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Of all the great feats of engineering
that have helped to shape Britain,

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there's nothing more dramatic

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than the medieval castles
of north Wales,

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built over 700 years ago by Edward I
to stamp his authority
on his newly conquered province.

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They are some of the finest castles
in the country -

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one of the greatest feats
of royal engineering
in British history.

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This week, I've come here to find out
how a Frenchman and an English king

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completely changed
the art of castle building for ever.

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In 1282, the Welsh prince, Llewelyn
ap Gruffydd, felt strong enough

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behind his walls
at Dolbadarn and Dolwyddelan

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to defy English authority
and assert his independence.

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It was a situation
King Edward I refused to tolerate.

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And he was determined to obtain
Llewelyn's submission
by force of arms.

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Campaign Wales wasn't going to be
as easy as Edward had imagined.

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The whole place was heavily wooded,

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and it took 2,000 men
to clear a path through the woods
for Edward's armies.

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Edward fought two very hard
and violent wars in Wales.

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He finally won when Llewelyn
got killed in a minor skirmish.

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He were determined never to have
to fight the Welsh again.

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He decided on Europe's most ambitious
medieval building programme.

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Like the Normans before him
in England, he would subdue the Welsh
with castles.

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Work started on three castles -
Harlech, Caernarfon and Conwy.

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But it wasn't just castles
that were built.

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At Conwy and Caernarfon, the castle
was put into a walled town -

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an idea borrowed from Gascony
in southern France,
where Edward had been Duke.

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That isn't all Edward borrowed
from France.

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All these castles in Wales
were built by a Frenchman
called James of St George.

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Master James of St George came
from St George D'Esperanche in Savoy,
which is where he got his name.

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He came up with a design for a whole
new style of castle while working
as the king's architect.

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To understand the great advances he
made in castle building and design,

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we start with a castle
the Normans had built in England
150 years earlier.

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Even back then,
the French built the best castles.

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This is Hedingham Castle in Essex.

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It was built for a Norman lord,
Aubrey de Vere, in the 12th century.

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Aubrey wanted to make his castle
look posh,

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so he put an outer skin
of dressed stone on it,

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to impress his friends
and maybe his enemies too.

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You see it's quite thin, really.

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There's no headers in it, no nothing.

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In fact, it gives a false impression.

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It almost looks
as though the Victorians did it,
it's so neat and tidy.

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Really, you get a better idea
of what holds the place up
downstairs in the undercroft.

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Here I am, down in the undercroft.

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Here, really, you can see
what's holding the whole thing up.

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Not a lot, eh?
It's really the mortar.

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There's more mortar
than there is stone, actually.

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Really, it's a credit
to the men who mixed it.

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It's still quite solid
after all these hundreds of years.

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There must have been more
mortar mixers than stone fixers.

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It looks as though they put
the outer skin on the outside,
which is beautiful dressed stone,

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and then they built 18 inches
of pebbles and flints,

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then chucked the mortar in and,
as they did it, threw the stones in.

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You can also see, down here,
a great pillar that's 14 feet square.

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It goes all the way up to the arch
above and takes the thrust
of the whole weight of the building.

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In fact, the castle is built round
a huge arch right up its centre.

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This is a cross-section
of Hedingham Castle keep.

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As you can see, most of it's arches.

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For these arches to stand up,
they've got to have
something substantial to spring off.

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Unlike a normal bridge,
you need plenty of meat on each side
to take the thrust of the arches.

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Down in the undercroft,
which is equivalent to the cellar,

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the walls are actually 14 feet thick,
with all this weight of arches
pressing on them.

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Then you've got the weight
of a floor,

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plus the knights and noblemen round
a great table, eating venison...
You don't want it falling in.

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The arch over the banqueting hall is
the biggest Norman arch in England,

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something like 28 or 30 feet across.

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This worthy, great arch
emerges out of the wall.

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You don't really appreciate the arch
until you look at the great expanse

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of the floor above.

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If they hadn't built it, they'd have
had to search around for a tree
50' long and 2'6" square.

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I rather think it were easier
to do the arch than find such a tree.

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A keep like this is very sound.
The solidity of its structural work
can't be faulted.

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You can see how thick the walls are
all the way to the top.

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So when Master James came along with
his new ideas, it wasn't the building
techniques he set out to improve.

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It was the overall shape
of the castle and its outer defences.

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Until this time, the keep had formed
the heart of the castle.

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It housed the lord of the manor
and was built on a mound of earth
called a motte.

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Next to this was the outer stockade,
where everybody else lived,
called the bailey.

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The bailey had a wall round it
with a gate in it.

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So the gate was the weakest bit.

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If you knock the gate down,
the enemy were in and the defenders
had to hide in the keep.

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What Master James did
was to move the keep to the gate,
and rechristen it the barbican.

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What he did next was
to do away with the motte altogether

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and build a series of towers
round the outer wall,
to make the castle more defendable.

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If you did breach the walls
or gain entry through the barbican,

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you could be fired at internally
by the defenders on top of the walls

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and in each of the towers.

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You could see this at the first
of his castles, which was Harlech.

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It's the most defensive of Master
James' works - hardly surprising,

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as they started it when Edward
was still at war with the Welsh.

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This side of the castle, without
a doubt, is the best side to show
the various stages of construction.

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It's very obvious, if you look at the
main wall, you can see at the bottom

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that it's quite rough stonework,
done by the soldiers
while still under attack.

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When they had more time, and a bit
of protection from the bottom wall,

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they completed the top 25 or 30 feet
in a much better fashion.
Better stonemasonry and everything.

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Last but not least, the bastion
and the curtain wall, or outer wall,

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will be built at a later date
as an extra form of defence.

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If the enemy did approach,
they could run and leave
their trowels for next time.

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The key to the success of the castle
is this staircase,

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which rises 200 feet from the sea.

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Well, it did do,
before the sea receded over there.

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It didn't really matter
if the Welsh held siege on the front,
or the land side of the castle.

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Supplies could be brought in by boat,

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so they could keep
the Welsh at bay for ever.

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This staircase must have had
an army of men carrying bags
and all sorts of things.

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And I rather think,
by the time they got to the top,

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they'd be a bit knackered.

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Without a doubt. I think that's why
this plank's here for sitting on.

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From this angle, you can see
how the rock had to be dug away
to set the castle foundations

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directly on to the solid rock.

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It's as if the castle was hewn
out of the rock itself.

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Having built the castle on top
of a large cliff overlooking the sea,

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this left the inland side of it
rather vulnerable to attack.

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To remedy this serious problem,
they dug this huge gorge behind it
in solid rock.

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Using the natural cleavage
of the rock, and iron wedges
and big hammers,

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they shifted immense amounts
of material.

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Without a shadow of a doubt,

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it's a wonderful feat of engineering
and rock removal.

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CLANK!
And this is how they did it.

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They got a hammer
and some form of a drill

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and then they proceeded
to drill a hole in the rock.

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When the hole's sufficiently deep,
you then insert a pair of slips.
Some people call them feathers.

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Two lumps of iron down the hole.

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And then a big iron wedge, which you
insert between the two metal plates.

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And this, of course,
has a nice sliding action
when you beat it with the hammer.

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It opens up a great crack and
off will come a great slab of rock.

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Hopefully, we'll get a big lump.

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As you can see,
it's not as easy as it sounds.

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I've not brought a big enough hammer!

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I don't know about building a wall,
but there's a few slates for me roof!

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That were partially successful,
but I think they'd have had bigger
and better tools than what I've got.

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I still wouldn't like to do that
all day long - would you?

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Very detailed records were kept
about the construction
of these castles.

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At the Public Records Office, David
Carpenter tells me all about them.

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This is the account of the
comptroller, the person in charge
of the money at Harlech,

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for 1286.

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It tells you the numbers of people
working, the different rates of pay.

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In the margin, it tells you who
the craftsmen are, with these lines.

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"Cement" - masons. "QRR", quarriers.
People digging the great ditches.

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My namesakes, the carpenters.
Then the smiths.

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This is where I would be.
Not you, Fred. The minuti operari -
the labourers.

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How much money did they get?
It tells us that.

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It's very, very, variable rates.
Someone skilled, like you, Fred,
might get three shillings a week.

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Shall I pay you? Yeah!
I'm the comptroller. Let's scatter
some 13th-century money around.

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How much do you think you're worth?
I'm a top-rank mason!

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Sure you're not one of the
labourers? I made six stones today.

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If you were a labourer, you'd get
one of those. Possibly a half.

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But you're better than that?
Oh, yeah.

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Fivepence a day. Thank you.
Don't spend it in the Harlech pubs.

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Would there be
an ale allowance as well? I fear not.

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Actually, that's the fascinating
thing. This is very valuable.
That's the only currency.

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You couldn't actually go into a pub
and buy yourself a drink,

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because the money's worth too much.

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You'd probably
have to do that by barter.

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I suppose from this document, you
can tell how many men at any period
in time worked on the... You can.

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This is very seasonal building work.
I suppose then as now.

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If we go to when this roll
was begun, in a very cold January,

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there's only one mason working.

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He seems to be doing
a sort of special job.

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And then suddenly -
Sunday 21st April -

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to Philip Rum and
Thomas del Meded, with 29 masons,

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and then their pay - suddenly
a gang of masons has arrived
under Philip Rum.

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That's only the start of it. If
we go to July... Spring and summer.

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You've got 225 masons working,
so it's gone up by about 200.

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Another thing to think about
is the constant threat of the enemy.

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Absolutely. Once they'd got it up
so it could be defended,
they could go off

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and do one somewhere else.

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In this very tense period,
you get workmen being moved
under armed guard.

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Very dangerous. If I was a workman,
I'd be pleased to get out of it

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and take my little pouch
of money home and get back
to where I'd come from.

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The most impressive of King Edward's
castles was Caernarfon,

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because here, what he built
was more than just a castle.

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Edward decided Caernarfon
was going to be the centre
of his administration in Wales,

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so the castle would be
his royal palace -

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a symbol of English dominance
over the Welsh he had defeated.

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Caernarfon is built on a spot
close to the old Roman fort
of Segontium,

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which had connections with the
famous Roman emperor, Constantine,

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who were a bit of a rebel,
because he captured the Roman empire
with a British army,

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and was responsible for building
the city of Constantinople.

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When Edward decided
to build Caernarfon,

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he got Master James, his chief
architect, to mimic the stripes
on the walls of Constantinople.

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The castle would be HQ
of his English empire, right in the
place where the Romans had theirs.

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Work began here in 1283, when Edward
was still at war with the Welsh.

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Here once stood a row of houses

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and it took 20 men a week to get rid
of the timbers and the debris.

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But they still made a mistake.

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They only brought the walls up
at this point to about 20-odd feet.

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Edward relied on the strength of the
town walls to keep the enemy at bay,

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but in 1296, the Welsh broke through.

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Of course, this business of 24 foot
here were really no opposition
to 'em at all.

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They soon gained entry.

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Once the revolt was put down,

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they increased the height of these
walls and the King's Gate was built
to guard this entrance.

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Over here, on my left, is all
that remains of the once Great Hall.

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If you look closely, you can see the
holes where the roof timbers were,

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and then, round this corner,

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a lovely plinth or skirting board
at the outer edge,

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which would have followed the bases
of the buttresses round the corners.

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00:18:06,700 --> 00:18:11,180
I suppose there'd be a lovely
window frame in the middle.

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Really, once, this particular bit
must have been a beautiful building.

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It's now gone.
It's rather sad, in a way.

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The layout of the castle
was not the only defensive feature
that Master James designed.

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As you can see, in between these
two towers is quite a short length
of castle wall.

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00:18:35,860 --> 00:18:41,260
This wouldn't have been able
to be defended by single arrow loops.

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00:18:41,260 --> 00:18:45,220
Master James came up
with an ingenious solution.

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These are like three entrances
all into one.

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00:18:49,500 --> 00:18:52,340
So if you imagine three crossbow men,

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00:18:52,340 --> 00:18:56,980
one here firing that way - twang!
Another one up here - twang!

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00:18:56,980 --> 00:18:59,820
And another one here - twang!

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It'd be like all that crossfire
down below.

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The enemy looking up at the walls
would think that between
the two slots, he'd be safe.

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But he'd get caught
in deadly crossfire
like a medieval machine gun.

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But to really understand
the castle's defences,

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you need to go up the Eagle Tower.

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From up here, on top of this tower,

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you can really see
how Master James' defences worked.

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On that side, we've got the sea,

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and over here, we've got the river,
deep and wide,

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which would have kept the enemy
at bay for some time.

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Then we've got the castle itself,
which has two lines of defence.

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It once had a great wall across the
middle, which has been knocked down,
so it was two castles, in a way.

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Then, round here, there's the town
wall, which follows the shoreline,

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and then turns right, inland,

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and once upon a time, connected
with the castle over there.

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It'd be a heck of a place to take.

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Caernarfon took nearly 20 years
to build and, at nearly £20,000,

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was the most expensive
of Edward's Welsh castles.

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The total cost of them all
was over £78,000,

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but his wars there had cost £103,000,
so they seemed a good investment.

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Even so, the cost of them, coupled
with Edward's wars in Scotland,

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was making a bit of a dent
in his finances.

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There's nowhere better to see this
than just across the Menai Straits
on Anglesey.

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This is Beaumaris, and its design
is the most technically perfect
in the whole of Britain.

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It would have been Master James'
greatest masterpiece,

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but the king ran out of money
and couldn't afford to finish it.

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Like Caernarfon,
it has layers of walls within walls,

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but unlike Caernarfon,
it's perfectly symmetrical

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and the whole site is surrounded
by a moat, filled with
a controlled supply of tidal water.

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This was the state of the art
of the 13th century.

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There are no less than four
successive lines of defence
built into this castle.

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Even if you did battle your way
over the drawbridge and then under
three sets of death holes,

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people pouring boiling hot tar
down into your chain mail,
and you arrived here,

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this were just another death hole
but bigger - arrow slots everywhere.

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You've got to fight your way through
and they'd be raining down on you
like red-hot bloody knitting needles.

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Finally,
you went round this corner here,

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and you've got the same thing again!

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00:22:08,980 --> 00:22:15,460
If you survived the drawbridge
and the first set of murder holes,
various doors,

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and you got here and
didn't look like a pincushion,

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there was yet one more great door
with six-inch-square bolts of oak
behind it.

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Just four foot further in, there
was a portcullis, possibly made
of iron with great rivets through,

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and then - God forbid -
another four sets of murder holes,

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00:22:41,460 --> 00:22:46,580
and then another door,
another portcullis and another door.

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I don't think anybody could
ever get through. You'd have a job
doing it with a tank!

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But it's not until you enter
the heart of Beaumaris

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that you get an idea of
the sheer scale of its defences.

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If you got this far,
which I very much doubt you would,

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you still wouldn't be able
to get at the king,

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because the rest of the soldiers
would be round the walls,
and more arrows raining down.

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So you'd still not won.

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You had to cross the centre and take
the building with the king in it.

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In fact, the castle was surrendered
twice in its history, but never taken
by any form of assault.

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The scale of Beaumaris is incredible.

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Through the gates
of its protected armour,

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00:23:44,020 --> 00:23:49,100
over 2,000 men shifted
more than 32,000 tons of stone,

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00:23:49,100 --> 00:23:53,860
they mixed more than 2,000 tons
of lime mortar,

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and nailed over 100,000 nails
into more than 3,000 boards.

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All that was done in just one year.

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00:24:01,940 --> 00:24:09,260
When James of St George
and the king built these castles,
spirit levels hadn't been invented.

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If you look at the moat
and the joints of the masonry,
it's perfectly level with the water.

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00:24:16,740 --> 00:24:20,620
There wouldn't be water there
when they built it.

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00:24:20,620 --> 00:24:27,780
All they had a was a stick
with a piece of string,
with a lead weight on the end,

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and a hole
that received the lead weight,

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and a line drawn up the middle.

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Put it on the wall like that,
and if the wall is plumb,

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the lead weight will hang
perfectly central in the hole.

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If it leans, of course,
the ball's in the wrong shop.

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That's how they got everything
vertical.

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00:24:53,260 --> 00:24:59,420
Compare it with a modern spirit
level, and, of course, it's perfect.

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We've not improved that much, really,
have we?

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This, behind me, is all that remains
of the once-grand gatehouse,
you know, the inner gatehouse.

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00:25:18,220 --> 00:25:21,420
Charles II issued orders
to demolish it.

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00:25:21,420 --> 00:25:23,980
He didn't get so far.

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00:25:23,980 --> 00:25:31,300
He got the top bit off OK,
but I think they must have give up.
They had no dynamite in them days.

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In a way, he did us a favour,
because he's shown us how the wall
was really built.

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There's beautiful dressed stones on
the outside with nice narrow joints,

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00:25:43,700 --> 00:25:50,660
and in the middle, it's just
big lumps of all sorts thrown in
with a great deal of mortar,

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but there's no real voids in it.

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00:25:53,620 --> 00:25:57,860
Over the back here,
there's two lines of inclined holes,

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which would have contained
the put logs with an inclined plane.

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00:26:03,820 --> 00:26:11,060
As the wall grew upwards, they left
a stone missing, stuck a piece
of wood on to the top of the wall,

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00:26:11,060 --> 00:26:15,100
tied a tree trunk to the other end
and put boards across,

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00:26:15,100 --> 00:26:22,660
to enable them to raise materials
to the top of the wall
as it advanced upwards.

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00:26:22,660 --> 00:26:30,980
They had cranes, but they were slow
and wouldn't have delivered
the necessary amounts of materials.

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00:26:30,980 --> 00:26:35,860
So they devised the inclined plane,
where maybe two or three men

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could drag a boxful of mortar up.

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00:26:39,100 --> 00:26:43,620
I still use basically
the same methods today.

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Much easier to drag a heavy weight
than it is to lift it up
and carry it.

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00:26:50,540 --> 00:26:56,860
You'd have to get a crane
or a helicopter, nowadays,
to get something high up.

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00:26:56,860 --> 00:27:03,860
If it's a reasonable weight and can
be dragged on some sort of sledge,
it's a lot cheaper.

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00:27:03,860 --> 00:27:07,900
Might be a bit slower,
but it still works.

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00:27:22,900 --> 00:27:25,620
Beaumaris was never finished.

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00:27:25,620 --> 00:27:31,100
It was so incredibly expensive,
the king simply couldn't afford it.

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00:27:31,100 --> 00:27:35,980
When you look around and see the
amount of chambers and staircases,

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compared with the other castles,

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00:27:38,620 --> 00:27:41,060
you can see the reason why.

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00:27:41,060 --> 00:27:45,340
It never really got any further
than this level here,

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00:27:45,340 --> 00:27:49,180
and that were 20 years
after the king had died.

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00:27:51,220 --> 00:27:56,900
The king died in 1307,
closely followed by James.

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00:27:56,900 --> 00:28:00,820
Beaumaris is a monument
to the great dreams they had.

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00:28:00,820 --> 00:28:05,860
They both had the ideas of grandeur,
but not the money or the time.

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00:28:05,860 --> 00:28:10,900
That's the reason, really,
that the thing's unfinished.

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00:28:10,900 --> 00:28:15,260
Time and tide waits for no man -
not even the king.

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00:28:15,260 --> 00:28:20,260
But together, they built something
that changed the face of Britain.

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00:28:20,260 --> 00:28:23,020
And in the castles of Edward I,

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00:28:23,020 --> 00:28:30,500
Master James of St George
has left us with some of the most
impressive structures in the world.

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00:28:30,500 --> 00:28:34,060
They also heralded
more peaceful times.

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00:28:34,060 --> 00:28:38,780
Next week, I find out how the castle
gave way to the country manor house,

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00:28:38,780 --> 00:28:42,820
as the violent days
of the Middle Ages came to an end.

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00:28:42,820 --> 00:28:50,900
To find out more about the building
of Britain, visit the website:

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00:28:50,900 --> 00:28:57,340
Subtitles by Veronica Wells
BBC Scotland - 2002