Caernarfon, Conwy, Beaumaris or Harlech: Edward I's World Heritage castles in Wales as Cadw describes them

The short answer

Caernarfon, Conwy, Beaumaris and Harlech are one World Heritage Site and four separate visits. Cadw, which publishes a visitor page and sells tickets for each castle, says the four castles and two sets of town walls, at Caernarfon and Conwy, were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1986 as the Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd.[1] Each castle has its own Cadw page, its own ticket and its own character, and Cadw's pages describe them in ways that make the choice between them clearer than the shared designation does.

In short, from Cadw's own descriptions: Caernarfon is the fortress-palace built at the same time as its town walls and quay; Conwy is the castle and walled town built together, with a circuit of the battlements; Beaumaris, on Anglesey, is the concentric castle that was never finished; and Harlech is the castle on a crag with its stepped 'Way from the Sea' up the rock.[7][6][5][4] XTOUR does not rank them, and it gives no distances or travel times between them: XTOUR has no routing data for north Wales.

What the World Heritage Site is

Cadw's World Heritage page places the castles in Edward I's two campaigns in Wales, of 1276-77 and 1282-83, and says many castles were built or repaired between 1276 and 1295. Of these, it names Beaumaris, Caernarfon, Conwy and Harlech as the finest, and says that at Caernarfon and Conwy new towns were built within massive walls at the same time as the castles.[1] The UK National Commission for UNESCO's page dates the start to Edward I's decision, announced on 17 November 1276, to go against Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, prince of Gwynedd, and credits the design to James of St George, the king's chief architect.[3]

The site is the four castles and the town walls of Caernarfon and Conwy only. Cadw's learning page says that, apart from Harlech, the castles served as commercial as well as military centres whose communities were protected by town walls,[2] but the inscription, in Cadw's and the UK Commission's wording, includes town walls at Caernarfon and Conwy alone.[3][1]

The site's name places it in Gwynedd, while Cadw's Beaumaris page describes that castle as on the island of Anglesey.[6] XTOUR records both as stated and does not resolve the county boundary.

Caernarfon: the fortress-palace

Cadw calls Caernarfon a fortress-palace on the banks of the River Seiont. Its page says Edward and Master James of St George built a castle, town walls and a quay at the same time, a project that eventually took 47 years. Cadw reads the architecture as a message: polygonal towers, eagle statues and multi-coloured masonry that echoed imperial Roman building, especially the walls of Constantinople, and the Welsh legend of Macsen Wledig.[4]

Caernarfon's is the only one of the four castle pages to list a museum inside the castle. Cadw's page says the Royal Welch Fusiliers Museum occupies two of the castle's towers and that entry is included in castle admission.[4]

Cadw's page is inconsistent about the King's Gate. A notice at the top says the upper floors of the King's Gate are not currently accessible while staff work to reopen the area and reinstate lift access; lower down, the access text describes the lift as available.[4] XTOUR reports both and does not know which is current.

Conwy: castle and walled town together

Cadw's Conwy page says Edward I and Master James built the castle and the town walls in four years, between 1283 and 1287, and that restored spiral staircases in the great towers allow a complete circuit of the battlements. It describes the castle as containing the most intact set of medieval royal apartments in Wales, and the town as enclosed by a ring of walls 1.3 km long.[5]

The walls are a visit of their own. Cadw's Conwy Town Walls page gives them 21 towers and three original gateways, presents the wall walk as free, grades the terrain "Level 4 - Strenuous" and does not allow dogs on the wall walks. Both pages say a short section of wall between the Watch Tower and the Wing Gate is closed while Cadw plans stronger railings and protective mesh; the walls page says it hopes to reopen that section by Easter 2027.[5][8]

Conwy is the castle with a joint ticket. Cadw's page offers one ticket for Conwy Castle and Plas Mawr, which can be used more than once in a single day, in either order.[5]

Beaumaris: the unfinished concentric castle

Cadw's Beaumaris page places the castle on the island of Anglesey, beside the Menai Strait, and calls it the last of the royal strongholds Edward I created in Wales. It describes four concentric rings of defences and a water-filled moat with its own dock. Then the building stopped: the page says lack of money and trouble in Scotland meant work had petered out by the 1320s, so the south gatehouse and the six great towers of the inner ward never reached their intended height.[6]

The entrance, Cadw's access text says, is a short walk past the wet moat and over a short wooden bridge.[6]

Harlech: the castle on the crag

Cadw's Harlech page sets the castle on a sheer rocky crag above the dunes and says it was completed from ground to battlements in seven years under Master James of St George, to a "walls within walls" design. Its story is the siege: during the rebellion of Madog ap Llewelyn, the page says, the castle held out because of the "Way from the Sea", a path of 108 steps up the rock that let ships supply the defenders. Visitors now enter by what Cadw calls a "floating" footbridge.[7]

Where Cadw's pages disagree

Read side by side, Cadw's pages do not tell the building story the same way.

• How long Caernarfon took. The Caernarfon page says the project took 47 years.[4] The Beaumaris page says that by the time Beaumaris was begun, Edward and Master James had "already constructed" Conwy, Caernarfon and Harlech.[6] Cadw's World Heritage page gives the broader statement that all four were begun and substantially completed between 1283 and 1330.[1]
• How many castles. Cadw's learning page says Edward had a hand in no fewer than 17 castles in Wales.[2] The UK Commission's page says eight new castles were begun by the king over the next 20 years.[3] The two counts may measure different things, new foundations against all castles Edward worked on, but neither page says so.
• Caernarfon's town walls. Cadw's walls page is headed "Open all year", yet says that for safety reasons access onto the town walls is not currently possible, that they can be viewed externally, and that the site is currently closed to visitors. When XTOUR read it on 11 October 2026, it also said a key to the Porth Mawr Tower could be collected on set days from a neighbouring shop until the end of October 2026.[9]

Tickets, as Cadw's pages state them

The four castle pages use the same wording: tickets can be bought on arrival or online at a discount, and online tickets are non-refundable. Each castle page lists the castle as closed on 24, 25 and 26 December and 1 January, and each warns that Cadw may close monuments at short notice in extreme weather.[7][6][5][4] Cadw's pages also advertise membership, which the Conwy Town Walls page says includes reduced entry to English Heritage and Historic Scotland sites.[8] How Cadw's membership and passes compare with the other heritage bodies' schemes is set out in the membership guide.

What XTOUR does not know

XTOUR does not publish ticket prices, opening hours, last-admission times or accessibility information for any of the four castles; Cadw's pages carry them. It gives no distances, travel times or public-transport advice between the castles or from any base, and makes no claim about visiting several of them together. It does not know whether the King's Gate lift at Caernarfon is working, when the closed sections of Conwy's and Caernarfon's walls will reopen, or how busy any of the castles is.

For what castle words such as keep and great tower mean on British signs, see UK heritage words. For other Welsh, Scottish, English and Northern Irish heritage, see the United Kingdom country page.