Caernarfon Castle is the most impressive of all the castles built by Edward I and is one of the worlds great medieval fortresses.
Set on the banks of the Menai Strait and at the heart of North Wales, Caernarfon became the English administrative centre.
Robinson and Thomas (qv) say that "... King Edward seems to have gone to considerable lengths to give substance to the tradition linking Caernarfon with imperial Rome. The king must have known that the Roman fort of Segontium, lying just above the modern town, was inseperably associated in legend with Magnus Maximus, the usurper emperor. Maximus appears as the Macsen Wledig of the Mabinogion, and it is Segontium which provides the background to his dream of journeying from Rome into a land of high mountains facing an island. There he saw a great city with towers of many colours and eagles fashioned out of gold. This was done at Caernarfon, the walls were given a prominent patterning with bands of differently coloured stone. The towers were constructed in an angular fashion.
Caernarfon Castle is architecturally one of the most impressive of all of the castles in the world.
It's defensive capabilities were not as powerful as those of Edward I's other castles such as Harlech and Beaumaris but Caernarfon was instead intended as a seat of power - and as a symbol of English dominance over the Welsh.
Caernarfon Castle is located at the southern end of the Menai Strait between North Wales and Ynys M�n, nine miles south west of Bangor. During Edward I's invasions of Wales, this was strategically a great place to build a castle.
Ynys M�n was referred to as the garden of Wales, providing agriculturally rich land close to the poorer land on North Wales. The Menai Strait also allowed speedy access between the North Welsh coast and the western coast, and was therefore important for Edward to control for supplying outposts such as Harlech.
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