Aberwyvern castle

Aberwyvern castle, is a fictitious but typical Medieval Castle designed by the author and illustrator David Macaulay to explain the construction and features of such a Fortification .

The castle is fictive but the historical context is real. Macaulay places its construction in North Western Wales between 1283 and 1288, when Edward I of England was in fact building a string of castles to help his conquest of that land. Much of the layout and architecture of Aberwyvern castle is extrapolated from these Welsh castles, which Macaulay visited as a boy, before his family left for the United States.

The castle has all the generic elements of its real medieval brothers. In the first line of defence an outer curtain wall of 300 feet on the side, encircles the entire castle and the outer ward. The outer curtain wall of the castle also links with the Defensive wall of the town. Past the outer ward, a 12 feet thick inner curtain wall joins four towers and a gatehouse. The tops of the wall are furnished battlements with merlons to protect defenders arrayed along the parapet walk.

A massive inner gatehouse protects the main entry, with a massive portcullis and a fortified corridor lined with arrow loops and murder holes, and closed by huge doors at both ends.

The constructions within the inner ward of the castle include apartments, barracks, a forge, a kitchen and an impressive great hall.

Macaulay also details the architecture and other aspects of the construction of the walled town (also called Aberwyvern) next to the castle and explains how it supported the castle and vice versa. He explains its evolution over the centuries showing how, eventually it survives while the castle becomes a ruin. Like the castle, the town is also fictive.

References

• Macaulay, David. Castle. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1982.
• David Macaulay, Sarah Bullen, Brian Blessed. Castle. VHS. 60 minutes. Unicorn Projects Inc. 1983.