Skip to Buy Tickets Skip to Content Skip to Footer

Offer Details

Get 2for1 offers at top attractions when you travel with us

Rhuddlan Castle

Rhuddlan Castle

Printer Paper Voucher Required

King Edward I liked his castles to be on the coast. It was safer that way. If his ruthless campaign to subdue the Welsh ran into trouble, supplies could still get through by sea.
At Rhuddlan, several miles inland, the plan was to use a river instead. Just one problem – the meandering Clwyd wasn’t quite in the right place. So Edward conscripted hundreds of ditch-diggers to deepen and divert its course.
More than seven centuries later Rhuddlan still looks like a castle that was worth moving a river for. Begun in 1277 it was the first of the revolutionary concentric, or ‘walls within walls’, castles designed by master architect James of St George.

Hoffai’r Brenin Edward i'w gestyll fod wedi’u lleoli ar yr arfordir. Roedd hynny’n fwy diogel. Pe bai ei ymgyrch ddidostur i daro'r Cymry yn mynd yn drafferthus, yna byddai modd o hyd i unrhyw gyflenwadau gyrraedd ar y môr.
Yn Rhuddlan, ymhell ynghanol y berfeddwlad, y bwriad yn hytrach oedd defnyddio afon. Ond roedd yna broblem - doedd afon droellog Clwyd ddim yn hollol yn y lle iawn. Felly dyma Edward yn gorfodi cannoedd o gloddwyr ffosydd i ddyfnhau a dargyfeirio’i chwrs.
Dros saith ganrif yn ddiweddarach mae Rhuddlan yn dal i edrych fel castell y bu’n werth symud afon ar ei gyfer. Dechreuwyd adeiladu yn 1277, a hwn oedd y cyntaf o'r cestyll consentrig chwyldroadol, neu’r cestyll ‘muriau o fewn muriau’, a gynlluniwyd gan y prif bensaer James of St George.

*From Rhyl station take the bus: 220m/250yards services 35/36, Rhyl-Rhuddlan/ Prestatyn, and service 51, Denbigh-Rhyl.

Explore London 2FOR1 Offers