King Edward’s Planted Towns
Welcome to our video about King Edward’s planted towns in North Wales! Planted towns, which in modern words might be called planned towns or planned communities, have been in existence for millenia. The Romans were well known for establishing grid patterns in any new settlement they built, and their street system remains in many British towns. The Anglo-Saxons established planned towns, and as the middle ages progressed, lords and kings at times wanted to establish a town where there hadn’t been one before. The Normans called these bastides. They were usually created for economic purposes, and were designed for the mutual benefit of the king, the landowner, and the new townsfolk to provide an efficient way of marketing surplus food and other goods and supplying a newly established castle. The landowner would charge a rent for a building plot (a Read more…
Castles of the Welsh Princes
Today I’m going to be talking about the castles of the Welsh kings and princes of Gwynedd. The kingdoms of Wales existed as separate entities long before the arrival of the Normans in 1066. In those days however the Welsh did not build castles so much as administrative centers. Today these are known as llys which means ‘palace’. Only one, Llys Rhosyr on the island of Anglesey, has been excavated. Thus, while the rulers of the different kingdoms did lead armies against each other they were not based on Castle defenses. When the Welsh did build defensive structures, they tended to continue the iron age tradition of building forts, hence the word ‘caer’ which is in so many Welsh place names. These forts were built on high ground, and usually built out of wood rather than stone. A perfect example Read more…
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