llywelyn’s chosen bride was none other than Simon de Montfort’s daughter Eleanor. The earl of Leicester, Simon de Montfort, once Edward’s friend, had become his enemy prior to his death at the Battle of Evesham. Perhaps Eleanor’s connection to the English royal family as the niece of Henry III, by marriage, gave Llywelyn dynastic pretensions. Whatever the reasons for the marriage, Eleanor, living in exile in France, was en route to marry Llywelyn when agents captured the ship in which she was travelling, and took her to Edward who kept her captive in Windsor for three years. Llywelyn’s lack of judgment is difficult to explain. Edward lifted restrictions on the Marcher lords regarding the lands taken by Llywelyn in the Treaty of Montgomery and gave Llywelyn one final chance to pay homage in Westminster, at the annual parliament. Llywelyn, for the third time, failed to appear. In spite of Llywelyn’s offers and demands, peace was at an end, and war was inevitable.

In 1276 Llywelyn was declared a rebel and early in 1277 Edward’s war machine had started up and was on the move, spreading from Carmarthen in the south and Chester in the north. To undermine Welsh resistance, permission was given to the Marcher Lords to reclaim territories that they had lost. Edward himself, arriving in the frontier town of Chester in July 1277, complete with 800 mounted knights, ships carrying 700 sailors and over 3000 foot soldiers, prepared for war against the prince. Chester, loyal to Edward, provided a convenient launch-pad for the invasion, With very little delay, Edward took his army into Gwynedd. At Rhuddlan, his infantry was joined by another 12,000 soldiers, although by August, possibly because they were dismissed due to supply chain issues, only half remained.

Map of the Welsh Cantrefi. Source: Wikipedia.

During the campaign, Edward initiated his castle building programme, starting at Flint in June 1277, with Rhuddlan and Hawarden following soon afterwards. During previous encounters, Edward had found that his main bases of influence, from which military action could be initiated, were insufficiently close to the Welsh border. These included, from north to south, Chester, Shrewsbury, Montgomery and Hereford. Whenever the armies of Henry III or Edward I marched, they found themselves isolated from their home bases. Part of Edward’s strategy was to build bases on the edge of Welsh territory, and the within it, and to ensure that there were good lines of communication between these bases, all the way back to the English centres of power. Edward’s vision was that castles were only as strong as the network that connected them, and that these castles should serve him not merely during times of war, but at all times. Of the first of the new ring of castles, only Builth could not be reached by sea.

The priority at Flint in its initial phase was to create a road from Chester to the site, and surround the site with enormous ditches that could be defended. Although the castle was accessible by water, from both Chester and the coast, and at a push by foot across the tidal sands from the Wirral, Edward wanted to be able to access his new castle without unnecessary risk on horse and foot, and accordingly ordered the construction of a wide road from Chester to Flint. Flint was to be Edward’s first permanent foothold in north Wales, and there were to be no difficulties with either access or communication. Castles at Rhuddlan and Hawarden soon followed, and the Flint road was extended in to reach them. My post looking at Flint Castle in more detail is here.

Llywelyn, with perhaps 300 mounted men, and nothing in the way of a naval fleet, was vastly outnumbered. After losing the Four Cantrefs, he retreated to the mountains of Snowdonia, intent on using the terrain and guerrilla tactics to counter Edward’s advances. But Edward had learned from his previous experience in Wales in 1257. Llywelyn slowed Edward down, but he could not turn him back, particularly when Edward’s ships cut off the island of Anglesey, and with it Llywelyn’s primary source of grain. The grain not only denied Llywelyn his primary source of feeding his troops, but also provided Edward with the resources he needed to feed his own army.

Llywelyn at last paid homage to Edward, and here is shown sitting to the left of the king’s throne, with Alexander of Scotland at the king’s right.

Llywelyn submitted in November 1277 and Edward left the field and returned to Rhuddlan (shown below) where his second new castle was being built, also started earlier in 1277. The Treaty of Aberconwy of that year swept away Llywelyn the Last’s principality, leaving him with Gwynedd and his now somewhat meaningless title of Prince of Wales. Daffyd was rewarded for his loyalty to Edward with a small territory comprising Rhufoniog and Dyffryn Clwyd, two inland cantrefs of Perfeddwlad (the Four Cantrefs), which he considered to be small recompense given his ambitions to take over at least part of his brother Llywelyn’s principality. Edward retained the other two of the Perfeddwlad cantrefs, Rhos and Tegeingl, both on the coast. Flint, Rhuddlan and Hawarden castles together would protect the invaded territories in northeast Wales, replacing Henry III’s castles of Deganwy and Dyserth, destroyed by Llywelyn in 1263. On Christmas Day in Westminster Llywelyn at last made homage to Edward. It must have been a bitter pill.

Plan of Flint Castle. Source: Coflein

The castle building project continued unabated, whilst Flint and Rhuddlan castles became both administrative hubs and new royal towns (bastides), as well as military outposts, providing a much-needed link between Chester and the more distant outposts that were next on Edward’s ambitious agenda. At a recent tour of St Werburgh’s Cathedral in Chester, cathedral expert Nick Fry explained that at least some of the stone masons had been removed from work on the St Werburgh’s (at that time a Benedictine monastery) to work on Edward’s castles, delaying modifications to the cathedral for a considerable period.

The idea of establishing towns around castles, allocated considerable commercial privileges as incentives to English traders, was an idea adopted from Gascony, where Edward had already founded a number of new defended towns, known as bastides. These reinforced the network of castles with economic as well as military foundations, and established enclaves of English commerce and tradition within Wales. Flint and Rhuddlan were two of the earliest examples.

Edward was sufficiently convinced by Llywelyn’s apparently passive response to the Treaty of Aberconwy to release Eleanor in 1278, to permit the marriage to go ahead, and to pay for the marriage feast in Worcester. In spite of these promising signs, matters deteriorated between the two. In particular, Llywelyn’s claims over a territory, Arwystli, currently lying within the territory of his rival Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn were, during 1280 and 1281, brought under Edward’s jurisdiction, and remained unresolved for at least four years, whilst severe repression was carried out in the rest of Wales, parts of it once Llywelyn’s realm. Llywelyn’s brother Daffyd appears to have had less specific but more regular causes for complaint. One of the most grinding and ongoing wounds of all Welsh lords was being subjected to significant portions of English law, which was felt to undermine both Welsh rights and national identity.
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Renewed hostilities between Llywelyn and Edward 1282-3

Rhuddlan Castle. Photograph by Julie Anne Workman. Source: Wikipedia

In 1282 it was neither Llywelyn nor Edward that was the instigator of the dispute that followed, in spite of ongoing tensions between the two. In March 1282 Llywelyn’s brother Dafydd ap Gruffudd, feeling that his contributions had been insufficiently rewarded by Edward, and seriously aggrieved by his treatment both at the hands of his neighbours on royal land and by the authorities in Chester, decided to take action. Dafydd once again switched sides and, not messing around this time, attacked the English castles and towns of Hawarden, Flint and Rhuddlan, supported by a number of Welsh lords who acted in their own right. Llywelyn was not among Dafydd’s initial supporters, but he joined forces with his brother later in the same year. If I had found myself in Llywelyn’s situation I’d have thought twice about sticking any fingers into a pie of Dafydd’s making. Perhaps Llywelyn felt he had to choose either to engage or be swept aside in the event of Dafydd’s victory. He had very recently lost his wife in childbirth, and with no male heir, and now 60 years old he may well have thought he had very little to lose. Whatever his thinking, it was a mistake. In spite of the arrival of the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Pecham, who attempted to negotiate for peace, no compromise could be reached. Edward’s subsequent suppression of the uprising came at a high cost for Edward’s own treasuries, his armies, and included the personal loss of friends and collaborators. Under such circumstances it was inevitable that when Edward prevailed, the results would be uncompromising.

Aerial view of Denbigh Castle, a Welsh castle which was rebuilt by the English in 1282. Source: Cadw, via Wikipedia

Llywelyn was killed in battle on 11th December in 1282 and Dafydd assumed the title Prince of Wales, but by early 1283 Edward I’s vast English army had the Welsh heartland hemmed in and troops were being supplied by ship from Ireland. Dafydd based himself at Dolwyddelan Castle in southwest Conwy whilst the English took Bangor, Caer-yn-Arfon and Harlech. Castell-y-Bere in Gwynedd, not far from the west coast, was the last of the Welsh strongholds to withstand Edward’s armies, falling in April 1283. Dafydd was captured in June 1283. Whilst other lives were spared by Edward, Dafydd’s betrayal rankled. He was tried for treason, tortured and put to a spectacularly grizzly death in Shrewsbury in October 1283, whilst Edward’s programme of castle building continued uninterrupted. In 1284, Edward returned to Wales in march to inaugurate his statue on how royal lands in Wales, including Llywelyn’s Snowdonia, would be managed and how law should be administered. He took no revenge against the Welsh people, but there was now no doubt that future transgressions would not be permitted and that the harshest reprisals would greet anyone who attempted to resist.
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After Llywelyn

Hawarden Castle in 1742 by Samuel Buck

More and much greater castles than Flint, Rhuddlan, and Hawarden were built in north Wales. Aberystwyth, the southernmost in the arc of coastal forts was started in late 1277. Denbigh and Harlech were started in 1282, Caernarfon and Conwy in 1283, and both Chirk in northeast Wales and Beaumaris on Anglesey were started in 1295. The castles were eye-wateringly expensive to build, and Edward was able to extend his network only with the assistance of loans from the Ricciardi Bank of Lucca in Tuscany, supplemented by magnates loyal to Edward who invested in castles in their own right. The castles were connected not only by purpose and personnel, but by a growing network of roads, and were not merely a visual message to the potential insurgents of north Wales, nor simply used as operating as bases from which to launch potential counter-offensives, but a valuable communication network. One of their most important functions, just a day’s ride apart from one another, was to strengthen England’s ability to move freely between England and Wales, as well as keeping England informed, via Chester, about what was happening in Wales.

Castell y Bere in the Dysynni valley, southwest Gwynedd. Aerial photograph with my annotations showing key components of the castle (Source of photograph: Coflein website)

During the advance of Edward’s armies, control was reinforced throughout north Wales. Welsh castles were either destroyed by Edward’s forces, or rebuilt and garrisoned for Edward’s own purposes, establishing additional military presence at relatively low cost. An example is Castell y Bere in Gwynedd, which was built in 1221 by Llywelyn ab Iorwerth (also known as Llywelyn Fawr, or the Great, c.1173-1240). It was the site of Dafydd’s last stand. The castle having survived the assault, it was reinforced by Edward. My write-up of Castell y Bere is here.

With Llywelyn dead, and Edward with no distractions elsewhere, Wales had lost its momentum as a Welsh principality once and for all. Wales belonged to Edward and the Marcher lords. All other landholders held their lands in sufferance, and now knew to keep their heads down.

With Llywelyn dead in battle in 1282, and Dafydd captured, tortured and killed in 1283, there was no Prince of Wales, and there no serious opposition to Edward. Llywelyn had died without a male heir, and his baby daughter was sent to a convent in England. Dafydd’s daughters were also sent English to convents and his sons were incarcerated in Bristol Castle, where they died. Their brothers Owain and Rhordri survived, but Rhodri had sold his claims to the crown to the English and lived out his life in comfort. Owain, who had once been in dispute with Llywelyn for a share of Gwynedd, had been imprisoned by his brother. When he was released in 1277 he made no attempts to join forces with either brother against Edward, and died in around 1282. Rhodri’s grandson Owain Lawgoch had been brought up in England, and had a successful career as a mercenary, but a downturn in his fortunes lead him to contemplate pressing his own claims in Wales, but he was assassinated before he could take any action in 1378.

The sad remains of Builth Castle, Powys. Source: Photograph by Jeremy Bolwell, Geograph

A last-ditch rebellion by another would-be Prince of Wales, Madog al Llywelyn in 1294, a distant relative of Llywelyn the Last’s, took a year for Edward’s armies to suppress. Edward I gave the title Prince of Wales to his own son, Edward of Caernarfon, who was invested on 7 February 1301, at the age of 16. Although another, albeit short uprising had to be put down by Edward II in 1316, it was not until the early 15th century, when Owain Glyndŵr led a new rebellion, that serious conflict once again arose between Wales and England.
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Final comments

Map of Edward I’s campaigns in Wales. Source: History Matters at the University of Sheffield

Henry III had been both a weak and unpopular king, whose poor leadership led to the 1258 Provisions of Oxford, whereby a council of 15 men acted as a filter for all of Henry’s decisions, denying him what he saw as his divine right to sole and unfettered rule. In 1254, Henry III’s eldest son Edward had been married to King Alfonso X’s daughter Eleanor of Castile. To fulfil the terms of the marriage contract, Henry had granted Edward lands in Britain, including the royal estates in Wales, that made him the second biggest landholder in Britain. Although his father was still in overall control, Edward had a new sense of himself as a leader and protector of the lordships within those territories. It was not long before Edward began to get the measure of Llywelyn, but with Henry III still making the decisions, Llywelyn probably had little idea of the differences between father and son. Although Edward had been involved in a number of armed conflicts, and schemed against his father, he only seems to have gained real independence when on crusade.

Edward returned after his father had died, to take possession of a land in which the only really active thorn in his side was Llywelyn. Henry III, after failed attempts to engage Llywelyn with military might, had resorted to the lower cost and less demanding diplomatic approach to conflict with Wales. When Edward went to war in anger against Llywelyn in 1277 and 1284, Llywelyn was defeated. Edward on this occasion was magnanimous, and paid for Llywelyn’s wedding to the daughter of Simon de Montfort in Worcester. Had matters ended there, Llywelyn might have lived out the rest of his life dissatisfied but with nothing more than internal disputes to tackle, but when his brother Dafydd, with support from other important Welsh leaders, attacked Edward’s castles, Llywelyn joined him. Edward gave no quarter. When he went to war in Wales, he did not have it all his own way, and had he not had the Cinque Port ships to blockade Anglesey, he might not have prevailed, but when he did prevail he took no chances. He neutralized male heirs, mainly with imprisonment, and he placed Welsh daughters into English convents, where they could not produce sons who might grow up with a sense of injustice that could lead to thoughts of rebellion. He and his own son, Edward II, fought off two other rebellions, but it was not until Owain Glyndŵr in the early 15th century that another serious Welsh uprising was attempted.

Flint Castle, southwest tower and curtain wall

Whilst writing this, I frequently wondered what it must have felt like to be Edward I, the descendant of kings who ruled in England and, thanks to their Norman ancestry, over swathes of what is now France. He had all the strength, confidence and strategic insight that both his grandfather King John and his father Henry III lacked, and he had plenty of ambition, but King John had lost much of England’s continental territories, and thanks to the Treaty of Paris, in which Henry III gave up even more, in 1274 Edward inherited a much smaller kingdom than his own father had inherited. Ironically, as a personality Edward probably had more in common with Llewelyn the Last than he did with his father. Both were experienced military leaders, well organized and ambitious men who believed in themselves. They were born into worlds where conflict was the norm and territory could be seized. They were also both sovereigns in their own lands, and believed absolutely in their right to rule and extend their rule. These very similarities might suggest that war rather than diplomacy was the most likely outcome when Edward turned his focus to Wales, but in fact diplomacy punctuated military engagements up until 1282. Neither brother survived this encounter with Edward, and Edward took advantage of the power vacuum in Wales to squash Welsh ambition for good, bringing Wales firmly under the English crown. Key to this strategy was his castle building programme.
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Sources

The most usual sources have been highlighted in bold

Books and papers

Davies, J. 2007 (3rd edition). A History of Wales. Penguin

Jenkins, G.H. 2007. A Concise History of Wales. Cambridge University Press

Morris, M. 2008. A Great and Terrible King. Edward I and the Forging of Britain. Penguin

Rowley, T. 1986. The High Middle Ages 1200-1550. Routledge and Kegan Paul

Saul, N. 1997. The Oxford Illustrated History of Medieval England. Oxford University Press

Vening, T. 2012. The Kings and Queens of Wales. Amberley

Walker, D. 1990. Medieval Wales. Cambridge Medieval Textbooks

Websites

Aberdovey Londoner
Castell-y-Bere (1221-1295) in the Dysynni Valley, west Wales (Andie Byrnes)
https://aberdoveylondoner.com/2018/10/31/a-visit-to-castell-y-bere-1221-1295-in-the-dysynni-valley/

Exhibition: “The Tailor’s Tale” at Tŷ Pawb gallery, Wrexham

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Image source: Tŷ Pawb website, with original image © Amgueddfa Cymru (National Museum Wales). The giraffe is sublime, but the panther is bliss.

The Tailor’s Quilt, by James Williams. Click to see the larger, clearer image. Image source: Tŷ Pawb website, with original image © Amgueddfa Cymru (National Museum Wales).

The Tailor’s Tale exhibition, at the Tŷ Pawb gallery in Wrexham, is on until September 24th 2022. It is a rare opportunity to see the mid-19th century “Tailor’s Quilt” without having to go to south Wales to see it in its usual home. The exhibition is showing at the same time as the exhibition Blanket Coverage, in the same gallery, about which I have already written here.

The Tailor’s Quilt was made by master military tailor James Williams of Wrexham (c.1818 – 1895). It is on loan from the St Fagan’s National Museum of History in Cardiff. The museum bought it in 1935 from Williams’s grandson during the economic depression, where it joined a national folk art collection, which now has over 200 examples of Welsh quilting and patchworks.

As well as the quilt itself, which is a complete joy, the exhibition features modern art works, including designer clothing and accessories by Sarah Burton (fashion house Alexander McQueen) and fashion designer Adam Jones; a range of items by Mark Herald, based on the quilt and commissioned by Tate Britain; and a set of four small pieces by Quilter’s Guild of the British Isles members Judy Fairless, Anne Gosling, Barbara Harrison and Helen Lloyd. It is one of the pleasures of The Tailor’s Tale, that 19th and 21st century approaches to patchwork and quilting by local textile specialists can be seen side by side, with all the implications of social and economic change that each implies.
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The Tailor’s Quilt

First, a bit of terminology. A quilt is generally defined as at least two layers of fabric with padding, called wadding, between them, all stitched together either with straight lines crossing each other to form squares or diamonds, or in more elaborate designs. A patchwork consists of pieces of fabric sewn together. A patchwork quilt is a patchwork that has been provided with a wadding and backing, and has been sewn together at multiple places across the surface to connect all three levels, to form a patchwork quilt. The Tailor’s Quilt, technically, is a patchwork, because it is made up of different fabrics sewn together but is not sewn over to join all the layers together. It is made using the intarsia method, as described by Dr Clare Rose of the V&A: “This technique, also known as ‘cloth intarsia’, ‘mosaic needlework’, ‘inlaid patchwork’, ‘inlay patchwork’ and ‘stitched inlay’, involves cutting motifs out of wool cloth and stitching them directly to each other with no seam allowances and no backing fabric.” Features like the panther’s very smug smile, are picked out in silk thread.

James Williams, Draper, located opposite another draper and a boot maker at the gates to the church. Source: @Tiffypox on Twitter

As modern as it looks, and as imaginative as it is, the Tailor’s Quilt was crafted by James Williams in his downtime over a period of 10 years between 1842 and 1852, using leftover fabrics from the suits and military outfits that he made, as well as from textile sample books that were no longer of use. It is truly astounding for its scale, imagination and the splendid combination of representational scenes and abstract designs. The quilt is surprisingly huge, and framed behind glass it is a real presence.

It is thought that Williams was born in 1818. His name is listed in trade directories between 1850 and the year of his death in 1895. A photograph survives of his shop sign with the church in the background, which is supposed to show a shopfront on 8 College St., Wrexham. I went to have a look to see if the original building is still there. The view shown left, which shows a sign with the legend “J. Williams Draper,” cannot possibly be College Street, which approaches at a very awkward side angle to the church tower. This is without question Church Street. Perhaps Williams moved from one premises to another at some point in his business life.

A view down Church Street today.

The Tailor’s Quilt measures 2.34m high by 2m wide (7.6 x 6.5ft) and contains over 4,525 pieces of material. It is far bigger than I was expecting, even knowing the measurements. It uses a fairly limited but perfectly harmonized palette of colours, drawn from what Williams had to hand. It shows scenes from the Bible such as Adam naming the animals, Noah’s Ark, Jonah and the whale (fabulously, with only the legs showing out of the whale’s mouth), and Cain and Abel, with the sky filled with lightning. It also features motifs symbolizing Wales (a leek), England (a rose), Scotland (a thistle), and Ireland (a shamrock). Giving the composite scene a really modern twist, the Menai Suspension Bridge and Cefn Viaduct (with a steam engine and two carriages passing over it) are also prominently featured. The significance of the Chinese pagoda seems to escape most commentators, but perhaps (speculating recklessly) it was inspired by Chinese ceramics, which had become mainstream in 19th century Britain at the time. Part of the fun of the piece, with a huge, self-satisfied black panther dominating the composition, is looking for the vignettes and enjoying the details in each one.

Image source: Tŷ Pawb website, with original image © Amgueddfa Cymru (National Museum Wales).

The combination of abstract, symbolic and representational takes time to absorb, and it works perfectly both on the level of the detailed vignettes and as a complex composition that instantly creates an attractive and appealing impression. It is difficult to imagine how, over a 10 year period, Williams was able to keep hold of the compositional elements to create something so beautifully balanced and proportioned. As the Tŷ Pawb website puts it, “The quilt is now widely regarded as one of the best surviving examples of Welsh folk art.”

It was exhibited at the Art Treasures Exhibition of North Wales in 1876 and the National Eisteddfod in 1933, both held in Wrexham, and in the British Empire Exhibition in Wembley in 1925. Although its travels were put on hold for conservation work, it is now fit for travel once again, and was displayed in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Quilts 1700-2010 exhibition in 2010, and was loaned to the Wrexham Museum for a temporary exhibition in 2017. Its return to Wrexham at Tŷ Pawb in 2022 is very welcome.

Modern Responses to the Tailor’s Quilt

One of the reasons that this exhibition is so appealing is that it explores how The Tailor’s Quilt influenced and inspired other artists working in the same medium. It offers an opportunity not merely to see a sublime example of the genre, but to see how modern textile artists have incorporated design elements of the quilt in their own work.

The most original of the contributions is that made by fashion designer Adam Jones, who was commissioned by Tŷ Pawb to make a quilt of his own to be displayed adjacent to the Tailor’s Quilt. It works superbly, because Adam Jones has a style that is quite unlike that of James Williams. His bright, often garish clothes are attention-grabbing and regularly make use of clashing colours, textual elements and pub-themed motifs to make often loud, sometimes kitschy and frequently humorous statements. Adam Jones is from Froncysyllte near Wrexham, but is now based in London. Although there are garments from Adam’s collection in the exhibition, to demonstrate some of his creative range, his quilt is particularly interesting in this context. It combines the inspiration of the Tailor’s Quilt with a unique vision of Wrexham, its football team and pubs, and has its own intense personality. The composition is set against a bright, shiny red background (Wrexham FC’s dominant colour), and is full of references to Wrexham, and in particular Wrexham Lager. Contrasting textures, like lace and towelling, and everyday objects like a butcher’s apron and a pair of gloves are intertwined with abstract geometric shapes inspired by the Tailor’s Quilt. Instead of all four nations, Wales is given pride of place with the dragon at its base. Flanking Jones’s quilt are huge photographs of the quilt with local people, one man sitting on it, another draping it around her shoulders, removing textile art from the clean walls of the gallery and taking it back to its spiritual home. Great fun.

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Painter and printmaker Mark Herald was commissioned by Tate Britain to create some pieces based on the Tailor’s Quilt for the Tate’s shop. Mark’s sketchbook is displayed here, together with some of the items that he created for Tate Britain (some of which are currently for sale in the Wrexham Museum, a short walk away). His pieces include pictures, mugs, plates and bags. He takes motifs and themes from the Tailor’s Quilt, gives them a bright hit of colour, and arranges them in harmony on the new surfaces. They work superbly, echoing the Quilt, the motifs unmistakeably lifted from its progenitor, but given a bright, modern twist on the surface of everyday objects. Although none of his other works are shown in the exhibition, a quick web search shows why Tate Britain chose him. His own artworks are similarly full of light, often referencing the animal world, full of bright colours and dynamic shapes.

The name that pops up repeatedly when you do a search on the Tailor’s Quilt is clothes Sarah Burton, Creative Director of the fashion house Alexander McQueen. Sarah Burton was inspired by the Tailor’s Quilt on a visit to St Fagan’s Museum, and incorporated its themes into her Autumn/Winter 2020 collection.

Her work provides yet another contrast. Just as the Tailor’s Quilt is the product of a professional tailor working in Wrexham, and Adam Jones’s quilt and clothing specifically reference the small town environment of the 70s and 80s that were part of his upbringing, Sarah Burton’s clothing is self-consciously aimed at the catwalk and is the product of the couture design world. Angular shapes and big panels of fabric are imprinted with motifs lifted directly from the Tailor’s Quilt, but given a new colour palette and an entirely new feel.

Four small pieces exhibited together are by Judy Fairless, Anne Gosling, Barbara Harrison and Helen Lloyd, who each made a piece as a response to the Tailor’s Quilt for the Llangollen Quiltfest in 2017.

From top left, clockwise: Ann Gosling “What a busy life I lead;” Helen Lloyd. “Jump,” Barbara Harrison, “The world around me,” and Judy Fairless, “All Stitched Up”

Although every exhibition has a curator and a team of skilled assistants, the general public does not often hear much about them. This exhibition was the brainchild of the late Ruth Caswell, to whom the exhibition is dedicated. She was a very remarkable and award-winning costumier, designer, artist and teacher, as well as a skilled curator of exhibitions, of which this was her last. The Tŷ Pawb website explains how she started out:

Ruth moved to London in the 1960s, when she met and married her husband actor Eddie Caswell. Ruth said: “When we married and moved to London, we had only £12.50 to our name so I made clothes in my back bedroom and sold them in Kensington Market on a stall next to Freddie Mercury’s. I delivered them on the 73 bus each Friday and they sold instantly.” Ruth’s clothes were photographed for Vogue and worn by model Jean Shrimpton.

There is a video in the exhibition showing Ruth talking at fascinating length about textile design, and her enthusiasm, eloquence and generosity of spirit are very evident.
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Final Comments

Quilting and patchwork, as craft activities, have a long tradition in domestic contexts, either for daily use or to mark special occasions from the Medieval period onwards. The Tailor’s Quilt, imagined and hand-stitched by a professional tailor, was very much the product of a professional skill, but was also created within a domestic context. The exhibition makes it clear how craft activities are now gaining traction in the fields of design and textile arts, featuring on catwalks and in art galleries. The liminal position held by textile arts for at least a century, is slowly being eroded, and textile is coming of age in a number of commercial contexts where they are recognized as both design and art.

It was a particular stroke of genius to organize The Tailor’s Tale and Blanket Coverage at the same time, and provide them with a single space to share. Whilst quite different in their content and their style of display, both raise questions about how textiles are regarded today, and what they bring to the world of art. Both of the exhibitions, the one exploring the impact of a single magnificent piece (the patchwork quilt) and the other exploring the multiple facets of a single genre (blanket weaving), work beautifully both in isolation and together.

With this new exhibition, the Tŷ Pawb gallery has again provided the perfect venue for bringing together modern art and local history, whilst also exploring more universal themes. The exhibitions The Tailor’s Tale and Blanket Coverage run at Tŷ Pawb until September 24th 2022 between 10am and 4pm Monday to Saturday. Entry is free of charge.

Sources:

Books and papers

Jones, J. 2016. Welsh Quilts. Seren

Rose, C. 2011. A patchwork panel ‘shown at the Great Exhibition. V&A Online Journal, Issue No. 3 Spring 2011
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/journals/research-journal/issue-03/a-patchwork-panel-shown-at-the-great-exhibition/#:~:text=This%20technique%2C%20also%20known%20as,allowances%20and%20no%20backing%20fabric.

Ty Pawb handouts, 2022.
– Artist Biographies
– Ruth Caswell

Websites

175 Heroes
Ruth Caswell
https://175heroes.bradfordcollege.ac.uk/ruth_caswell.html

Build Hollywood
Your Space or Mine: Adam Jones
https://www.buildhollywood.co.uk/work/adam-jones/

National Museum of Wales
Patchwork Bedcover
https://museum.wales/collections/online/object/4ce80b8d-182e-3822-8038-54080af6b0b8/Patchwork-bedcover/

Tŷ Pawb
https://www.typawb.wales
The Tailor’s Tale / Blanket Coverage at Tŷ Pawb 02/07/22 – 24/09/22
https://www.typawb.wales/exhibitions/the-tailors-tale-blanket-coverage/

Based in Churton
Exhibition write-up: The luxuriant “Blanket Coverage” at Tŷ Pawb gallery, Wrexham. By Andie Byrnes
https://wp.me/pcZwQK-2F8

A Visit to Cholmondley Castle Gardens

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On a bright, sunny day that turned out to be seriously hot, we decided to go to Cholmondeley Castle Gardens. It’s a great place to go on a hot day because there are lots of open areas if you like the sun, but a lot of leafy shade beneath the trees to keep you cool. I had no idea that it was so near to the Chester-Wrexham area, just to the east of Bickerton. I had never been there before, although it was a favourite of my parents. The castle is not open to the public, but the gardens are, albeit only a few days a week (so do check before you go), and are very impressive.

We parked at the far left of the car park field (see map at end) and entered through the gate at the corner of the field and the drive, which allows you to enter on the flat. Along the front of the field there are other points of access too, one of which leads straight up a long slope towards the castle and offers a great view.

Cholmondeley Castle itself is the brainchild of a vivid imagination, a hotchpotch of ideas assembled in 1801-02 and added to later in the 19th century. The castle is not open to the public, but the gardens, which are open several days a week, reach right up to the edge of the castle’s own private garden area, giving a great view of the exterior. According to the website, the Cholmondeley family have occupied the site since the Norman period, but the current castle replaces an earlier hall, a decision by George James, 4th Earl of Cholmondeley. It was designed by local architect William Turner of Whitchurch, and was extended in 1817–1819. In 1828 turrets designed by Sir Robert Smirke were added, and the castle has not been much changed since. It was occupied by the current earl’s mother Lavinia until her death in 2015, and is not now permanently inhabited.

The garden consists of naturalistic water features, formal gardens, a 19th century celebration of classical ruins, all set within an arboretum. It has an awful lot going for it.

The large ponds are not neat and formal rectangles, but look natural, whether or not they are, with large colonies of water lilies on the water, and water-loving plants along their edges. They feature small mock-temples, some of them on artificial islands, which are clearly not authentic but are a lot of fun, typical of a lot of 19th century and earlier celebrations of classical architecture. The first of these that you reach from the car park is the Temple Garden Pond.

The formal border, called the Lavinia Walk, leading from the Temple Pond via a rose garden to a small circular domed pavilion, is sensational, with a glorious mix of penstemon, alstromeria, roses, phlox, eremerus, rudbeckia, crocosmia, salvia, delphiniums, dahlias and lots of other brightly coloured species, some of them climbing parallel rows of round-topped obelisks that flank the path.

The second pond, the Folly Garden Pond and surrounding garden, is another aquatic treat, connected to the Temple Pond. As well as some magnificent hostas, apparently untroubled by slugs, and a lovely cornus kousa in a shade of deep rose pink, is a walnut grove and some wonderfully scented, heady meadowsweet. Slender, brilliant electric blue damsel flies were a wonderful, shimmering, endlessly shifting light show.

As well as these main areas of focus, there are some fun architectural and structural features between the main run of gardens, some excellent walks in the wooded and grass areas that sit between the main footpaths, and some superb flowering shrubs dotted everywhere. This is the sort of garden that has a central focus in the form of a formal garden, but also provides considerable rewards in return for wandering around to get a full sense of the place.

The trees, which in a traditional estate garden would be a narrow range of species dotted around parkland, such as at Chirk Castle, are far more closely spaced and include many varieties, and are an essential part of the garden landscape at Cholmondeley, a proper arboretum. Dotted around are some enormous and gorgeous hydrangeas, and in one meadow, tellingly named Orchid Meadow, we spotted beautiful wild orchids (shown left). In spring, the Tower Hill Woodlands contain a bluebell walk and plentiful rhododendrons, there’s a laburnum grove to the east of the Lavinia Walk and running along the line of the Ha Ha is a daffodil walk.

One visitor that we met said that he was disappointed that the once manicured grass on slopes and borders surrounding the main area was no longer being cut, and was being allowed to run wild. He speculated that this was due to the rise fuel costs. At the same time, it looked as though some areas were being redeveloped. Like all managed gardens, whether big or small, they all undergo change as new ideas are incorporated or new needs have to be accommodated.

There are details of some of the species to see on the Cholmondeley Castle Gardens website on The Gardens page. Something that looked like giant rhubarb (and I do mean giant, shown on one of the above photos around the lake) with thorny stems turns out to be Brazilian giant-rhubarb or, more formally, Gunnera manicata. I was particularly pleased to find that the row of trees that flanked the drive just as we approached the car park were identified on the website: Tibetan Whitebeam, or more formally Sorbus thibetica ‘John Mitchell’ (which has an RHS Award of Garden Merit). It is quite sensational with large oval leaves, light green on one side and almost white and slightly furry on the other. We missed both its flower (spring) and fruit (autumn) but even without either they were still very eye-catching.

As you drive in to park up, you pass a sizeable lake, and there are additionally lakeside walks, as well as a picnic are and children’s play area, all accessible from the main car parking area. From the tearoom, the drive continues behind the castle, and a 20 minute walk away is the St Nicholas Chapel.

Visitor Information

The opening times and ticket prices are updated on the Cholmondeley Castle Gardens on the Your visit page. It is not particularly well sign-posted so I would suggest that you either prepare in advance or use GPS.

We were handed a very useful map on arrival, shown left, which ensured that we did not miss anything of the gardens, and which also shows potential disabled access. My creased copy is shown left, but you can download a pristine copy from the Cholmondeley Castle Gardens website here.

Parking is at a field on the approach to the castle. Disabled parking is at the tea room, which can be reached by continuing past the main parking zone, along the lane and through the stunning white gates to the tea room and the disabled parking is behind the tea room.

The tea room itself was overwhelmed with visitors when we were there, and was unimpressive. It was a hot day and as well as being airless and steaming inside the tea room, the girl on the ice cream counter could not take payment, so customers had to take their rapidly melting ice creams and stand at the end of the queue for drinks and meals to pay for them, which took some time. It was all a bit of a sticky, disorganized mess. On the other hand, the outside seating, on the usual wooden tables with attached benches, located in both sun and shade, with views over the garden and towards the ornate gate, was very pleasant.

If the weather is nice, I’d opt for a picnic on a groundsheet under the garden’s trees, which several people were doing, overlooking the water. It all looked like a very mellow option.

I am not sure how friendly the gardens are to wheelchair users and those who have any difficulty walking. The map shows metalled lanes and gravel parks that are in theory friendly to both, but if you want to see the main attractions of the gardens there are some gradients and stairs that might pose problems or, should you be looking for ways round, may be difficult to circumnavigate.

Farndon milepost of 1898

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I’m still collecting mileposts that are found along the Chester to Worthenbury turnpike (about which I have posted in two parts, starting here). The mileposts post-date the original Chester to Worthenbury ones, of which none survive, but they are still a lovely bit of heritage When I originally wrote the piece, it was in the middle of summer and although I set off confidently with a map that marked the location of the surviving 1898 mileposts, I could only find two of them. Since then I have been finding them and adding them to a post about the 1898 mileposts.

This is one that I wasn’t looking for, because it is not on the official Chester to Worthenbury turnpike. I spotted it out of the corner of my eye on a rare occasion when I was driving through Farndon along Barton Road, and this was only because the bridge was closed and I found myself driving through Farndon to get onto the bypass. The exact location is, using What3Words: ///warned.tower.mascots, which you can see on a map at https://what3words.com/warned.tower.mascots.

I remembered it a few days ago and went back to photograph it. Many thanks to whoever does such a splendid job of sculpting the hedge behind it so that the whilst the hedge still looks great, the milepost is perfectly protected and easy to spot, and looks absolutely super. If only they were all so well cared for.

I’ve added it to my post about the other 1898 mileposts in this area, which I am happily continuing to find new mileposts for.

New Chester Walking Tour: Women of Chester

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Chester Visitor Information Centre. Source: Experience Chester

On the Chester Heritage Week’s tour of the Medieval features of Chester Cathedral by Nick Fry, Green Badge tour guide Katie Crowther was in attendance and mentioned that she was leading a new weekly tour themed around Cestrian women, “Women of Chester”, bookable in person in the Chester Visitor Information Centre. So on Sunday 3rd July at 1130, I presented myself punctually to join the hour-long walking tour outside the Visitor Information Centre, geared up for sun, cold, and/or rain. Although slightly cool, it stayed dry and it was a very good day for an outdoor walk.

The Green Badge is only awarded to Chester tour guides after a lengthy course and a tough practical exam, so is a good indication that you’re in safe hands. Katie is one of life’s natural communicators, avoiding any temptation to swamp visitors with paralyzing volumes of data, and instead delivering an information-packed and enjoyable tour in an entirely digestible and memorable way.

The introductory talk took place midway between the Visitor Information Centre (itself incorporated into the 19th Century Town Hall), behind St Werburgh’s Cathedral, with a randomly placed Roman column in view. It was a well-mixed architectural locale for the enormously helpful potted history of Chester, providing the key chronological framework onto which the rest of Katie’s narrative was neatly hooked.

Tombstone of Curatia Dionysia

This is not a tour about famous women married to famous men at the top of Cestrian society. Nor is it a feminist agenda. Instead, it is part ancient history, part social history, delving into how political, cultural and economic life shaped the lives of women who, in turn, responded to the drivers of Chester life in different ways. In short, the tour has tentacles that reach into most parts of Chester’s rich and varied past. As well as looking at women who, in sometimes surprising circumstances, have performed conspicuous and/or leading roles in Chester life, the tour also looks at those who fell foul of religion, convention and tradition, and suffered for it.

Roman women are the earliest to be recorded in any detail in Chester, and are particularly visible on Roman tombstones, representing the upper echelons of Chester’s Roman society, those who experienced the most comfortable contemporary life. By contrast, a horribly unfortunate woman accused of witchcraft in the 17th century suffered terrible conditions in the local prison whilst others were burnt at the stake.

St Werburgh pilgrim’s badge. Source: British Museum

Two of the earliest women who are known to have played a pivotal role in Chester’s history, were Anglo-Saxon. It is remarkable that the revolutionary diplomat and strategist Aethelflaed (c.870-918), daughter of Alfred the Great and wife of Aethelred, Lord of Mercia, is so unrecognized in Chester that almost no mention of her is made. She came came to Chester during the illness of her husband to take on a critical role in the defence of Mercia against the Vikings here, and was remarkably successful. The second Anglo-Saxon name that is intimately tied to Chester is St Werburgh, who died in about 699. Her remains were brought to Chester Hanbury in Staffordshire at some time between 875 and 907 by the aforementioned Aaethelfaed, raising the profile of Chester as an important Christian centre and destination for pilgrimage. Chester Cathedral is still dedicated to her.

Sylvia Brown. Source: CheshireLive

Amongst some of the many other women of Chester with great stories was one who kept an evocative record of what it was like to be under siege within the walls during the civil war; an 18th century pioneering commercial and retail entrepreneur; a mayor; a sheriff and two women who lost, respectively, three and four sons in the Second World War. Of course, Queen Victoria visited, and a famous Chester landmark is dedicated to her, although there is kink in the tail of this story that raises a smile. Suffrage and music hall provide equal, if more than slightly contrasting examples, both of women’s attitudes and of attitudes to women. Coco Chanel adds more than a touch of glamour to Chester’s story. Sculptress Annette Yarrow’s life-size female elephant calf called Janya is a fun way of highlighting the connection between the city and Chester Zoo and is a great presence. For those of us living in Churton, there is even a link to Churton Lodge! I won’t repeat any of the specifics, partly because I couldn’t possibly do justice to all the information imparted (particularly some of the funnier stories), but also because it would spoil the experience.

The walking tour ranges freely around Chester within the city walls, going up on to the walls for a chunk of the talk, and taking in a number of both famous and lesser known sites along the way. We also walked through the town, which retains the original Roman plan and in turn gave definition to the Medieval and modern town. As well as describing women in terms of Chester, and Chester in terms of the women who, though often invisible, helped to define it, the tour gives an excellent sense of the variety of architectural styles, old and new, and the use of space within the walls. Again, I won’t spoil the experience by saying which sites we visited or why, but there is something for everyone in the tour.

In terms of accessibility for those with unwilling legs or with wheel chairs or push chairs, there are disabled and wheeled options that avoid stairs. If your legs are fairly co-operative but hesitant, the number of staircases you have to tackle is minimal, with a couple of short flights of stairs up to and down from the city walls and the rows, all with good banisters to hold on to. If in doubt, ask on the day, and the guide will sort out either wheel-friendly or leg-friendly options. Apart from some slightly uneven pavements and the cobbled abbey square, there is nothing more challenging to tackle.

Coco Chanel. Source: medium.com

The “Women of Chester” walking tour is well worth an hour on a nice quiet Sunday, with lots of other places to visit afterwards to turn it into a day out. The tour offers a different slant on Chester’s history and it takes you to some interesting and sometimes unexpected parts of Chester’s heritage. The entire group of us, leaning perilously over a section of city wall to achieve a good view of a section of the wall immediately below us that had been rebuilt using Roman tomb stones, must have been a most peculiar sight! Some of those wonderful carved tomb stones, rescued in the 19th century, are now in an excellent display in the Grosvenor Museum.

It was a good outing, with a lot to make us smile.

The “Women of Chester” walking tour has been developed by three of the Green Badge guides, shown in the photograph to the right, and they take turns to guide this tour, so that each of them usually only delivers it once in every three weeks, ensuring that for each of them the material remains fresh. As new information is discovered it will be incorporated into the tour, meaning that it will be updated over time. At the same time, women who made a mark on Chester are being incorporated into a new database that it is hoped will provide a foundation for future research projects.

You can follow the Green Badge tour guides on Twitter at @visitchester and you can ask for more details about the Women of Chester tours on Twitter at https://twitter.com/WomenofChester

An impressive exhibit of decorated Roman tombstones in Chester’s Grosvenor Museum

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Introduction

Chester’s role as an important Roman military headquarters surrounded by a growing settlement, known as Deva, is very well understood, but there is not a great deal to see on the ground. This means that Chester’s Roman legacy is largely preserved in excavated archaeological remains, some of which are on display in local museum spaces. There is a small gallery of Roman objects in the Grosvenor Museum in Chester showing a wide variety of artefact types, from elite pottery to drainage pipes, but to display some of the large number of Chester tombstones, a special exhibition space was was created for them in a dedicated room in the museum, showing them off to great effect.

The display opens with a Roman style couch under a canopy, setting the scene for a walk down a path between the tombstones, emulating one of the Roman roads heading out of Deva. The walls behind the tombstones capture the sense of the surrounding landscape, part military installation, part civilian settlement, and part rural vistas. The tombstones are organized either side of the “road,” each one facing out towards the visitor. Low level information boards, great for wheelchair users and children, show useful illustrations of key examples, together with translations of the texts.

In the discussion of tombstones below, each example is accompanied by an RIB (Roman Inscriptions of Britain) number. Each inscription in Britain has been given a unique number. When I was at university studying the Antonine Wall, the Roman Inscriptions In Britain were recorded in print, but this was obviously the sort of content that was best suited to a database, and one of the best online resources for Roman Britain is Roman Inscriptions in Britain online. As a resource it has been developed and expanded, and the user interface is excellent. If you want to know more about any of the tomb stones mentioned below, this is a great place to start, with translations, illustrations and further references all available.

Burials and memorials

Altar RIB 3149, found at the Chester amphitheatre

The Romans disposed of their dead in a variety of ways that included both inhumation (deposition in the ground) and cremation. Wealthier Roman inhumation burials in Britain were traditionally accompanied by this sort of memorial, and might include tomb stones and commemorative slabs. In terms of how they were used, tombstones are much like the grave stones and chest-like tombs found in Christian churchyard cemeteries today, but dedicated to different deities and with far more elaborate scenes depicting the owners of the graves engaged in activities that showed them in activities that they enjoyed, or which highlighted particular qualities.

Collectively, these memorials are a useful source of information about Roman life and death in Britain, but individual memorials also have the potential to tell their own stories about the owners, the way in which the owners wanted to be remembered and the ideas with which they wanted to be associated. Although the Grosvenor Museum’s display primarily features tombstones, there are some altars too. Altars could be found in similar contexts, but might also be found in homes, public buildings and at religious sites. The above example from the museum’s exhibit, RIB 3149, was found in a room behind the amphitheatre arena’s wall during excavations in 1966, and reads, in translation, “To the goddess Nemesis, (from) Sextius Marcianus, centurion, in consequence of a vision.”

Roman cemeteries

Roman Chester with modern roads superimposed (click to enlarge). Source: British History Online

The area around the fortress was under military control and the location of the cemeteries was decided by the Praefectus castorum (camp prefect), who decided where civilian quarters and various facilities were to be located. Roman law was very strict on the matter of refusing burial with in urban and residential areas. Roman cemeteries were built outside towns and cities, and depending on the size of the urban centre there might be a number of them. The earliest tombstones and altars were erected along the sides of roads, but more formal cemeteries would have been established over time. These will have been destroyed as Chester spread out in all directions during subsequent centuries. Most of the stones in the museum, sculpted or inscribed, or both, had therefore originally come from one or more Roman cemeteries, and were probably dumped somewhere together to make space for urban spread.

Plan of part of the Infirmary Field excavation. Source: Chester ShoutWiki

One cemetery was revealed during rescue excavations carried out between 1912 and 1917 by Professor Robert Newstead. It was located at Infirmary Field to the west of the fortress, the site of a planned new wing for Chester Royal Infirmary. The presence of a possible cemetery had been known since the mid 19th century due to the discovery of burials adjacent to the Infirmary in 1858 and 1863. During his excavations Newstead found that the cemetery contained men, women and children who, judging from the objects in graves, were both military and civilian.

The tombstones in the walls

Section of the Chester City walls thought to be Roman, sitting on bedrock above the canal.

The high sandstone walls that surround the city of Chester were originally established in the Roman period, but were built upon in subsequent periods to repair damage and to raise the overall height of the walls. There are only a few places where Roman phases can be clearly identified with confidence, such as that shown on the right. The repair of the walls over time incorporated both newly quarried stone, and whatever stone was lying around from earlier collapses.

Although tombstones and altars are known from various locations around Chester, most of the Chester tomb stones in the Grosvenor display are from a cache found incorporated into the Chester city walls, completely divorced from their original funerary context, but would once have come from one or more cemeteries. The re-use of ancient building materials is common the world over. In ancient Egypt, the Pharaoh Horemheb re-used painted blocks from palace buildings of the heretic Pharaoh Akhenaten as rubble fill to create the thick walls of his monumental gateway at the temple of Karnak on the Nile. In both the Chester and Karnak cases, these items used as building materials have enormous historical value to us today as information about the past, but were simply unwanted rubbish when they were employed as building materials.

Plate A from Cox’s publication of his excavations in 1891

In 1883 the Chester City Surveyor Mr Matthew Jones was overseeing repairs to a section of the lower courses of stonework in the walls and the fill behind them near to Morgan’s Mount. As they prepared the site for the work he realized that he was looking at pieces of Roman stonework and that one was clearly part of a tomb stone, and he retrieved what he could see. Although no further investigations were carried out in1883, further repair work was required in 1887 between Northgate and the King Charles Tower, this time rather more extensive, and more Roman funerary pieces were found. Again, they had been used to repair the lower courses of the wall. So many were found this time that it was decided to extend the work and locate more of Chester’s Roman heritage. The Chester Archaeological Society, founded in 1849 (and still going strong today), was brought in to supervise the investigation of the wall to the west of the Northgate between 1890 and 1892. Taking all the finds from 1883, 1887 and the 1890-92 excavations, more than 150 stones were found, of which the Grosvenor exhibit is a tiny sample showing some of the best of the examples.

Key features of tombstones

Tombstone of Flavius Callimorphus and Serapion. RIB 558

The earliest tombstones and altars known from Chester date to the 1st century. For example, the tombstone of Flavius Callimorphus showing him with his son or nephew Serapion (aged 42 and 3 ½ years old respectively) was discovered at the Roodee in 1874, in situ over a grave, and was erected by Flavius’s brother Thesaeus (RIB 558). These are Greek names which may indicate that they were freedman and/or traders who had settled in Chester. Flavius is shown reclining on a funeral couch, and the elaborate nature of the decoration indicates that this was a wealthy family. Within the grave were two skeletons accompanied by a gold ring and a coin of the emperor Domition, dating to the latter half of the 1st Century A.D. Callimorphus and Serapion, the former lying on a couch with the latter in his arms, shown in the photograph to the left. On a small table in the foreground is a bird, which is a metaphor for the journey into the afterlife. Next to the table is an amphora that may or may not suggest that Callimorphus was an importer of wine. Although it is speculation that he was a wine importer, the family names indicate that they were of eastern Mediterranean origin, where Greek was preferred to Latin, and could well have been traders who settled locally. The name Serapion is of particular interest, as it refers to the god Serapis, who was venerated during the Ptolemaic (Greek) and subsequent Roman occupation of ancient Egypt.

Altar from Watergate Street. RIB 445. Source: British Museum BM 1836,0805.1.

Amongst other Roman finds, a 2nd Century A.D. stone altar was found in lower Watergate Street when Georgian terraces were built in 1778. It was dedicated to Fortuna Redux (Fortune, who brings travellers home safely, including soldiers and traders) and gods of healing and health Aesculapius and Salus. It was raised by freedmen and slaves of a Roman imperial legate, perhaps a provincial governor, who has the longest recorded name in Roman Britain: Titus Pomponius Mamilianus Rufus Antistianus Funisulanus Vettonianus. This is the only example shown here not on display in the Grosvenor Museum. It is now in the British Museum (BM 1836,0805.1; RIB 445)

Nearly all the memorials on display in the Grosvenor are made of red sandstone. The quality of the stone chosen was important, both for engraving scenes and text, and for durability. The raw material selected was not the most locally available sandstone, but according to Wilding was sourced some 8 miles away where better quality red sandstone was available.

The tombstone of Caecilius Avitus, RIB 492. On the left is the original as it was found. On the right is the replica with its bright paint, both on display in the museum.

The stones would originally have been brightly painted, which is a strange thought. A cemetery would have been a colourful place, new memorials brighter than older ones, creating a dazzling visual spectacle. At the entrance to the Grosvenor Museum exhibit there is a facsimile of one of the Chester grave stones showing how it might have looked in full colour, and when compared with the original unpainted version that is also on display, it is a completely different entity. It shows an optio (junior officer who was an accountant-adminstrator, second in command to a centurion) called Caecilius Avitus, wearing a cloak, a staff of office, a legionary sword and a writing tablet (RIB 492). It is like seeing the Lady Chapel in Chester Cathedral, painted to show how it would have looked in the Medieval period, or the glorious 17th century decoration of Rug Chapel at Corwen, near Llangollen, both of which are similar eye-openers, revising how we look at past objects and architecture. To modern eyes, so accustomed to seeing the past in subtle monochrome, the bright paintwork of Caecilius’s tombstone is almost shocking, but Roman life was anything but dull, either at work or at play, and the colours of the stones reflected this multi-hued existence.

Between the moment of death and the burial itself there were ceremonies, rituals and processions that marked the transition from this world to the next. For the very rich, this could be ostentatious and elaborate, involving music and theatrical performances, but for the poor it was a much more mundane affair. Often a Roman might provide for their funeral in his or her will, but if not the responsibility fell to the person who inherited the rest of the property of the deceased. When the deceased was buried, graves could be visited by the living, and at the end of February during the Feralia festival offerings were made to dead ancestors at their graves.

Tombstone of Curatia Dinysia. RIB 562, described below

Popular themes on the Chester tombstones are dedications to certain deities, symbolism surrounding the afterlife and depictions of the deceased lying along a banqueting couch. Reclining on a couch was a popular eating position used by wealthy Romans, and the couch represents a banquet in the afterlife, indicating eternal wellbeing. Some objects in scenes may hint at the profession of the deceased. Where an inscription is included, in Latin, the names can give an indication of the origins of the individual.

Text on tombstones is always highly abbreviated, which would not have been a problem for literate contemporaries (or for researchers today) because the abbreviations were standardized and the texts were highly formulaic. Many of the inscriptions begin DM, standing for Dis Manibus (To the spirits of the departed), and finish HFC, standing for Heres Faciendum Curavit (the heir had the stone made). The heir often adds his or her name and relationship to the deceased. Between these topping and tailing devices there may be additional information about who died including, for example, the name of the deceased, the age at which they died, who erected the stone in their honour, the place from which the person originated, the role that the person performed, a legion or auxiliary unit in which a soldier served and the number of years for which he served.

The Grosvenor Museum tombstones

Showing some of these features is a woman reclining on a couch, framed within two columns and an arch. She is shown in the photograph immediately above. Her name is Curatia Dinysia (perhaps a mason’s error for the name Dionysia), holding a drinking cup, with a three-legged table in the foreground (RIB 562). Sadly the head and face are damaged. She sits between two garlands or swags of ivy leaves, sacred to the deity Bacchus, each of which supports a dove, signifying the release of the soul. Above this scene, incorporated into the architecture of the arch, are two tritons (half men, half fish, like male mermaids, but sometimes shown with horse forelegs) blowing trumpets, representing the journey to the Isles of the Blessed where Bacchus resided. The drinking cup, probably filled with wine, may also reference Bacchus. As with Calimporphus and Serapion, the name Dinysia/Dionysia is thought to be Greek. The inscription reads, in translation, “To the spirits of the departed, Curatia Dinysia lived 40 years; her heir had this erected.”

The illustration on the right is by Dai Owen (Grosvenor Museum 2010)

Another woman is shown on a very worn tombstone, also cleverly recreated by illustrator Dai Owen (RIB 568). The woman’s name is damaged, but ends “-mina” She reclines on the banqueting couch with the familiar three-legged table in the foreground, a drinking cup in hand and a ring on the little finger of her left hand. Most remarkably, behind her, on the the high-backed couch, is a giant sea shell flanked by dolphins, again a reference to her journey to the Isles of the Blessed. Only part of the inscription has survived, with the DM of Dis Manibus (to the spirits of the departed) legend just beneath the three-legged table, and the end of the lady’s name just below that at far right.

Tombstones featuring women are usually found in this sort of military context, where many were wives, (more rarely mothers or daughters) of soldiers, and could communicate their own status alongside their husband’s, making statements about their own identity. It is good to have these as they are a distinct minority. Allason-Jones, for example, estimates that inscriptions dedicated to women make up only around 10% of the total inscriptions found in Roman Britain. These represent only the middle and upper echelons of those living in Roman areas. As with low status men, those women who could not afford any form of memorial have been lost.

The auxiliary cavalryman (equitis) Aurelius Lucius, who has a Latin name, but was probably not of pure Roman origins is an interesting case (RIB 552). Aurelius is shown with a moustache, beard and big hair. Again, he is reclining on a couch, and like Curatia Dionysia, he holds a drinking cup in one hand, whilst in the other he holds a scroll of paper that represents his will. Behind his legs are his plumed helmet and the top of his sword, and in the foreground is a small three-legged table and a boy holding a detached head. Auxiliaries were often recruited from conquered lands and were not Roman citizens. After 25 years in service they could apply for Roman citizenship. The uncharacteristic hair and the severed head, perhaps a war trophy, may refer to a background from one of these conquered regions, but Aurelius also chose to depict himself in a traditional Roman pose, with a traditional Latin inscription. Perhaps he had become a citizen, incorporating his career as a foreign cavalryman but opting for a Roman afterlife.

One of the most remarkable of the Grosvenor’s tombstones is this rider on a horse carrying a flying standard. It is thought to represent a a Sarmatian from an area now occupied by southern Ukraine and northern Romania. The Sarmatians were nomadic hunters and pastoralists, excellent horse breeders and riders and formidable warriors. No inscription survives, but he was almost certainly an auxiliary, as the Sarmatians were conquered in AD 175, and some are known to have been present in Britain. Although none are known from Chester, there were Sarmatians in a regiment deployed at Ribchester in Lancashire, and it is not unlikely that a detachment of that regiment was present in Chester when this individual died. The tall helmet is distinctive, and he holds a standard which he holds in both hands. If he was indeed Sarmatian, this would have been topped with a fearsome dragon’s head with brightly coloured fabric flying to its rear. When wind ran through the dragon’s jaws at speed, it made a terrifying noise to put fear into the hearts of the enemy. His sword is in its scabbard at his side.

Another cavalryman is depicted on a scene that has lost its inscription, other than the letters DM (Dis Manibus) (RIB 550). It is very worn, and the top of the head and the hand (and whatever it is holding) are missing but the scene is full of energy. The horse, with its bridle and a blanket serving as a saddle clearly visible, is galloping with its mane blown back, and the rider’s legs hold tightly to its flanks. The rider’s right arm is raised above his head, probably holding a spear, whilst his left hand, hidden from view, holds the rein or the bridle. Trodden beneath the hooves of the horse is a naked victim who lies gripping a six-sided shield that has demonstrably failed to protect him.

Marcus Aurelius Nepos and his wife. RIB 491

A rather more domestic scene is provided by Marcus Aurelius Nepos and his wife. The stone is right at the rear of the exhibit, and the inscription is difficult to see (it was not particularly clearly engraved in the first place) and is confined to the left, beneath the figure of Marcus Aurelius, centurion of the XXth Legion Valera Victrix, who died aged 50 years old. There is a space beneath the figure of his wife for an inscription, but for reasons unknown this was never added. As it was she who commissioned the stone, she was clearly still alive when the carving was made and may have left the space for an inscription of her own when she herself died, but perhaps she died elsewhere. Marcus Aurelius is bearded, carrying a staff and has a prominent belt, a cloak over his shoulders with a small brooch attached. His wife is holding a cup, and lefts the hem of her dress with one hand to reveal the skirt beneath. Not visible in the photograph is an engraving on the side that shows a mason’s hammer and set square and the words SVB ASCIA D[edicatum], meaning “dedicated under the axe,” perhaps a formula to deter vandals. The tombstone dates to the 3rd century AD.

RIB 560. Tombstone of the child slaves Atilianus, Antiatilianus and Protus

The tombstones with elaborate or contained scenes are plentiful, but are still a minority in the context of British funerary memorials, representing only the most wealthy purchasers. Some tombstones merely showed a little decorative work to accompany the text. This example (RIB 560), although still very fine, was provided with ornamental features but no elaborate scene. It was dedicated by a master to three young slaves. It reads, in translation, “To the spirits of the departed, Atilianus and Antiatilianus, 10 years old; and Protus, 12 years old. Pompeius Optatus their master had this made.” It is possible that the 10 year olds were twins. Although the thought of slavery always sits uncomfortably in today’s world, it should not be forgotten that in a period when slavery was the norm, it was by no means uncommon for masters and slaves to develop relationships of mutual affection and respect. Perhaps that is what we are seeing here.

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Final Comments

Architectural detail showing a male gorgon, with four snakes emanating from each side of his head.

The tombstones described above represent only a a small sample of the total number of engraved stones preserved from Chester. Of those that were not tombstones, some were pieces of altars and others were fragments of bigger pieces of architecture, many of which also came out the 19th century excavations in the Chester walls, some showing Roman deities. They are out of the scope of this post but, do watch out for those too in the display if you visit the museum.

The tombstones are particularly evocative and hopefully the small sample provided here gives an idea of what sort of themes were common, and how people like to have themselves depicted. Death in the Roman empire was an integral part of a soldier’s life, and in the military life of Chester, death had its own role and its own places, with its own objects and iconography. Most of the individuals represented here were of relatively high status, except for the slaves of their master Pompeius Optatus, but they came from a variety of backgrounds, all either stationed here or drawn here for commercial reasons by the military stronghold, and it is good to be able to see some of the variety that made up Deva society.

19th century illustrations from Chester Archaeological Society reports of the tombstones and other engraved stones excavated from the walls (click image to enlarge). Sources, left to right: de Gray Birch 1887, Watkin 1887, de Gray Birch 1888, Jones 1887, all in the Journal of the Chester Archaeological Society volume 2 (references below).

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For those who are interested in seeing something of Rome under foot in Chester, to supplement what can be found in museums, there are a number of guided tours available (some lead by Roman Centurions!). If you prefer a self-guided tour, the Royal Geographic Society’s “Discovering Britain” website provides one, which can be downloaded as a a PDF or as an app for your mobile device: https://www.discoveringbritain.org/activities/north-west-england/trails/chester-trail.html.

Sources:

Those that were of particular use for this post are shown in bold

Books and papers

Allason-Jones, L. 2012. Chapter 34, Women in Roman Britain. In (eds.) James, S.L. and Dillon, S. A Companion to Women in the Ancient World. Wiley

Bell, C.E. 2020. Investigating the Autonomy of Power: Epigraphy of Women in Roman Britain. Dissertation Submitted for the Master’s Degree in Archaeology, University of Liverpool
https://www.academia.edu/44879704/Investigating_the_Autonomy_of_Power_Epigraphy_of_Women_in_Roman_Britain

Brock, E. P Loftus. 1888) The age of the walls of Chester, with references to recent discussions; The discussion on the above paper; Mr Brock’s reply to the various speakers. Journal of the Chester Archaeological Society 2. Vol 2, p. 40-97.
https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-2910-1/dissemination/pdf/JCAS_ns_002/JCAS_ns_002_040-097.pdf

Cox, E.W. 1891. Notes on the sculptures of the Roman monuments recently found in Chester. The Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, vols.43044, 1891-92, p.91-102

Eckardt, H. 2014. Objects and Identities. Roman Britain and the North-Western Provinces. Oxford University Press

de Gray Birch, W. 1888. Notes on a sculptured stone recently found in the North Wall of the city of Chester. Journal of the Chester Archaeological Society 2. Vol 2, p. 25-39.
https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-2910-1/dissemination/pdf/JCAS_ns_002/JCAS_ns_002_025-039.pdf

de Grey Birch, W. 1888. The inscribed Roman stones recently found at Chester, during the second series of repairs to the North Wall. Journal of the Chester Archaeological Society, vol.2, p. 98-131.
https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-2910-1/dissemination/pdf/JCAS_ns_002/JCAS_ns_002_098-131.pdf

Grosvenor Museum 2010. A Guide to Roman Stones at the Grosvenor Museum Chester. Illustrations by Dai Owen.

Henig, M. 2002. Tales from the Tomb. In (ed.) Carrington, P. Deva Victrix; Roman Chester Re-Assessed papers from a weekend conference held at Chester College 3-5 September 1999. Chester Archaeology
https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-2910-1/dissemination/pdf/CAS_DevaVictrix/CAS_DevaVictrix_075-078.pdf

Jones, I. Matthews. 1888. Official report on the discoveries of Roman remains at Chester, during the first repairs to the North Wall, in 1887. Journal of the Chester Archaeological Society 2. Vol 2, p. 1-10.
https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-2910-1/dissemination/pdf/JCAS_ns_002/JCAS_ns_002_001-010.pdf

Mason, D.J.P. 2007 (2nd edition). Roman Chester. City of the Eagles. Tempus

Thompson Watkin, W. T. 1888. The Roman inscriptions discovered at Chester, during the first repairs to the North Wall, in 1887. Journal of the Chester Archaeological Society 2. Vol 2, p.11-24.
https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-2910-1/dissemination/pdf/JCAS_ns_002/JCAS_ns_002_011-024.pdf

Wilding, R. 2006. Graham Webster Gallery of Roman Stones at the Grosvenor Museum, Chester: Explore the Hidden Mysteries of the ‘lost’ Roman Gravestones.

Websites

Roman Inscriptions of Britain (RIB)
https://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/

Chester Archaeological Society
Professor Robert Newstead F. R. S. Lecture given to Chester Archaeological Society, 5th December 2009. By Elizabeth Royles, Keeper of Early History, Grosvenor Museum
http://chesterarchaeolsoc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/LRoyles-NewsteadLecture_05-12-09.pdf

Roman Baths
You can decode tombstones at the Roman Baths, Bath
https://www.romanbaths.co.uk/sites/roman_baths/files/heritage/SECONDARY%20SCHOOL%20Decoding%20Roman%20tombstone%20leaflet_0.pdf

Encylopedia Britannica
“Sarmatian.” The Editors of Encyclopaedia, 29 Mar. 2018. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sarmatian

Heritage Festival Tour: Chester Cathedral’s Medieval Architecture by Nick Fry

A walk from Telford’s Horseshoe Falls to the outskirts of Llangollen

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Photograph taken from the top of the path leading from the car park, looking down at the Horseshoe Falls

The Horseshoe Falls are just outside Llangollen, a remarkable and lovely feature developed by Thomas Telford as part of his solution for supplying the Llangollen canal with water. As the name suggests, it is a semi-circle of falling water, actually a man-made weir, which combines human symmetry with the natural beauty of water. It looked spectacular in the sun, more art than engineering.

I usually make my comments about accessibility for people with uncooperative legs at the end, but in case the above photo makes you think I have lost my mind to categorize it as suitable , this is because there are other ways to approach the falls than from the top of the hill, approaches that are completely on the flat along the canal towpath. Bear with me; clarity will emerge 🙂

Map of the Horse Falls area. Source: Pontcysyllte Aqueduct website

I had not set out to do this walk yesterday (Friday), and was actually on my way back from Valle Crucis (open once again to the public, but closed Tuesday and Wednesday each week), and was not ready to go home, so decided to drive down the road to the car park for the Falls, which is clearly signposted, and do a short walk to find out what it was like with a view to returning for a longer walk on another day. The car park is pay-and-display but it is only a pound for the entire day, payable by cash or by swiping your debit card. There are also public toilets. I imagine that it gets quite busy at the weekends.

It is a short walk from there up a very slight slope along a metalled path to the top of the hill, from which the valley unfolds below. There is an information sign here too.

I covered the basics of the building of the canal on earlier my post about the fabulous Pontcysyllte aqueduct, which you can find here, so won’t repeat that on this post, but the Horseshoe Falls deserve an explanation in its own right. To secure water from the Dee, which ultimately comes from Lake Tegid at Bala, Telford gained permission from the owner of the lake to take off water from the Dee for the new canal. The water had to be diverted from the Dee into the Llangollen canal by means of a feeder channel, some 1.8 miles long. The distinctively shaped weir helps create a pool of water that can be pumped into the feeder channel.

This link between the river and the canal required the installation of a pumping station by the side of the pool below the weir. It was replaced by a new Meter House or “valve house” in 1947, which still stands. A massive pipe, 20ft long and 3ft in diameter runs 8ft below the ground to supply the Dee water to the Llangollen canal feeder. This flow is released and slowed by means of guillotine valves which are controlled from the valve house. By using the water of the Dee as it fell from Snowndonia via Lake Tegid, over 11 million gallons of Dee water a day, is fed into the Llangollen canal, eventually emptying into Hurleston reservoir, just north of Nantwich, where the Llangollen Canal meets the Shropshire Union Canal and contributing to the greater canal network. It was completed in 1808.

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It is a short and not particularly steep walk down to the falls from the car park, and the hillside is, at the moment a sheer delight, with the slopes covered in giant buttercups, purple thistles and daisies, with a few blue speedwells dotted in amongst them. Once down at the falls, you are at the source of the Llangollen canal, a remarkable thought. The valve house for the canal is at your left, and the footpath runs both left (east) and right (west).

I cannot yet comment on the footpath heading west, but if you head left, towards Llangollen, you find yourself immediately on a wide, level path, the towpath, which runs deliciously between the canal on your left and the Dee on the right. The canal is very narrow at this stage, just a feeder, and not navigable. The Dee too changes character, from a wide, deep run of uninterrupted river to fast, impressive rapids channelling itself through large slabs of natural rock. Although the towpath runs above the level of the Dee, there are paths down to the river, and people were sunbathing on the huge slabs and paddling in the water.

The sound of the river coursing over the rocks is glorious, and a fabulous contrast to the peaceful, mirror-surfaced channel of canal that runs along the base of a solid wall of local rock, infiltrated by all sorts of rock-loving plant species and overhung by trees. The canal widens as it goes, but remains un-navigable because, even where the canal is sufficiently wide and deep, there is no winding point (an indent where narrow-boats can turn around. Long, sinuous weeds signal the direction of flow in the apparently motionless water, and fish, swimming against the current, hold a stationary position. With the sun on it, when not mirroring the vegetation and sky above, it appears gold and velvet brown. There are bridges all the way along, some modern and metal, but there are also traditional stone canal bridges, clearly numbered, with ramps for horses. There is also an impressively substantial bridge spanning both the canal and the river.

One bridge is a delightful exception, and very unexpected. The Chain Bridge Hotel contains within its Dee frontage, access to a small but perfect suspension bridge that provides access from the tow path to the railway station on the other side of the river, and some height above. There is a small car park at the hotel, which can be used by the public. I didn’t stop for a for a drink or a bite to eat, but the views from the terrace, over the bridge and the Dee rapids, are excellent. This would probably be a good place to start and end your walk (particularly if the food is any good) if your legs like things simple, because the whole walk is on the flat.

I didn’t go much further because it was already getting rather late and I had other things to do. I suppose I must have walked for about half an hour, with breaks to take photos, and then turned and walked back. Another way of tackling the walk would be to start in Llangollen and walk out towards the Horseshoe Falls. This would be a much longer walk, and one for another day, and again on the flat all the way along the towpath. I am looking forward to it.

I went some way past the Motor Museum, which was to the right and below the level of the towpath. The walk was particularly good on a day like yesterday, with hot sun and a light breeze. At this time of year, with leaves on the trees, the towpath is in dappled shade, perfectly warm but not too hot.

Here are the rest of the photos:
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Exhibition: “Tales from Terracottapolis” at Tŷ Pawb gallery, Wrexham

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Tŷ Pawb, meaning “Everyone’s House,” is a small but well thought out community and arts hub in the heart of Wrexham. I had never been to Tŷ Pawb before, simply because I didn’t know of its existence. Although I have been permanently installed in Churton for over a year now, I am still finding my way around. The photographs below are my own unless otherwise stated in the caption.

Ty Pawb in Wrexham. Source: Wrexham Leader

For those who have never encountered Tŷ Pawb, it was formerly a covered market with a car park on top. Apparently the market was hanging on to life by a thread before it was closed and as usual with this sort of change, the plans unsurprisingly met with some resistance. Often, the words “arts” and “community” when put together in the same sentence are enough to set any number of warning bells ringing, but in this particular case, there has been a strong dose of common sense and a real feel for the town thrown into the mix. The car park and the open space occupied by the market are still there, but the exterior and the former market space have been given a very smart and modern facelift. Small retail units and a food hall and modern benches and chairs making it an an excellent place to meet and grab a bite. It is an impressive initiative, and looking at it today, it seems to be working very well.

Source: Ty Pawb

The gallery fits in very nicely into this arrangement. The market space with its creatively designed modern signage and bright frontages and furnishings give the whole place a contemporary edge, which segues nicely with the inclusion of the gallery, which is so well blended into the space that at first we couldn’t see it.

We were there to see Tales from Terracottapolis. It is on until 4th June (open Monday to Saturday, 10-4, free of charge), and I recommend it wholeheartedly. It is a small exhibit, a single gallery, but makes brilliant use of the space with its excellent light. Using objects from the Wrexham Museum and elsewhere, together with art works from a number of local artists, it combines 19th Century with 21st Century ideas to explore the local production of architectural flourishes and glazed tiles that formed the character of an older, more confident and prosperous Wrexham. Some of the decorative twiddles, like capitals, finials and long decorative panels, could be ordered from catalogues, but others were custom made.

There is an excellent video that provides the background to the industry, and explains how the terracotta was made, from kneading the clay by hand via being formed into moulds before firing, a highly skilled process from beginning to end. It would have been really great to be able to re-see the video online.
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The front part of the gallery, where you walk in, is dominated by the modern pieces, many of which are very striking and engaging, and which aim to complement the story of Wrexham’s brick, tile and terracotta industry by offering new responses to it.

The first thing that draws the eye is The Brick Man by Antony Gormley, best known for his Angel of the North. It is (or would have been) one of his most tactile pieces, and a true celebration of brick. This is a scale model of a piece that was originally planned as a 120ft (36.5m) monument in the run down Holbrook area of Leeds, near the Leeds City Station. There was some public outcry against it, which is such a shame, as it resulted in the planning application being rejected by city planners. As well as the scale model, itself a solidly impressive celebration of brickwork, there is an archive of documentation following the sources of the statue, from the original proposal to the official rejection of the the proposal.

There is a fascinating letter from the Partnership Manager of the British Railways Board, who supported the idea of the project, to a disgruntled objector, which really hits the nail on the head for me. You can click on the image to see a legible version. I am often amongst the first to grumble about inappropriate and poorly thought out modern sculpture installed in urban or rural locations as some form of random art statement, because such initiatives can actually alienate people from art and frequently undermine the impact of the heritage in which they are being installed. By contrast, The Brick Man actually had real merit (originally, I typed “legs”), not only as an art work, but as a way of contributing to urban regeneration, both by drawing attention to the monument and the area, and by attracting visitors. It is also a good piece of art, which is important. I was previously unaware of The Brick Man, and it was a really good opportunity to see the scale model and some of Gormley’s original plans.

Display of pottery sherds by Paul Eastwood

Immediately on the right as you walk in to the gallery is a section of wall covered by rows of ceramic sherds that the artist, Paul Eastwood, had collected from riverside locations during lockdown. It was so familiar, looking eerily like some of the stuff I have been collecting from my garden, and posing exactly the same sort of questions. Eastwood, based in Wales, specializes in capturing how memory is created through objects and language and, in this case, what abandoned sherds tell us about the people who discarded them and the places they were found. There were other pieces of his work on the same wall.

A set of large stand-alone pieces in the main space of the gallery, hanging panels and tall curving sections, captured the images of walls and arches, surface-traced like brass-rubbings from the derelict walls of buildings that had produced the bricks, moulded works and tiles. I had not worked my way round to these Lesley James pieces when I was welcomed to the exhibit by one of the curators, who pointed them out to me, and I was glad she had as I would certainly have missed their textural connection with the 19th century manufacturers:

Lesley James surfaces traces

At the far end of the gallery is a floor-to-ceiling map showing the location of all the major brickworks. It is an excellent way of showing just how important the area was for the production of bricks, tiles and terracotta.

In this section of the gallery, the focus shifts from present to past, and some of the marvellous tiles and moulded terracotta pieces are located here, together with the video. This is where the exhibition makes a slight gear change from modern art gallery to beautifully displayed items of heritage. Both flanking the map and at its foot, are examples of locally made bricks, each one marked with the name of the works that produced it, with a key to identify which name related to which manufacturing works. In Farndon, on Brewery Lane, there is a Llay Hall brick more or less randomly incorporated into the left side of the road, all on its own, face up. I have no idea what it is doing there, but it was great to see two of its relatives on display, from Llay Hall Brickworks in Sydallt.

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J.C. Edwards ceramic tiles, rescued from a condemned property on the Air Products factory site in 1989, and restored and reconstructed in 1993.

The main manufacturers represented at the exhibition are Dennis Ruabon Ltd and J.C. Edwards of Ruabon, both important local producers of bricks, tiles and terracotta.

J.C. Edwards tiles were particularly valued and were installed locally at Liverpool’s Pier Head, and at the Lever Brothers village Port Sunlight on the Wirral, and were bought from as far away as Singapore, Egypt, Panama and India. Edwards also provided the floor tiles for the kitchens on the Titanic. There is at least one of his tiles in the British Museum, designed by Lewis Foreman Day.

Examples of Dennis Ruabon Ltd terracotta work can be seen locally in Chester at the Westminster Motor Car and Coach Works and the Central Arcade in Hope Street, Wrexham. Further afield, the Grand Metropole Hotel in Blackpool and Wellington House, at Buckingham Gate in London are high profile examples of Dennis Ruabon Ltd work. Whilst Edwards specialized in brickworks based on the Etruria Marl unique to the area, Dennis had interests in a variety of industries, including quarries, coal pits, waterworks, brickworks and a tramway.

Tiles by J.C. Edwards

Tiles by J.C. Edwards, Henry Dennis, Monk and Newell and the Pant Works

The use of clay pressed into moulds was an excellent way of enlivening buildings, giving them celebratory flourishes without all the costs involved in stone masonry. The use of moulds that could be re-used many times, enabled manufacturers to produce catalogues for architects, from which their customers could choose appropriate features, which not only made decorative flourishes affordable, but resulted in their proliferation, particularly on roofs. Once you have seen the items on display, as well as those more elaborate versions shown in the video, it encourages you to look up in places like Wrexham and surrounding villages to spot the terracotta work that gave many local towns a real sense of pride.

Dennis Ruabon Ltd chimney

The layout of the works was elegant and well thought out, with each item widely spaced from the next, allowing it to be appreciated without distraction. The combination of modern art works and 19th century heritage objects worked beautifully.

All the signage was in Welsh and English, and there was a handout introducing the modern artists whose works were on display, together with the 19th century manufacturers J.C. Edwards and Dennis Ruabon Ltd. I picked up the Welsh version, assuming that it was bilingual; presumably there was an English version as well, so if you don’t read Welsh, look out for it. I was rescued by Google Translate 🙂

The friendly and helpful curator of the exhibition, whose name I failed to catch, told me that over 2000 people had visited since the exhibition opened in March, with a number of them either former workers or their families sharing experiences. Certainly, from my own perspective of things I have found in my garden, the Llay Hall brick randomly set into the side of a lane in Farndon, and my enormous affection for 19th century tiles in general and the Westminster Car and Coachworks (now the public library) in Chester in particular, it was very easy to relate to this exhibition. The modern art pieces also work really well, balancing the older pieces and offering a new way of looking at this type of heritage, as well as engaging the visitor in their own right with thoughts about how heritage can be remembered, explored and, when necessary, lamented.

There was a school party arriving as we left, and on the table by the door I noticed that there was a pile of A4 sheets showing illustrations of three different statues, with an empty space for children to add their ideas for a monumental work. We flipped through the completed sheets, and they were brilliantly inventive. They made me remember what it was like to be a child with all that flying, chaotic, no-holds-barred imagination. I particularly liked the giant robin with a big mouth in its side were its wing should be, complete with a healthy set of teeth. The giant jelly fish statue was also rather terrific, but they all had something to offer. Some were surprisingly very abstract. It was a marvellous idea.

The gallery is a welcoming place, completely unintimidating. I both admired and enjoyed the entire feel of the place. My only actual grumble about it is that apart from seating for watching the video there was no seating in the gallery for those who have less than perfectly functioning legs, or who just want to sit and soak up the exhibits.

Practicalities:

The gallery is open 10-4, Monday to Saturday and the exhibition is free to visit. We didn’t investigate what else the gallery has to offer, so it would be worth checking what else is available and whether there is a ticket charge if you want to visit anything other than the exhibition space (Gallery 1). Full details for visitors and future exhibits are at https://www.typawb.wales/plan-your-visit. You can also follow them on Twitter at https://twitter.com/TyPawb

We parked in the multi-storey carpark on Market Street, which has lifts down to the ground floor where the gallery and the food /retail space are located. It was easy to find, and unlike some multi-storeys, the spaces were generous. Do not leave your carpark ticket in the car – the pay station is on the ground floor outside the doors to the elevators, and access to the elevators requires you to put your car park ticket into a ticket reader by the side of the door.

Tŷ Pawb has been shortlisted for Art Fund Museum of the Year, the winner of which will be announced in July 2022. Here’s hoping!
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Source: Ty Pawb

Sources:

Ty Pawb
Exhibition: Tales from Terracottapolis
www.typawb.wales/tales-from-terracottapolis

Exhibition handout in Welsh: Chwedlau o Terracottapolis 19/03/22 – 11/06/22

More re Wrexham’s brick, tile and terracotta manufacturing history:

Wrexham Leader
There was gold in the red of Dennis Ruabon
https://www.leaderlive.co.uk/news/20131331.gold-red-dennis-ruabon/

Old Bricks – History at your feet
Ruabon Area
https://www.brocross.com/Bricks/Penmorfa/Pages/ruabon1.htm

Coflein
Hafod Red Brick Works; Dennis Ruabon Brickworks, Rhosllanerchrugog
https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/40776/

Wrexham History
Henry Dyke Dennis and the Red Works, by John Davies
https://www.wrexham-history.com/henry-dyke-dennis-red-works/

Pontcysyllte
Brickworks
https://www.pontcysyllte-aqueduct.co.uk/object/brickworks/

Hansard 1803 – 2005
Brick and Tile Industry, Wrexham Area: Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Colonel J. H. Harrison.] – Mr. J. Idwal Jones (Wrexham)
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1958/jun/10/brick-and-tile-industry-wrexham-area

More on Ty Pawb:

Ty Pawb
“About” page
https://www.typawb.wales/about/

The Guardian
Tŷ Pawb review – an art gallery that truly is everybody’s house. By Rowan Moore
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/sep/01/ty-pawb-review-art-gallery-everybodys-house-wrexham-market

Architect’s Journal
Something for everybody: Ty Pawb art gallery by Featherstone Young
https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/buildings/something-for-everybody-ty-pawb-art-gallery-by-featherstone-young

Wrexham Leader
Ty Pawb, Wrexham, shortlisted for Art Fund museum of the year
https://www.leaderlive.co.uk/news/20126804.ty-pawb-shortlisted-museum-year/

More on artists in the exhibition mentioned in this post

Paul Eastwood
https://www.paul-eastwood.net/

Lesley James
https://www.lesley-james.com/

Antony Gormley
https://www.antonygormley.com/

The Who, When and Why of Flint Castle

Why here? The location of Flint Castle

Strategic importance of the castle

Economic potential of the area

The designer and the design

Building the castle

The town

The castle under attack during the reign of Edward I

Back in the wars after Edward I

Richard II

Owain Glydwr

The English Civil War (1642-1651)

An object of artistic interest

Flint Castle today

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The rise of Llywelyn the Last

The ascent of Edward I and the decline of Llywelyn

Renewed hostilities between Llywelyn and Edward 1282-3

After Llywelyn

Final comments

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The Tailor’s Quilt

Modern Responses to the Tailor’s Quilt

Final Comments

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Visitor Information

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Introduction

Burials and memorials

Roman cemeteries

The tombstones in the walls

Key features of tombstones

The Grosvenor Museum tombstones

Final Comments

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Practicalities:

Sources:

More re Wrexham’s brick, tile and terracotta manufacturing history:

More on Ty Pawb:

More on artists in the exhibition mentioned in this post

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