Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/497

 Coniuay Castle. 453 necessary repairs would be undertaken ; if not, surely it would not be difficult to provide the means by private subscription. In any case something should be done at once, for the top of the keep is in that condition that every winter tells severely upon it. The plans and illustrations appended to this notice of the castle are from actual survey by Mr. A. S. Ellis, and by him presented to the Yorkshire Archaeological Society, by whose permission they are here reprinted. They will be found as far. superior in accuracy as in completeness of detail to any plans as yet published, and it may be said of them, and it is no slight praise, that they arc worthy of the important fortress they are intended to illustrate. CONWAY CASTLE. '^I'^HE castle and town of Conway form together the most com- X plete and the best preserved example of mediaeval military architecture in Britain. The works are all of one date and design, apparently by one engineer, at the command of a monarch specially skilled in the art of war, and whose intention here was to command a very formidable pass, and to put a curb upon the boldest, most persistent, and most dangerous of the foes who strove to resist the consolidation of his kingdom. At Conway are displayed all the arts of defence as understood in the thirteenth century. The posi- tion is naturally strong, the walls are of unusual thickness, each part of the containing curtains is flanked by frequent towers, and the castle predominates over the whole position, commanding and protecting the town, and forming a citadel within which, as a last resource, a secure shelter would be afforded. Conway, the Aber-Conwy of the Welsh, stands on the left or western bank of the river whence it derives its name, and which is commemorated by Drayton and Spenser as rich in " precious orient pearls," and here is widening into an estuary. The southern front of the town is further protected by the marshy bed of the Gyffin, which here joins the Conwy. Town and castle cover a triangular mass of rock, of which the castle occupies the apex projecting into the water. The curtain wall which encircles the town is strengthened by twenty-eight towers, all but two or three of which are half-cylinders in figure, and open from top to bottom in the rear. They rise one stage above the curtain, which also is unusually high. Between two of them there project upon corbels from the curtain at the battlement level a row of twelve garderobes, showing that sanitary arrangements were by no means neglected even in the thirteenth century. There are three gates, each flanked by a pair of towers, defended by double doors, portcullis, grate,