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At the end of the 13th century, an English King invaded Wales, | 0:16:28 | 0:16:32 | |
determined the locals would submit to his divine right to rule. | 0:16:32 | 0:16:37 | |
On this spiritual shore, Edward I of England hatched a devilish plan | 0:16:37 | 0:16:42 | |
to enshrine his authority over the Welsh - in stone! | 0:16:42 | 0:16:48 | |
What a piece of work and truly awe-inspiring. | 0:16:49 | 0:16:54 | |
It looks terrifying now, | 0:16:54 | 0:16:55 | |
but can you imagine what it would have looked like 800 years ago? | 0:16:55 | 0:17:00 | |
I want to bring this building back to its former glory and discover | 0:17:02 | 0:17:07 | |
what made this one of Britain's most formidable fortresses. | 0:17:07 | 0:17:11 | |
Although the stone walls are largely intact, | 0:17:16 | 0:17:20 | |
Harlech Castle has been stripped of its strongest defence - | 0:17:20 | 0:17:25 | |
the sea. | 0:17:25 | 0:17:28 | |
Back when it was built, I would have been walking on water, | 0:17:28 | 0:17:32 | |
not the sand dunes that are here now. | 0:17:32 | 0:17:35 | |
Rhian Parry knows what's happened to the coast | 0:17:38 | 0:17:41 | |
since the castle was constructed. | 0:17:41 | 0:17:44 | |
We do know from this map of 1610 by Speed | 0:17:45 | 0:17:49 | |
that it was quite a different picture. | 0:17:49 | 0:17:52 | |
You can see, here's the castle. | 0:17:52 | 0:17:54 | |
Look, we're presumably somewhere by that mermaid. | 0:17:54 | 0:17:57 | |
And look at the ships going in and out of the estuary. | 0:17:57 | 0:18:00 | |
The tradition is, and there's some documentary evidence, of course, | 0:18:00 | 0:18:04 | |
that there was a port for Harlech at Ynys at Ty Gwyn y Gamlas, | 0:18:04 | 0:18:08 | |
which literally means the white house of the canal, | 0:18:08 | 0:18:12 | |
and it's likely that this was all marsh | 0:18:12 | 0:18:15 | |
and at high tide it was underwater completely. | 0:18:15 | 0:18:18 | |
-So, Ynys island is... -Yes, is this one here. | 0:18:18 | 0:18:21 | |
So, if that was an island then, in the medieval period, | 0:18:21 | 0:18:25 | |
this was all marsh and open water. | 0:18:25 | 0:18:27 | |
Indeed and there are lots of little islands | 0:18:27 | 0:18:29 | |
and the place names tell you that they were islands | 0:18:29 | 0:18:31 | |
and people didn't call them islands for nothing. | 0:18:31 | 0:18:33 | |
Restoring the sea to lap against the walls of Harlech castle | 0:18:33 | 0:18:39 | |
is step one of my medieval makeover. | 0:18:39 | 0:18:42 | |
This is how it looked when Edward I of England built it to conquer the Welsh. | 0:18:42 | 0:18:50 | |
But the sea was more than a barrier. It was also a gateway. | 0:18:50 | 0:18:55 | |
Andrew, why have you brought me to this lump of masonry? | 0:18:55 | 0:18:58 | |
The name is explanatory in itself - this was the water gate, | 0:18:58 | 0:19:02 | |
and the implication is that the water | 0:19:02 | 0:19:04 | |
was adjacent to it. | 0:19:04 | 0:19:06 | |
The sea actually lapped up onto the side of these rocks? | 0:19:06 | 0:19:11 | |
It did. So you've got to imagine water down here. | 0:19:11 | 0:19:14 | |
-With jetties and ships and everything? -Certainly a bustling harbour, | 0:19:14 | 0:19:17 | |
because they had an enormous amount of material to get up. | 0:19:17 | 0:19:20 | |
All the stone they were bringing in, the iron they were bringing in, food. | 0:19:20 | 0:19:23 | |
-They were feeding 900 men, at one point. -So how do you get up there? | 0:19:23 | 0:19:27 | |
There's a path that goes up and I'll show you where that is. | 0:19:27 | 0:19:30 | |
The site of the castle starts to make sense. | 0:19:30 | 0:19:35 | |
With water guarding one side and steep slopes on the other, | 0:19:35 | 0:19:40 | |
there was only one way in - a landward gate | 0:19:40 | 0:19:44 | |
which was heavily fortified. | 0:19:44 | 0:19:46 | |
Look at this, those towers! | 0:19:47 | 0:19:49 | |
There's one, two, three, four towers? | 0:19:49 | 0:19:52 | |
Yeah. They give an enormous aspect, don't they? | 0:19:52 | 0:19:55 | |
Any attacker who got this far would have to breach the gatehouse, | 0:19:55 | 0:20:00 | |
a massive defensive obstacle that dominates the castle. | 0:20:00 | 0:20:04 | |
You're making a huge statement, that this is the strongest bit. | 0:20:04 | 0:20:08 | |
Yeah, very definitely. | 0:20:08 | 0:20:10 | |
And this is sort of the chamber where... | 0:20:10 | 0:20:13 | |
This is the worrying chamber where you didn't want to be. | 0:20:13 | 0:20:15 | |
-Two arrow slits. -Two arrow slits either side. | 0:20:15 | 0:20:18 | |
So, crossbows would have come through there. | 0:20:18 | 0:20:20 | |
You've got iron gate there, iron gate there... | 0:20:20 | 0:20:22 | |
-And attack from above as well. -Murder holes. | 0:20:22 | 0:20:25 | |
-Murder holes pouring down onto you. -Boiling oil... | 0:20:25 | 0:20:27 | |
Yeah, that sort of thing. | 0:20:27 | 0:20:29 | |
This concentric design, walls within walls, | 0:20:31 | 0:20:35 | |
held back the hostile Welsh nearby. | 0:20:35 | 0:20:38 | |
That's the Snowdonia range of mountains over there, and there's Snowdon. | 0:20:41 | 0:20:44 | |
And this was of course the Welsh stronghold | 0:20:44 | 0:20:47 | |
of the Princes of Gwynedd. | 0:20:47 | 0:20:49 | |
This was the real point that Edward had to get to, the bit he had to crack. | 0:20:49 | 0:20:54 | |
So what was his big idea? | 0:20:54 | 0:20:55 | |
He was going to encircle it with castles. | 0:20:55 | 0:20:57 | |
So Harlech is one, Caernarvon is the other on the north | 0:20:57 | 0:21:00 | |
and then you've got Conwy, and then slightly later, | 0:21:00 | 0:21:03 | |
Biwmares was built as well. | 0:21:03 | 0:21:05 | |
And this really represented, finally, the conquest of the Welsh. | 0:21:05 | 0:21:09 | |
It did, yes, yes, very definitely. | 0:21:09 | 0:21:12 | |
It's likely the grey stone walls of Harlech Castle | 0:21:13 | 0:21:17 | |
looked very different in its heyday. | 0:21:17 | 0:21:19 | |
Edward had the structure plastered with a white render of lime mortar. | 0:21:19 | 0:21:25 | |
Wouldn't it be great to lime wash the castle bright white? | 0:21:26 | 0:21:31 | |
But I guess no-one's actually going to let me do that, | 0:21:31 | 0:21:34 | |
but I have found a wall just down the road where we can try the stuff out. | 0:21:34 | 0:21:40 | |
The castle's coating of lime render was probably finished off | 0:21:40 | 0:21:44 | |
with this stuff - bright white lime wash. | 0:21:44 | 0:21:47 | |
Lime wash is the most marvellous material, | 0:21:50 | 0:21:54 | |
one of the great forgotten things from the Middle Ages. | 0:21:54 | 0:21:59 | |
It absorbs carbon dioxide and hardens just like stone. | 0:21:59 | 0:22:04 | |
The trouble is, to keep it bright and white, | 0:22:04 | 0:22:07 | |
you have to do it every year. | 0:22:07 | 0:22:09 | |
It's bad enough painting a little wall like this. | 0:22:16 | 0:22:20 | |
Can you imagine what it was like painting a whole castle? | 0:22:20 | 0:22:24 | |
It's just the question is, why bother? | 0:22:24 | 0:22:27 | |
Modern weapons are all about stealth, | 0:22:29 | 0:22:32 | |
but in an earlier age, this fortress was very much about broadcasting a message. | 0:22:32 | 0:22:37 | |
The building wasn't hiding, it was standing out, | 0:22:37 | 0:22:41 | |
a brutish display of English power. | 0:22:41 | 0:22:44 | |
This was the castle in full glory, | 0:22:44 | 0:22:47 | |
the shock and awe of the 13th century. | 0:22:47 | 0:22:50 | |
Can you imagine what that castle would have looked like painted all white? | 0:22:50 | 0:22:56 | |
A symbol of the conquest of Wales, but also a provocation. | 0:22:56 | 0:23:01 | |
Just across Tremadog Bay, from the battlements of Harlech Castle, | 0:23:04 | 0:23:08 | |
you can glimpse another, less menacing fortress. | 0:23:08 | 0:23:13 | |
I'm on the Llyn peninsula at Criccieth. | 0:23:20 | 0:23:23 | |
Mark Horton, over the water at Harlech, isn't the only one with a castle on this coast. | 0:23:25 | 0:23:31 | |
There are plenty to go around. | 0:23:31 | 0:23:34 | |
The original Criccieth Castle wasn't built by English Edward I, | 0:23:34 | 0:23:38 | |
but by his opponents, the Welsh Princes, | 0:23:38 | 0:23:40 | |
Llywelyn the Great and Llywelyn the Last. | 0:23:40 | 0:23:43 | |
I think his name, Llywelyn the Last, | 0:23:43 | 0:23:45 | |
tells you all you need to know about how things worked out. | 0:23:45 | 0:23:49 | |
The Welsh, from their power base in the mountains of Gwynedd, | 0:23:49 | 0:23:54 | |
rose up in a war of national independence in 1282. | 0:23:54 | 0:23:57 | |
But they were fatally divided and Edward crushed them. | 0:23:57 | 0:24:01 | |
Llywelyn was separated from his army and killed by the English at Cilmeri. | 0:24:01 | 0:24:06 | |
Edward then took over this Welsh castle at Criccieth and remodelled it. | 0:24:06 | 0:24:11 | |
But 100 or so years after defeat by Edward I, | 0:24:11 | 0:24:14 | |
the Welsh were back for more. | 0:24:14 | 0:24:16 | |
There was another great uprising in 1400, | 0:24:16 | 0:24:18 | |
led by the charismatic Owain Glyndwr. | 0:24:18 | 0:24:21 | |
Owain was a truly national leader, | 0:24:21 | 0:24:23 | |
with powerful allies like the King of France. | 0:24:23 | 0:24:26 | |
By 1403, much of Wales was under Owain's control. | 0:24:27 | 0:24:31 | |
He even captured the mighty Harlech and held it for five years. | 0:24:31 | 0:24:36 | |
At Criccieth he tore down much of the castle | 0:24:36 | 0:24:38 | |
that the English had extended, | 0:24:38 | 0:24:41 | |
a grand gesture that ultimately proved futile. | 0:24:41 | 0:24:44 | |
The English struck back. | 0:24:44 | 0:24:46 | |
Owain Glyndwr's revolt stuttered on, but he became a hunted man, | 0:24:46 | 0:24:51 | |
a fugitive and a guerrilla, | 0:24:51 | 0:24:53 | |
and nothing certain is known about him after 1412. | 0:24:53 | 0:24:56 | |
He slipped away then into the shadow world of myth and legend, | 0:24:56 | 0:25:00 | |
a so-called Son of Prophecy, | 0:25:00 | 0:25:01 | |
who would return from his mountain hideout | 0:25:01 | 0:25:04 | |
to free Wales in her hour of need. | 0:25:04 | 0:25:07 | |
Owain's yet to return to claim Criccieth Castle. | 0:25:08 | 0:25:12 | |
For now, it stands a silent sentinel, | 0:25:12 | 0:25:16 | |
guarding the sainted lands beyond. | 0:25:16 | 0:25:18 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:25:21 | 0:25:23 |