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There are 427 castles in Wales – and this one is my favourite

There are 427 castles in Wales – and this one is my favourite

Many see the battlements that dot the Welsh landscape as symbols of oppression. But flip that narrative, says Matthew Trask, and they represent a nation’s dogged refusal to resist invaders

Photo composite of a medieval stone castle surrounded by a moat, overlayed with a semi-transparent Welsh red dragon flag that reflects in the water below

Published: October 25, 2026 at 4:00 PM

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It began with the smell of burning. A bonfire upon which armoured soldiers set alight their arrows. Blue, cloudless skies overhead and the heat of midsummer. An air of anticipation as the ruined walls of Castell Coety cast long shadows across the field of battle. The Saint George’s Cross gently swaying in a cool breeze atop the remnants of a once formidable castle. A trebuchet was loaded, primed and ready to launch at the behest of the attacking army. The man upon whose words the troops waited was one Owain Glyndŵr, a Welsh nobleman who was four years into his revolt against the English. And there I stood, a 10-year-old watching from behind a makeshift barrier, a face in a crowd of expectant onlookers.

As a child obsessed with the fantastical, it was like watching the battle of Helm’s Deep from The Two Towers writ large on the landscape of my hometown. This specific battle was a reenactment of Owain Glyndŵr’s siege of Castell Coety, which took place during his campaign across Glamorgan at the beginning of the 15th century. It was the first moment I remember falling in love with the history of my homeland. I had to learn more about this rebel hero. More urgently, I had to learn more about these castle ruins located just a short drive from my house.

To grow up in Wales is to grow up surrounded by castles. Huge stone constructions that hold the key to the nation’s history. With 427 castles, Wales has more strongholds per square mile than anywhere else in the world. As a child, these ruins each told a different story. From the Roman occupation to the 13th-century conquest of Wales by Edward I and beyond, castles have played a vital role in Welsh history. Fortresses built to maintain order and control over this wild, untameable land.

High-angle aerial view of the stone ruins of a medieval castle standing atop a grassy hill, with a village and green fields in the background

An aerial shot of the ruins of Castell Coety in South Wales. This is just one of many Welsh castles that are “husks of their former glory” | Credit: Getty Images

Some castles, like Castell Coety in Bridgend, are mere ruins. Broken by history and time, leaving behind only husks of their former glory. Others, like my personal favourite Caerphilly, are remarkably complete. Seeing that pivotal moment in Glyndŵr’s 12-year campaign for Welsh independence was just the first taste of the true wonders of my homeland, wonders represented by these great stone gateways to the past scattered across its rolling hills.

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Extraordinary ruins in everyday places

As a child, any journey through the woods or along the coast called to mind Frodo, Sam and the fellowship questing across Middle Earth. Ruins like those found at Newcastle or Ogmore sat dotted along our path. Even a summertime daytrip to the beach could easily become an imagined chapter in Glyndŵr’s rebellion, with me cast as the legendary leader and my friends playing the roles of the occupying English. We may have had only salvaged sticks for swords and our schoolbags for shields, but in our minds we were every bit as battle-ready as those involved in the Castell Coety reenactment.

Even a summertime daytrip to the beach could easily become an imagined chapter in Glyndŵr’s rebellion

Wales is a land of fantasy, one where myth and history are entwined. Where castles and keeps are home to heroes, wizards and mythic swords. The kind of land that births dragons and hellhounds and goddesses made entirely of flowers. And, as surely as natural wonders such as the fog-shrouded hills of Bannau Brycheiniog or the obsidian black surface of Llyn-y-Cau near the summit of Cadair Idris, the castles of Wales inspire these stories.

High-angle landscape photograph looking down a steep, grassy mountain ridge at a dark blue glacial lake nestled in a valley under a clear blue sky

The view over Llyn-y-Cau and Mynydd Moel on Cadair Idris. Castles and such atmospheric natural landscapes as these inspire fantastical Welsh tales | Credit: Getty Images

Back in the present day, Cadw, which takes its name from the Welsh word meaning ‘to keep’ or ‘protect’, manages and maintains 44 castles in Wales. After seeing my reaction to the Castell Coety reenactment, my parents immediately became Cadw members.

That same summer, accompanied by my grandparents, I began visiting castles. I took copious notes and photos. I collected leaflets and other ephemera. These visits deepened my understanding of medieval Welsh history and fed the mystique surrounding Owain Glyndŵr, who received his own chapter in a castle folder I assembled with the help of my grandmother.

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Roman incursion, stubborn Celtic resistance

Wales was famously hard to rule. Even the briefest look back through Welsh history reveals tales of famous rebellions, stubborn royals and defiant tribes. In 47 AD, the Romans continued their campaign of conquest across Britain and into Wales, where they were met with defiance by the Celtic tribes that occupied the land. The tribes fought hard to fend off the Roman invaders, with the Silures, led by Caratacus, also known as Caradog, proving particularly stubborn. The Romans eventually prevailed, building a key fortress at Caerleon near the English border to house a legion and maintain their control over Wales.

Aerial photograph of the grassy, circular ruins of an ancient Roman amphitheatre, with stone foundations and earth banks set near a modern village

The site of Caerleon, where today visitors can see “one of the most complete Roman amphitheatres in Britain” | Credit: Alamy

Caerleon was one of only three permanent legionary fortresses built by the Romans during their occupation of Britain. At Isca, as it was known by the Romans, visitors can see baths, barracks and, built beyond the walls of the fortress proper in 90 AD, one of the most complete Roman amphitheatres in Britain. Like Castell Coety, the amphitheatre fed into the fantastical vision of Wales I had begun to develop. Standing at its centre, I could almost hear the cheering crowds from the wooden grandstand at its edges. Armed with a wooden sword and shield bought from the gift shop, I recreated my own battle with an imagined gladiator.

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Even as the tribes of Wales slowly accepted Roman rule, rebellions continued to prove a thorn in the side of the occupying forces. The Ordovices were particularly difficult to rule. It’s perhaps revealing that their lands in north Wales remain absent from a mosaic map of the empire at Rome’s Forum. That same rebellious spirit lived on in Owain Glyndŵr all those years later as he sought to earn independence from England, then ruled by Henry IV.

Standing at its centre, I could almost hear the cheering crowds from the wooden grandstand at its edges

Longshanks’ long game of castle-building

Between the Roman occupation and Owain Glyndŵr’s fateful rebellion, Edward I led his army into Wales to bring the country to heel, ultimately forming the foundations of modern Wales. Llwelyn ap Gruffudd, the Prince of Wales, refused to pay homage to the king in 1275, setting the stage for war. Edward I took his larger invading force into Wales and eventually, in November 1277, Llwelyn ap Gruffudd, often referred to today by the mythic nickname Ein Llew Olaf or ‘our last leader’, surrendered.

Winning Wales was one thing, holding it was quite another. Dafydd ap Gruffudd led a revolt against Edward I that was ultimately unsuccessful. To maintain control over his new land, Edward I commissioned many of the fortresses that still stand in Wales today, including Caernarfon Castle, Flint Castle and Aberystwyth Castle.

Illuminated medieval stone castle at twilight, reflected in a harbor filled with small moored boats and yachts

Caernarfon Castle stands lit up at dusk, 2016. This castle was one of many fortresses commissioned by Edward I after his conquest of Wales in the 13th century | Credit: Getty Images

As I’ve grown older, my relationship to the castles of Wales has changed. While they may have been built by invading forces, they also stand as living monuments to the Welsh revolutionary spirit. That Wales has so many castles shows how hard it was to rule. And that so many of those castles were besieged by leaders such as Owain Glyndŵr speaks to that fierce sense of rebellion within its peoples.

Even today, whenever I think of the castles of Wales, I am pulled back to that summer day at Castell Coety. I’m reminded of my grandmother, whose own love of history nourished the flame ignited by that reenactment of Glyndŵr’s famous siege. I remember sitting in the conservatory of her house as we cut out images of the castles we visited and assembled them – not into a timeline of their construction, but into a chronicle of our journey. That folder, which I still have, doesn’t tell the history of Welsh castles, there are history books for that. Instead, it tells the story of my journey through the castles of my homeland. It tells my history of Wales.

Matthew Trask is a writer and journalist