Flint Castle

The earliest and most unusual of Wales’ English-built castles

Fans of military architecture make a bee-line for Flint. The first castle to be founded as part Edward I’s campaign against Llywelyn ap Gruffydd (Llywelyn the Last) in north Wales, it boasts a unique and unusually sophisticated design.

Started in 1277 and largely completed by 1284, the castle is dominated by the great tower (or donjon) at its south-east corner. Surrounded by its own moat and accessed via a drawbridge, it’s essentially a castle within a castle. Built with exceptionally thick walls and equipped with all the facilities required to withstand a siege, it was presumably intended to be a final refuge in the event of an attack.

Flint Castle is also famous as the location of a fateful meeting in 1399 between Richard II and his rival to the crown Henry Bolingbroke (later Henry IV), an event immortalised in Shakespeare’s Richard II.

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