Conwy Castle

Edward I built Conwy Castle between 1283 and 1289, shortly after his conquest of Wales. He built it simultaneously with the town walls, which is the key fact about Conwy: this wasn’t just a castle but a complete fortified settlement designed as a colonial urban infrastructure. The walls, the castle, and the town were built as a single system, and most of that system still stands. Walking the town walls in 2025 is walking a 13th-century circuit that was always meant to be walked by soldiers and settlers alike.

The Castle

Cadw manages the site. Admission is around GBP 10 for adults, and the castle is generally open 9:30am to 5pm in summer with shorter winter hours; check the Cadw website before going.

The eight round towers are immediately striking from the estuary approach. Inside, the Great Hall is now roofless but gives a clear sense of the original scale; the views from the towers across the Conwy Estuary and into Snowdonia are genuinely excellent. The audio guide is worth getting: the castle’s history from Edwardian conquest through a Civil War siege in the 1640s is genuinely interesting, and the on-site interpretation is sparse without it. Allow 90 minutes to two hours to do it properly.

The Town Walls

1.3 kilometres of medieval wall with 21 towers, mostly walkable along the top. The views into the town from the wall walk and down to the estuary make this a more engaging 30 to 40 minutes than the castle itself in some ways. It’s free, and most visitors miss it because they focus entirely on the castle.

Thomas Telford’s Conwy Suspension Bridge (1826) crosses the estuary immediately beside the castle. The combination of medieval castle and Regency engineering bridge in the same view is one of those specifically British juxtapositions.

Aberconwy House on the main street is a 14th-century merchant’s house claimed as the oldest surviving house in Wales. Small admission, worth 30 minutes for the domestic scale of the rooms.

Eating

Talardd within the town walls does traditional Welsh pub food with locally sourced ingredients, good atmosphere. The Ship Inn is a family-run pub slightly off the tourist path with better value than the more visible waterfront options.

Staying

Plas Mawr Boutique Hotel occupies a 16th-century townhouse with good rooms and breakfast. The Premier Inn Conwy is the reliable budget option within the walls.

Nearby

Bodnant Garden (16 km east) is worth a specific visit in late spring when the laburnum arch flowers; it’s one of the finest gardens in Wales. Snowdonia National Park begins at Conwy’s edge; Llanberis and the Snowdon Mountain Railway are about 35 km south. For castle completists, Caernarfon 30 km southwest is the grandest of Edward I’s Welsh fortresses and the two can be combined in a single day with a car.