Castles & Palaces
Wales castle landscape

9 historic sites

Castles in Wales

Wales has more castles per square mile than any country in Europe — Caernarfon and Conwy lead a remarkable collection.

Cardiff Castle (Castell Caerdydd) in the centre of the Welsh capital — the Norman shell keep on its Roman mound behind the outer wall, with the Victorian Clock Tower of the Bute/Burges Gothic Revival apartments

wales · Cardiff

Cardiff Castle

Coal money and Gothic dreams in the heart of Cardiff — the Marquess of Bute spent a fortune transforming a Norman keep into one of Britain's most lavish Victorian interiors, with an Arab Room and Chaucer Room that William Burges designed as fairy-tale architecture for a fairy-tale income

From €99Explore →
Caernarfon Castle viewed from across the water, its banded towers reflected in the Menai Strait at sunset
UNESCO

wales · Gwynedd

Caernarfon Castle

Edward I's masterpiece of military architecture — the castle built to dominate Wales forever

From €80Explore →
Conwy Castle and its eight towers reflected in the Conwy Estuary at dawn
UNESCO

wales · Conwy County Borough

Conwy Castle

Eight towers and an unbroken wall — the most perfectly preserved ring of medieval town walls in Britain

From €20Explore →
Tintern Abbey in the Wye Valley — the roofless Gothic nave and window tracery of the Cistercian ruin at dusk

wales · Monmouthshire — Wye Valley, Tintern, on the River Wye near the English border

Tintern Abbey

Founded in 1131, dissolved by Henry VIII in 1536, and left to decay until Wordsworth and Turner made it famous — the ruin that launched British picturesque tourism

From €189.1Explore →
Caerphilly Castle reflected in its artificial lake with the famous leaning tower visible, South Wales

wales · South Wales

Caerphilly Castle

The second largest castle complex in Britain — a masterpiece of medieval water defence engineering

From €79.13Explore →
Castell Coch in Tongwynlais near Cardiff, Wales — the three conical-roofed round towers of William Burges's Victorian Gothic Revival reconstruction rising from the wooded hillside above the Taff valley

wales · Cardiff

Castell Coch

William Burges's Gothic Revival fantasy in the Cardiff hills — a Victorian architect's vision of a 13th-century castle rebuilt on genuine medieval foundations, with a working drawbridge and the most elaborate painted interior in Wales

From €936.78Explore →
Raglan Castle Great Tower and ruins in Monmouthshire, South Wales

wales · Monmouthshire

Raglan Castle

The last great medieval castle built in Wales — a courtly fortress of rare grandeur

From €7Explore →
Harlech Castle's massive twin-towered gatehouse on its cliff above Cardigan Bay and the mountains of Snowdonia, Wales
UNESCO

wales · Gwynedd / Snowdonia

Harlech Castle

The castle that inspired 'Men of Harlech' — Edward I's Iron Ring fortress on a cliff above the Irish Sea

From €932Explore →
Beaumaris Castle's perfectly symmetrical concentric walls and towers reflected in the surrounding moat, Anglesey, Wales
UNESCO

wales · Anglesey / Isle of Anglesey

Beaumaris Castle

The most technically perfect medieval castle ever built — Edward I's unfinished masterpiece of concentric design

From €13Explore →