Kidwelly Castle

Wales have some of the best medieval castles in Europe. This tiny Nation is full of old, medieval castles.

See Kidwelly Castle rising above the river Gwendraeth on a misty morning and prepare to be amazed. This is the medieval fortress of everyone’s dreams.

That’s probably why it appears in the very first scene of ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’. But it would have been no laughing matter to attack this military stronghold.

Kidwelly began in the early 12th century as a Norman ‘ringwork’ castle made of wood and protected only by an earthen bank and ditch. Not surprisingly it was under constant attack by Welsh princes including the Lord Rhys, who captured it in 1159.

Four decades later the Normans were back in charge. By the 1280s the Chaworth brothers, powerful Marcher lords, had created the stone ‘castle within a castle’ that still stands today.