Harlech to Criccieth Coast


Harlech to Criccieth

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At the end of the 13th century, an English King invaded Wales,

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determined the locals would submit to his divine right to rule.

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On this spiritual shore, Edward I of England hatched a devilish plan

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to enshrine his authority over the Welsh - in stone!

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What a piece of work and truly awe-inspiring.

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It looks terrifying now,

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but can you imagine what it would have looked like 800 years ago?

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I want to bring this building back to its former glory and discover

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what made this one of Britain's most formidable fortresses.

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Although the stone walls are largely intact,

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Harlech Castle has been stripped of its strongest defence -

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the sea.

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Back when it was built, I would have been walking on water,

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not the sand dunes that are here now.

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Rhian Parry knows what's happened to the coast

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since the castle was constructed.

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We do know from this map of 1610 by Speed

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that it was quite a different picture.

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You can see, here's the castle.

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Look, we're presumably somewhere by that mermaid.

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And look at the ships going in and out of the estuary.

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The tradition is, and there's some documentary evidence, of course,

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that there was a port for Harlech at Ynys at Ty Gwyn y Gamlas,

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which literally means the white house of the canal,

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and it's likely that this was all marsh

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and at high tide it was underwater completely.

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-So, Ynys island is...

-Yes, is this one here.

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So, if that was an island then, in the medieval period,

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this was all marsh and open water.

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Indeed and there are lots of little islands

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and the place names tell you that they were islands

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and people didn't call them islands for nothing.

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Restoring the sea to lap against the walls of Harlech castle

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is step one of my medieval makeover.

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This is how it looked when Edward I of England built it to conquer the Welsh.

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But the sea was more than a barrier. It was also a gateway.

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Andrew, why have you brought me to this lump of masonry?

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The name is explanatory in itself - this was the water gate,

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and the implication is that the water

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was adjacent to it.

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The sea actually lapped up onto the side of these rocks?

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It did. So you've got to imagine water down here.

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-With jetties and ships and everything?

-Certainly a bustling harbour,

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because they had an enormous amount of material to get up.

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All the stone they were bringing in, the iron they were bringing in, food.

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-They were feeding 900 men, at one point.

-So how do you get up there?

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There's a path that goes up and I'll show you where that is.

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The site of the castle starts to make sense.

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With water guarding one side and steep slopes on the other,

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there was only one way in - a landward gate

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which was heavily fortified.

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Look at this, those towers!

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There's one, two, three, four towers?

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Yeah. They give an enormous aspect, don't they?

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Any attacker who got this far would have to breach the gatehouse,

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a massive defensive obstacle that dominates the castle.

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You're making a huge statement, that this is the strongest bit.

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Yeah, very definitely.

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And this is sort of the chamber where...

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This is the worrying chamber where you didn't want to be.

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-Two arrow slits.

-Two arrow slits either side.

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So, crossbows would have come through there.

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You've got iron gate there, iron gate there...

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-And attack from above as well.

-Murder holes.

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-Murder holes pouring down onto you.

-Boiling oil...

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Yeah, that sort of thing.

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This concentric design, walls within walls,

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held back the hostile Welsh nearby.

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That's the Snowdonia range of mountains over there, and there's Snowdon.

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And this was of course the Welsh stronghold

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of the Princes of Gwynedd.

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This was the real point that Edward had to get to, the bit he had to crack.

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So what was his big idea?

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He was going to encircle it with castles.

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So Harlech is one, Caernarvon is the other on the north

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and then you've got Conwy, and then slightly later,

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Biwmares was built as well.

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And this really represented, finally, the conquest of the Welsh.

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It did, yes, yes, very definitely.

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It's likely the grey stone walls of Harlech Castle

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looked very different in its heyday.

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Edward had the structure plastered with a white render of lime mortar.

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Wouldn't it be great to lime wash the castle bright white?

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But I guess no-one's actually going to let me do that,

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but I have found a wall just down the road where we can try the stuff out.

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The castle's coating of lime render was probably finished off

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with this stuff - bright white lime wash.

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Lime wash is the most marvellous material,

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one of the great forgotten things from the Middle Ages.

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It absorbs carbon dioxide and hardens just like stone.

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The trouble is, to keep it bright and white,

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you have to do it every year.

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It's bad enough painting a little wall like this.

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Can you imagine what it was like painting a whole castle?

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It's just the question is, why bother?

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Modern weapons are all about stealth,

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but in an earlier age, this fortress was very much about broadcasting a message.

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The building wasn't hiding, it was standing out,

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a brutish display of English power.

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This was the castle in full glory,

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the shock and awe of the 13th century.

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Can you imagine what that castle would have looked like painted all white?

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A symbol of the conquest of Wales, but also a provocation.

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Just across Tremadog Bay, from the battlements of Harlech Castle,

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you can glimpse another, less menacing fortress.

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I'm on the Llyn peninsula at Criccieth.

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Mark Horton, over the water at Harlech, isn't the only one with a castle on this coast.

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There are plenty to go around.

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The original Criccieth Castle wasn't built by English Edward I,

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but by his opponents, the Welsh Princes,

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Llywelyn the Great and Llywelyn the Last.

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I think his name, Llywelyn the Last,

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tells you all you need to know about how things worked out.

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The Welsh, from their power base in the mountains of Gwynedd,

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rose up in a war of national independence in 1282.

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But they were fatally divided and Edward crushed them.

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Llywelyn was separated from his army and killed by the English at Cilmeri.

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Edward then took over this Welsh castle at Criccieth and remodelled it.

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But 100 or so years after defeat by Edward I,

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the Welsh were back for more.

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There was another great uprising in 1400,

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led by the charismatic Owain Glyndwr.

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Owain was a truly national leader,

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with powerful allies like the King of France.

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By 1403, much of Wales was under Owain's control.

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He even captured the mighty Harlech and held it for five years.

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At Criccieth he tore down much of the castle

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that the English had extended,

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a grand gesture that ultimately proved futile.

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The English struck back.

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Owain Glyndwr's revolt stuttered on, but he became a hunted man,

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a fugitive and a guerrilla,

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and nothing certain is known about him after 1412.

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He slipped away then into the shadow world of myth and legend,

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a so-called Son of Prophecy,

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who would return from his mountain hideout

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to free Wales in her hour of need.

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Owain's yet to return to claim Criccieth Castle.

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For now, it stands a silent sentinel,

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guarding the sainted lands beyond.

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Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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