The platform, to one end of which the barbican gives entrance, is about 35 yards long by 10 yards broad, and looked down upon a formidable ditch. In its centre, between two of the main towers, was a short lofty curtain, and in it the main gateway. Above, a row of bold corbels, projecting above 5 feet, included a line of machicolations, and gave great breadth to the rampart of the curtain and great vantage to the defenders. The gateway is acutely pointed, but quite plain, with flat sides. Within, the portal is vaulted and portcullised, and has a broad space in front of the grate, possibly for some kind of additional frame. Above the portal was a portcullis chamber, also in the substance of the wall, and the place where the grate was suspended is still seen. This chamber was reached by a steep narrow stair from the rampart of the curtain,—a very rare arrangement. Entering the gate on the right is a staircase up to the ramparts, looking like a makeshift, and possibly not original. Beyond, also on the right, is the great hall. This, though a spacious, could never have been a handsome chamber, for it is built on a curve, or rather on an irregular polygon, to suit the southern curtain which forms one side of it. It is about 105 feet long by 30 feet broad, and its floor is at the court level. Below was a cellar of about half the breadth of the hall, the rock here cropping up and blocking one side. To this the entrance was by a pit or trap, in which was a doorway opening into a passage by a second doorway in the cellar. This is lighted by loops in the curtain, and at its east end is continued, through a partition, below the chapel. The hall is said originally to have been of smaller size, and to have been enlarged. If this be so, it must have been at the chapel end.

The hall is lighted by four small square-headed windows towards the field, and two larger ones towards the court. The latter are pointed and were of two lights, with quatrefoiled heads, and a quatrefoil in the head. The door is in the same side near its east end. There are three fireplaces, all under hoods, with flanking piers and brackets to receive the thrust of the flat arch. The hall was crossed by seven large chamfered stone ribs of two members, placed very irregularly. Two are standing, one having been lately rebuilt; the other is at the upper end of the hall, and marks its division from the chapel. A plain corbel below the springing of this rib shows the partition to have been of timber, no doubt a carved brattice. The roof was open, and there were timber principals between the stone ribs. It is difficult at first to believe that this long irregular space, with its three unsymmetrical fireplaces, could have been all one room, and at first it appears as though the west end, to the second rib with one of the fireplaces and three windows, might have been bratticed off as a withdrawing-room; but it is evident this was not so. Such a room would have no separate door and no garderobe. The dais of the hall was evidently at the other end, and the withdrawing-room was the first floor of the dungeon tower, which stands at the back of the great fireplace, and is entered by a small door in the jamb of one of the hall windows. This and the floor above were readily accessible from the dais.

The chapel, bratticed off at the east end of the hall, had also an open roof, with one stone rib. It has two windows to the south and one to the field, and at its east end is a larger, three-light window, with a round head, and a piscina in the south jamb. The tracery is broken away. The great kitchen has been pulled down. It was built against the north curtain, opposite to the hall door. There remains of it a water-trough occupying the seat of a window, and lined with cement. Near the kitchen was a large tank quarried in the rock, lined and cemented, for the storage of water; a culvert brought into it water from the roofs, and leaden pipes have been traced from an exterior spring at some distance. It has been opened to a considerable depth, 14 feet or 15 feet, but was certainly not a well, though possibly one was intended.

The cross wall separating the two wards is of the same height and thickness as the exterior curtains. It is pierced near its centre by a shoulder-headed doorway, closed with a door only, and opening into the inner ward. This door is covered by a sort of lodge on its western face, with a loop towards the main gate.

The inner ward, nearly square in plan, has the state rooms on its south and east sides. These have basement chambers, well lighted and with fireplaces on the ground floor, level with the court; and above these, on the first floor, are the state apartments, with open roofs. First of these, on the right is the smaller hall, 30 feet by 28 feet. It has a door at its west or lower end communicating with a sort of lobby, and so with a main tower, which probably contained the kitchen. At the other or east end is also a door, opening into the withdrawing-room. Towards the court is a central fireplace, between two handsome windows. These were flat-topped, of two lights, and the upper half was filled with Decorated tracery, now broken away. In the remaining side, towards the field, is at one end a small window, and at the other a door opening into a mural chamber, a garderobe. The roof was strengthened by two stone ribs, of which one is perfect, and is not quite so plain as those of the great hall. The withdrawing-room has a fireplace on the north side, and was crossed by two ribs, both broken down. This room has a mural passage in its south wall communicating with a garderobe and large vaulted chamber, also in the wall, and so opening into the ground floor of the south-eastern or king’s tower. Another door opens into the queen’s chamber. This is a large and handsome room, also on the first floor, occupying the east side of the court. Its roof contained two ribs, both removed. At its north end are passages into garderobes, mural chambers, and an oratory, all contained in the north-eastern, or queen’s tower. Eleanor, the queen of Edward I., is said to have made use of this chamber.

From the queen’s chamber, at the same level, a wooden passage, a sort of balcony, affixed to the north wall of the lesser hall, led to the kitchen lobby and the kitchen. Lines of corbels, and doors at either end, show the position and length of this gallery.

Below the queen’s apartment a passage leads to a doorway in the curtain, which opens upon the east platform, and was the only postern in the castle. It is shoulder-headed and closed with a door only. But, as at the main gate, the curtain is furnished with a line of bold corbels, forming machicolations for the defence of the wall and gateway. Passages open right and left in the sides of the doorway, and carry staircases in the wall up to the first floor of the king’s and queen’s towers.

The platform upon which this postern opens is called the queen’s bower. It is larger than the western platform. Like it, it has three half-round turrets and a parapet, and in its north end is a doorway from which a steep and narrow and parapeted staircase formerly descended to the water’s edge. This staircase was removed when the suspension-bridge was built.

The towers now remain to be described. They are all of one type, and even their details are closely alike. Each has a basement, the floor of which is considerably above the exterior ground level, though below that of the court within. These chambers can only have been reached by ladders from the floors above. They are ventilated by small air-holes high up, but the probability is that they were put to no regular use, though they may have served for prisons.

The first floor of each tower is entered from the court, and from that level a well-staircase ascends to the second or upper floor, and so on to the roof. Here, in the four western towers, it stops. In the four eastern towers it is carried on, forming a small round turret, 14 or 15 feet high above the roof. None of these floors are vaulted, all have fireplaces in the first and second floors, and all open at the second floor level upon the rampart walk. All also are well provided with garderobes.

The battlements of the towers remain uninjured. The parapets are about 10 feet high, and divided into twelve merlons and as many flat-sided plain embrasures. Each merlon is pierced by a loop, and at the base of each, at the allure level, is a hole ending in a gurgoyle, for the discharge of the rain water.

Two of the towers are furnished with ovens, built in the old fashion, with a flue outside and above the oven door. In the queen’s tower the second floor has an oratory in the east wall. This is a deep and bold recess, divided into nine bays or compartments, three on each side, and three forming an apex. In each bay is a sedile, and above, in the apse, are three lancet windows. The slender shafts between the bays are vaulting shafts, and expand above in fan tracery of a Decorated character. On each side of the oratory is a small mural chamber, one a vestry; the other, it may be, a confessional; both have small loops into the oratory. Possibly the whole circular chamber was used as a chapel, to which the oratory was the choir.

Conway, though as strong, is a far less elegant structure than Caernarvon. The masonry, though excellent, is rough uncoursed rubble, and ashlar is very sparingly used. The battlements especially, as at Harlech and Caerphilly, are very bare. They are ill-coped and ill-finished, as though they were intended to be concealed behind a brattice; but, as there are no corbels or places for the struts, this cannot have been intended.

The putlog holes show that round instead of square poles were used in the construction; and here, as at Coucy and in parts of Harlech, they are so placed as to show that the scaffolding was laid as an inclined plane, instead of horizontally, and with ladders. This is also the case with the walls and towers of the town.

Conway Castle is retained by the Crown, but has long been let on lease. Lady Erskine, of Cambo, the last lessee, has lately waived her tenure, and the ruins are now held by the Corporation, and seem sufficiently well cared for. Mr. Jones, who has had charge of the place for nearly half a century, is a very careful and intelligent guardian, and well acquainted with the details and history of the castle.

Conway was begun in 1285. Soon after its completion, Edward I. and Queen Eleanor spent a Christmas here in great state, when, no doubt, the state apartments were occupied. The town was stormed in 1646 by the Parliamentary general, Mytton, who also secured the castle.

Charles II. granted it to Edward, the first Earl of Conway, to grace and give some foundation for his title; but the earl, it is said to annoy the neighbouring gentry, dismantled the castle, and took away the lead, timber and ironwork, broke down the well-stairs, and in other ways injured the structure.

The appended bird’s-eye view of the town is taken from the highest and most western point, just above Porth-Uchaf, and in full view of Porth-y-felin, below which is the bed of the Gyffin. The position of the castle, on its rocky promontory, resting upon the sea, is well shown.

The other view is confined to the castle as seen from the south or the valley of the Gyffin. The four towers on the right mark the angles of the inner ward, the two on the extreme right are the king’s tower in front, and behind it the queen’s tower. The central and front tower is the dungeon tower, attached to the great hall. On the left are seen the two lines of the town wall, abutting upon the castle, and between them the western platform with its bastions, and in the rear the main gate with the line of machicolations above it. One of the seaward towers shows how the rampart walk is carried round it upon a corbelled or bracketed projection.