Historic background
The castle and town of Harlech both occupy
an impressive promontory site which overlooks Tremadoc Bay
and across the Llyn Peninsula. They were jointly conceived
as part of the chain of castle-boroughs intended to encircle
North Wales by Edward I. Building operations began in 1283
and progress was sufficiently rapid for the new borough to
receive its royal charter in the following year. Despite the
grandeur of the castle, which was largely complete by 1289,2
the town proved to be the smallest of the Edwardian planned
boroughs and only 12 taxpayers appear in the Subsidy Roll of
1292—3. By 1305 the burgage total stood at 24, and by
1312 it had risen to 29, but neither figure suggests that the
population of the community exceeded 150 persons.
Like nearby Cricieth the medieval settlement
at Harlech was a poor companion to its splendid castle, although
it had its commercial and administrative functions since both
the hundred court and the county sessions met here, and there
was also a weekly market on Saturdays together with four annual
fairs. No attempt was made to wall the borough, however, a
decision which must have been regretted after Glyndwr’s
attack when 46 houses, virtually the whole town, were destroyed.
Neither was a church built within the area of the early town,
although there was a medieval chapel which Speed (1610) marks
as standing in Stryd Fawr, immediately to the east of the castle
in the area of the modem hotel’. He adds that the building
was then ‘decayed and without use’,and no traces
of it remain, although its site appears to correspond with
the area of the hotel car park since this land appears on the
1843 Tithe Map as ‘Chapel Yard’. Attached to the
chapel was a small graveyard, and several burials were unearthed
during building operations in 1808. Few other vestiges of urban
life are recorded. The borough had its mill, mentioned as early
as 1305, and Speed shows its position as beyond the north-eastern
corner of the castle where the land falls sharply down to the
caravan park. There was also an early town hall, but its site
is not known; the building was ruinous at the beginning of
the 19th century, and its site had been built on by 1813.
The later history of Harlech is poorly documented
and appears to have been uneventful except for the role of
the castle during the Wars of the Roses and the Civil War.
Speed’s plan suggests that the borough failed to recover
from the ravages of Glyndwr, who held the castle for nearly
five years,and he indicates a mere handful of tenements
lining Stryd Fawr with the beginnings of a secondary street
at right-angles to it, the present Pen Dref. Harlech declined
during the later middle ages as its military function became
superfluous, although it retained some administrative status
and later attracted renewed commercial activities which caused
it to assume a “sub-urban” character in which small-scale
rural industries played an increasingly important role. A contemporary
description of the borough referred to ‘a verye poore
towne ... having no traphicke or trade’, and 200 years
later Fenton was still able to observe that it was ‘the
most forlorn, beggarly place imaginable’. Harlech is
also the court in which Bendigaefran is sitting at the beginning
of the second branch of the Mabinogi, Branwen ferch Llyr, when
Matholwch arrives from Ireland seeking marriage with Branwen.
Obviously the place was associated with a royal court and would
have been well-known to the story's audience.
Key historic landscape characteristics
Medieval castle, largely 19th century
townscape, elegant stone buildings, arts and crafts houses
Harlech is the only true town in Ardudwy,
although there are no buildings within the town itself which
betray its medieval origins. The layout of the town has been
dictated by the local topography: it is set on a steeply-sloping
hill side above the now-enclosed and drained Morfa. The main
thoroughfare through the town (formerly the main road running
through Ardudwy, but that now runs along the Morfa and climbs
the hill at the southern end of the town) is Stryd Fawr, and
is probably on the line of the medieval main street. The buildings
are all of stone, in a bewildering variety of styles but mainly
18th and 19th century (although many of the non-domestic buildings
have 20th century frontages), mostly in short terraces, either
2 or 3 stories high. This street contains most of the town's
amenities - as well as terraced houses, there are shops, banks,
a surgery, a library, a chapel, hotels and restaurants.
Pendref, which also probably lies on the line
of a medieval street, leads off from Stryd Fawr at right-angles
up a very steep hill. Apart from the hotel on the corner, most
of the buildings here, all of which are on the south side of
the street, are short, terraced 2 storey houses. A longer terrace
is set again at right-angles to the north side, and above them
are several, larger villa-type houses on individual plots.
As the main street heads southwards out of
town it passes around in a loop to keep the contour of the
ground where it becomes Ffordd isaf. Below this are a series
of stone-built terraced houses, many of which are listed: these
include Tryfar (several short terraces of 2 or 3 storeyed houses
of different designs opposite a smaller terrace of one build)
and Bronwen Terrace (a superb one-build terrace of two-bay
19th century houses, 3 storeys high).
A strong arts and crafts tradition in the
early 20th century continued an impressive formulation of an
architecture of stone: this is seen at its best in the series
of houses on the southern edge of the town above Ffordd Isaf,
all individually designed and built in their own grounds (such
as Bron Meillion surgery, Maelgwyn, Perthi) associated with
a cosmopolitan group of artists etc centred on the figure of
A. Davidson, whose home subsequently became the nucleus of
Coleg Harlech which is set right down at the bottom of the
town alongside the railway.
Elsewhere there are large, detached 18th and
19th century houses (many in a 'villa' style) set irregularly
below the castle, as well as hotels, testifying to the increasing
importance of Harlech as a holiday destination.
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