Flint Castle

Flint Castle was the first castle Edward I began in his 1277 campaign against Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, raised on the shore of the Dee Estuary where ships could supply it from Chester. Its separate great tower is unique among his Welsh castles, and in August 1399 its walls saw Richard II surrender to the man who would take his crown.

Flint Castle stands on a low rocky outcrop on the shore of the Dee Estuary, where the river widens out towards the Irish Sea. Edward I ordered work to begin here in the summer of 1277, only weeks into his campaign against Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, and it became the first of the fortresses later known as the Iron Ring, built to hold North Wales under English control. The choice of site was practical rather than dramatic: Flint let Edward dominate the coast, keep his supply lines open, and put English power on display right at the border.

A Strategic Anchor on the Dee

Edward picked the site carefully. Flint lay a day's march from Chester, the army's great base, and right on the River Dee, the main shipping route between Chester and the Irish Sea. Ships could bring men, weapons and food to the castle's own walls, and a defensive wall protected its harbour, so the garrison could be supplied by water even when the land around it was hostile. The castle and the planned town beside it were built together, and Edward spent more than £6,000 on the two, a huge sum at the time.

The work was begun by Richard L'Engenour, a master engineer who later became Mayor of Chester. Diggers, carpenters and masons were brought in on a huge scale: more than 2,000 men were at work by August 1277. From 1280 the king's master mason, James of St George, took charge at Flint for about seventeen months before moving on to Rhuddlan, and the castle was largely finished by 1284.

Military Design of Flint Castle

Flint is not a concentric castle like Beaumaris. Its heart is an almost square inner ward, enclosed by a curtain wall of local stone, with a round tower projecting at three of its corners to give defenders a clear line of fire along the walls. A tidal moat separated the inner ward from an outer bailey, and beyond that lay the new town.

The fourth corner is what makes Flint unique. At the south-east stands the great tower, or donjon, a huge round tower set apart from the rest of the castle in its own moat and reached only by a drawbridge. Its walls are about 7 metres thick at the base. Inside, a vaulted passage runs round the ground floor, small rooms are built into the thickness of the walls, and the constable of the castle had his lodgings here. Towers like this were a feature of castles in Savoy, the homeland of James of St George, and none of Edward's other Welsh castles has one. It was designed to hold out on its own as a last refuge, even if the rest of the castle fell.

Flint was a working royal fortress rather than a palace, home to its constable and garrison, but it could still receive royal visitors. In 1301 a timber gallery was added on top of the great tower for a visit by Edward, Prince of Wales, the future Edward II.

Symbol of English Supremacy

Flint's role went beyond defence. Its cut stone and scale looked deliberately different from the castles of the Welsh princes, and set on the shore of the estuary, it was visible for miles, a constant reminder of who now held power in the region. Alongside the castle, Edward planted a borough of English settlers, trade and law, tying the area more firmly to Westminster. From 1284 until 1935, the Constable of Flint Castle was also, by right of office, the Mayor of Flint.

Attacks and Risings: 1282 to 1400

Flint was tested within five years. In March 1282 Welsh forces under Dafydd ap Gruffudd, Llywelyn's brother, rose against English rule, beginning with an attack on Hawarden on Palm Sunday, and Flint was besieged. The war that followed ended with Llywelyn's death in December 1282 and the conquest of Gwynedd.

In the Welsh rising of 1294, led by Madog ap Llywelyn, the castle was besieged again. Rather than let the attackers use the town for shelter and supplies, the constable set fire to it. The castle held, and it was later repaired. In September 1400 the forces of Owain Glyndŵr attacked the town of Flint in the first days of his rising, but there is no good evidence that the castle itself fell.

Richard II at Flint Castle, 1399

Flint's most famous moment came not in battle but in the fall of a king. In the summer of 1399, while Richard II was campaigning in Ireland, his exiled cousin Henry Bolingbroke landed in Yorkshire and quickly won over the great northern lords. By the time Richard landed in Wales in late July, his support was melting away.

Richard made for Conwy, and there, on 12 August, he met Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, who had come to negotiate on Bolingbroke's behalf. Richard left Conwy expecting to keep his throne. Instead he was brought to Flint, and on 19 August 1399 he gave himself up to Bolingbroke at the castle, agreeing to abdicate in return for his life. The French chronicler Jean Creton, who was with Richard's party, left an eyewitness account of these days, and the story of the king at Flint was later told by Jean Froissart and dramatised by Shakespeare in Richard II, where Bolingbroke stands before Flint's walls.

From Flint, Richard was taken to Chester, and then to London, where he was imprisoned in the Tower. On 30 September an assembly at Westminster heard that he had given up his crown, and Bolingbroke was crowned Henry IV on 13 October. Richard is thought to have died at Pontefract Castle in February 1400. The boy who had faced down the rebels of the Peasants' Revolt in 1381 had lost his kingdom, and it was at Flint that he finally gave it up.

The Civil War and Decline

By the early seventeenth century Flint was in poor repair: a survey of royal castles in the 1620s found three of its towers in ruins. In the English Civil War it was garrisoned for the king, and it was caught up in the long struggle for Chester and the Dee. The castle changed hands more than once. Its last Royalist garrison, under Sir Roger Mostyn, held out for several months before surrendering to Parliament's commander, General Thomas Mytton, in 1646.

In 1647 Mytton slighted the castle on Parliament's orders, so that it could never be held again, sparing only the great tower, which was kept as a gaol. Over the following centuries local people took its stone for their own buildings, and in the eighteenth century a new county prison was built in the old outer ward.

Flint Castle Today

Flint Castle stands on the shore of the Dee Estuary, beside the town of Flint in Flintshire (postcode CH6 5PH), and is cared for by Cadw. What survives is the roofless great tower in its moat, the broken curtain walls and the stumps of the three corner towers, still enough to show how Edward's first Welsh castle once commanded the estuary. Flint was built to hold a conquered land, and more than seven hundred years later, it is still standing.

Deepen Your Understanding

• King Richard II and the Peasants' Revolt: How the fourteen-year-old king faced the rebels of 1381, eighteen years before he surrendered his crown at Flint.
• Beaumaris Castle: Edward I's final and most sophisticated Iron Ring fortress, begun on Anglesey in 1295 as the pinnacle of concentric castle design.
• Ewloe Castle: The native Welsh castle in Flintshire's borderlands, begun by Llywelyn the Great and strengthened by Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, which fell silent when Flint was begun in 1277.
• Prestatyn vs Flint Castle: How a century of Welsh frontier strategy changed between the two castles, and why one fell where the other endured.
• Montgomery Castle: The border fortress in the Welsh Marches that, like Flint, was built to hold a contested frontier against Welsh princes.
• Visiting Prestatyn Castle: The short-lived Norman outpost that came a century before Flint, about a 20 minute drive west along the coast, with parking and access tips.
• Visiting Rhuddlan Castle: Flint's sister castle from the same 1277 campaign, with free parking, Cadw tickets and the walk to Twthill.
• Visiting Ewloe Castle: The hidden Welsh castle in Wepre woods, about four and a half miles from Flint, with roadside lay-by parking and the woodland walk in.
• Visiting Flint Castle: Free entry, parking, the walk from the station and the climb up the north-east tower.

Free Flint Castle Travel Guide Poster

Download our free illustrated travel guide poster for Flint Castle, with illustrated scenes, local facts, food recommendations and practical tips.

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Sources

• Cadw, Flint Castle
• Coflein, Flint Castle, NPRN 94448 (Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales)
• Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust (now Heneb), historic settlement survey of Flint

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