Hawarden Old Castle ( cy, Castell Penarlâg) is a Grade I listed

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

castle near

Hawarden Hawarden (; cy, Penarlâg) is a village, community and electoral ward in Flintshire, Wales. It is part of the Deeside conurbation on the Wales-England border and is home to Hawarden Castle. In the 2011 census the ward of the same name had ...

Flintshire , settlement_type = County , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , image_flag = , image_shield = Arms of Flint ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

. The castle's origins are indeterminate and the oldest fortifications on this site may date back to the

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...

, later being used as a

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

Motte-and-bailey castle which was reportedly destroyed and replaced in a short period during the 13th century. The castle played an important role during the Welsh struggle for independence in the 13th century. At Easter 1282,

Dafydd ap Gruffudd Dafydd ap Gruffydd (11 July 1238 – 3 October 1283) was Prince of Wales from 11 December 1282 until his execution on 3 October 1283 on the orders of King Edward I of England. He was the last native Prince of Wales before the conquest of Wa ...

attacked Hawarden Castle, thereby starting the final Welsh conflict with Norman England, in the course of which Welsh independence was lost.

King Edward I Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he ruled the duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony as a vassal ...

's sense of outrage was such that he designed a punishment for Dafydd harsher than any previous form of capital punishment; Dafydd was

hanged, drawn, and quartered To be hanged, drawn and quartered became a statutory penalty for men convicted of high treason in the Kingdom of England from 1352 under King Edward III (1327–1377), although similar rituals are recorded during the reign of King Henry III ( ...

in Shrewsbury in October 1283. A sense at the wider outrage caused by Dafydd's attack being made at Easter can be read in the account of the Chronicle of Lanercost; ". . . the Welsh nation, unable to pass their lives in peace, broke over their borders on Palm Sunday, carrying fire and sword among the people engaged in procession, and even laid siege o some places – probably referring to Flint and Rhuddlan whose Prince Llywelyn, deceived (more's the pity) by the advice of his brother David, fiercely attacked his lord the King; as we read written about Christ, 'him whom I loved most hath set himself against me.'" In 1294 the castle was captured during the revolt of

Madog ap Llywelyn Madog ap Llywelyn (died after 1312) was the leader of the Welsh revolt of 1294–95 against English rule in Wales and proclaimed "Prince of Wales". The revolt was surpassed in longevity only by the revolt of Owain Glyndŵr in the 15th century. Ma ...

. After the

English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...

in the 17th century the castle was

slighted Slighting is the deliberate damage of high-status buildings to reduce their value as military, administrative or social structures. This destruction of property sometimes extended to the contents of buildings and the surrounding landscape. It is ...

on the orders of

Oliver Cromwell Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three K ...

. Its ruins are on the New Hawarden Castle estate and are open to the public on some Sundays, typically the second and fourth Sundays in summertime.

References

* Alan Reid, The Castles of Wales (Letts Guides, 1973).

External links

Visitor Information: Hawarden
Castles in Flintshire Castle ruins in Wales Grade I listed castles in Wales Grade I listed buildings in Flintshire Grade I listed ruins in Wales Scheduled monuments in Flintshire {{Wales-castle-stub