Original subtitles

Fortress.

Prisons.

Towers.

The castles have witnessed our history for centuries.

In Europe, over 100,000 are still standing,

thousand years later.

Let's visit the most spectacular and most mysterious castles.

We will discover the secrets that are hidden behind their walls.

And we will relive their long-lasting legends.

Observing Bodiam Castle from the sky at dawn

is one of the most beautiful images we can contemplate.

Is this a real image, or an illusion?

At Bodiam, nothing is exactly what it seems.

Rising out of the water, surrounded by reflections

that are both mysterious and evocative,

Bodiam Castle was built in the 14th century using a marvellous trick.

A trick that has been used for centuries in architecture,

painting and photography,

and which goes by the name of forced perspective.

Forced perspective is a very clever architectural trick

which is used to make a castle appear bigger than it actually is.

It was something that was done by the owner,

Sir Edward Dalyngrigge,

to prove that he was bigger, more important, perhaps,

than he actually was.

And why would anyone want to use a visual trick,

with such a beautifully designed castle?

So, it was using trickery to fool advancing enemies

into thinking it was a much bigger castle.

And we also see that it's surrounded by a huge moat,

and again, this was reflecting back

the size of the castle in the waters,

creating a much bigger impression than was actually physically there.

Built in 1385,

it occupies a strategic position in the county of Sussex.

Back then, the River Rother was navigable up to this point.

And the kingdom lived in fear of a French invasion.

When you see it for the first time, the castle makes an impression.

Its imposing grey stone battlements, surrounded by a wide moat,

in which the reflections increase the sensation of power,

convince you that you are looking at a redoubtable fortress.

This visual trick with the water

is enhanced by the height of the battlements

and the fact that they are close together.

This makes the castle seem bigger and more robust than it actually is.

If you look at the battlements on the top,

they're actually smaller than they would need to be in real life,

as are the windows on the upper storeys,

and this creates the illusion of them being further away

and thus of the building being higher than it actually is.

Everything is a question of appearances,

and that is Bodiam's great secret.

It has very little defensive capability.

When you see its battlements up close, they are indeed small.

And its interior is more akin to a private residence of the time

than to a fortress.

MAN: The castle itself is actually really small.

It's a very, very minute... almost like a manor house

but the walls cast over the water

just to give it this full perspective

and enable the viewer to think that it's much more big

and much more impressive than it actually is.

However, Bodiam has some great innovations

to make the most of its size.

Its owner, Sir Edward Dalyngrigge,

drew on his experience in the war with France

to import a number of details.

Inside we find an extraordinary curiosity - the water wells.

There were wells in the centre of each tower.

One theory has it that this was to enable access

to an abundant supply of water

for boiling and pouring over enemies from the walls,

or from the murder-holes in the main halls if they managed to get in.

But also for survival.

The main entrance to the castle was not the one we see today.

The walkway started from one side,

which meant you had to turn through 90 degrees to enter.

This prevented enemies from attacking the main door

with burning carts launched in a straight line.

The design of the main towers made it possible to defend

against invaders attacking along the walkway.

More than for its legends or its beautiful exterior,

Bodiam has gone down in history, according to the experts,

as the castle of false appearances.

Although there is nothing false about its beauty.

Nestling in kilometres of green countryside...

..with its unique pointed towers,

Glamis Castle looks like a fairytale castle.

However, above and beyond the 1,001 luxuriously decorated rooms,

and the fact that it has been the residence

of members of the royal family,

this fortress conceals nooks and crannies

where demonic legends and sinister stories lie in wait.

SAM WILLIS: Glamis Castle has an extraordinary history.

It's one of the most haunted castles in the British Isles.

The origins of Glamis Castle date back to the 14th century,

after Robert the Bruce,

one of the most venerated leaders of Scottish independence,

ceded the land to the Bowes-Lyon family.

In the 14th century,

the Lyon family owned Glamis Castle,

but that became the Bowes-Lyon family in the mid-18th century,

and the Bowes-Lyons were very important.

That's because Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon

was actually the mother of Queen Elizabeth II of England.

As the centuries went by,

the humble original tower was extended until it became

the fortress we see today,

which still belongs to the same family.

One of Glamis's most harrowing legends dates back 200 years,

with the birth of the first son in the family line.

What should have been happy news became a dark, tragic story.

MAN: Thomas Lyon-Bowes was born as the master of Glamis,

which is the title of the eldest son,

in 1821,

and on his records,

it says he was born and died on the same day.

And there's been a suspicion that actually he didn't.

The dark recesses of Glamis Castle

still conceal this secret in their depths,

the story of what became known as The Monster of Glamis,

a child who, it seems, may have been born with a deformity.

And that there was a hideous birth

and that they tried to disguise this but kept him alive.

LEO RUICKBIE: Why he was imprisoned?

Some say it was because he was born deformed.

Somebody even described him as being half man, half frog.

And this terrible creature was kept locked up in the castle

so as not to come into its true inheritance.

Glamis became immersed in darkness and the most deathly silence.

It is not easy to hide something like this in a castle of this size

which, despite having many lounges, staircases and rooms,

also has a lot of serving staff.

And so the legend grew and became an open secret.

SAM WILLIS: It's possible that this human prisoner,

this Monster of Glamis,

was once discovered by a maid,

but to prevent her from telling anyone,

she had her tongue cut out,

and she's said to be seen walking the grounds

holding on to her mutilated mouth dripping with blood.

Glamis has an imposing presence.

Its carefully tended gardens have an elegant appearance,

but every turn may conceal a chilling tale.

Glamis Castle has a reputation

of one of the most haunted castles in Scotland,

perhaps even in the world.

And there's so many legends connected with it,

it's difficult to choose any particular one.

One of these macabre legends is that of Earl Beardie,

a cruel aristocrat known for his love of gambling.

Beardie is said to have been a violent and a dangerous man.

He was also an alcoholic and a gambler.

One night he was gambling at cards with a friend of his, Earl Crawford,

and the night was getting late.

His steward warned him and he said, "Sir, it is nearly midnight,

"and tomorrow is the Sabbath."

Beardie knew that he shouldn't gamble on a Sunday

but he said, "I will gamble until doomsday.

"I will even gamble with the devil himself."

The legend has it that the devil did indeed appear to play cards with him.

When the clock struck midnight, there was a knock at the door,

and a tall stranger appeared.

The steward left them to it, and there was soon noises -

shouting, violence and struggle.

He came down in the morning - the stranger was still there, watching -

and Earl Beardie and Earl Crawford

had been engulfed in a ball of flame.

It's said that that stranger really was the devil

and that Beardie and Crawford had gambled away their souls.

The castle has been haunted to this very day

with the sounds of Beardie and Crawford struggling with the devil.

Some people claim that, centuries later,

the devil and Earl Beardie

are still playing in a secret room in Glamis Castle,

and that the impassioned screams of a card game

whose stakes were life and death

can still be heard.

How many generations of earls and countesses

have heard the truculent stories of Glamis?

How many secrets have been told in hundreds of aristocratic dinners?

The walls of Glamis are full of secrets,

and they will continue to be for a few centuries more.

In our imaginations,

we probably all make a very direct link between medieval castles,

knights, invaders, and legends.

Bamburgh Castle is the perfect example.

(GRAND MUSIC)

Bamburgh, built in the northeast of England in the 5th century,

overlooking the North Sea, has witnessed Viking invasions

and wars for power.

The history of Bamburgh goes right back,

and in 547,

Ida, who was king of the Bernicians, conquered Bamburgh,

and he probably conquered it from the islands off the shore -

Lindisfarne and the Farne Islands -

and he made a stockade there.

Then 50 years later or so,

his descendant King Aethelfrith gave it to his wife, Bebba,

and it's from her name that we get Bamburgh.

"Bebbanburg" gives us Bamburgh.

The location of this enormous fortress

was considered a historically strategic spot for the defence

of the island by its different civilisations.

LEO RUICKBIE: The Normans then built a castle on this site

and it's their tower that forms the basis

of the modern castle that we see today.

This presence and importance was perhaps the reason

why Bamburgh also took centre stage

in the greatest legend in medieval history -

the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

It's also believed that Bamburgh Castle might be the castle

that belonged to Lancelot,

one of King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table.

It's said that Lancelot went there and he defeated 20 other knights

and a very famous knight called the Copper Knight,

and he named that castle Joyous Gard.

This idea comes from the novel Le Morte d'Arthur,

written in 1469 in prison by a knight who had fallen from grace,

called Thomas Malory.

Since then, Bamburgh has maintained its reputation

as an icon of legends and mysteries,

partly because of its imposing image

in a scenario of violent winds and storms,

and partly because of the unfolding events witnessed within its walls.

It's said that Bamburgh Castle is haunted by a lady in pink.

Now, this is believed to have been a local princess

who fell in love with a boy but her father did not approve,

and he sent that boy away for seven years.

And then in an attempt to help his daughter move on

and to not feel that love anymore,

he told her that her lover had died.

This was not true.

Now, to cheer her up, he got the castle seamstress

to make her a beautiful gown in her favourite colour, pink.

And when she put on this dress,

she then walked to the edge of the battlements

and threw herself off them.

And it's said that the castle is haunted now

every seven years,

when the ghost of that lady walks down to the seashore

and she waits for her lost lover.

Hundreds of people visit it every day,

enjoying its carefully tended interior...

..discovering the stories of knights bordering on the mythological,

listening to narrations of epic battles

against invaders from over the sea,

tragic tales of love,

and fantastic legends.

If Sir Lancelot were real, he couldn't wish for a better castle.

Hidden among green meadows near the village of Kemnay,

in Scotland, is a castle with great personality.

Castle Fraser, the castle of secrets.

A woman's blood impregnated in the staircase.

Notes of a piano being played at unearthly hours.

The spirit of a woman dressed in black roaming the garden.

Fraser still conceals today the answer to a number of mysteries

that have terrified different generations for centuries.

This castle's unsettling personality begins with its construction,

which gives it a very original appearance in terms of shape.

Originally Castle Fraser was built as a simple stone tower.

But then in the late 1500s,

Michael Fraser decided to expand it

with a tower on opposite corners.

And so it's that structure, where you've got the central tower

and then an extra tower on opposite corners.

That's what's called the 'Z plan'.

After that, two long wings were attached,

which gives Fraser its most distinctive U-shaped design

we can see today.

But if there is one thing that endures at Fraser for ever and ever,

that is its legends,

which are just as much a part of it as its walls.

The most well known is that of a woman, apparently of noble lineage,

murdered in this bedchamber, called the green room.

(GHOSTLY CHILDLIKE LAUGHTER)

This mystery has always been shrouded in darkness because,

so the story goes, someone entered her bedchamber,

murdered her and then tried to hide the body.

But at any rate, her bloody body

was then dragged down the stone stairs of the tower

in an attempt to get rid of the body,

and these bloodstains could not be removed.

And so they built wood panelling around the steps,

which can still be seen today.

The legend goes that the murderer was executed immediately,

but the attempts to erase the blood were in vain.

The identities of those responsible have never come to light.

Sometimes, the legends become entwined.

Some believe that the ghost of a woman, dressed in black,

could be that of a murdered woman, but this is not the case.

The woman in black is actually the spectre of Lady Blanche Drummond,

the beautiful wife of Earl Frederick, who died in 1874.

She had consumption, which nowadays we call TB, tuberculosis.

And so she was actually sent away down to Bournemouth,

and she died in Bournemouth at quite a young age.

LEO RUICKBIE: She is, however, believed to return to the castle

in the form of a ghost,

wearing a long black gown.

And there is in fact still a portrait of her

hanging in one of the rooms of the castle

in her distinctive long black gown.

Earl Fraser remarried, and it is said that his second wife

was always extremely jealous of the beauty of Lady Blanche,

whose portrait hung in the earl's favourite room.

She installed curtains over it

so that whenever she was sat in the room,

she wouldn't have to be confronted with the beauty of Blanche

that she was so jealous of.

On many evenings, the castle's silence is broken

by notes being played on a piano.

(MELODY ON PIANO PLAYS)

It is said that it is Lady Blanche playing them

on some of the different pianos to be found in the castle.

The melody can be heard in the surrounding area

and along the main drive.

The Fraser family took 60 years to refurbish this solid construction,

but never imagined that it would be known for its mysteries and ghosts

that climb up and down stairs...

..play the piano...

..and call the servants.

Does it have more secrets hidden behind its walls?

Located on the island of Anglesey in Wales,

surrounded by beautiful marshes from which it gets its name,

Beaumaris Castle is impressive for many reasons.

And some mysteries.

The destiny of Beaumaris was to be the finest castle in the world.

The best-designed castle in the United Kingdom.

To be an impregnable bastion.

King Edward I was determined to create

the finest military structure of its time.

Beaumaris is almost the perfect castle.

It's entirely symmetrical,

and it was built as huge bastion for Edward I

in his invasion and conquest of the Welsh.

Beaumaris is a huge, almost perfectly symmetrical fortress.

It has several concentric rings of imposing defences.

The moat has its own dock.

Supplies could be brought in by water from the nearby estuary.

The external walls

were prepared with 300 ingenious arrow slits for archers.

And all the entrances have murder-holes

that could be used by its defenders to pour boiling water or oil.

Beaumaris is very often seen as the ultimate castle -

perhaps the best castle in terms of military defence

that was created in Europe in the Middle Ages.

Certainly the most powerful castle in Britain,

even though it was never finished.

The man responsible for its construction

was the royal architect James of St George,

who also created Conwy and Caernarfon castles.

At Beaumaris he drew on all his military knowledge of the age,

which in turn required a great investment of funds.

Edward spent a lot of money on Beaumaris,

and it was possibly the most expensive project that he had.

It should have been the crowning glory of all his Welsh castles.

It should have been the crowning glory

of the career of his architect.

But in the end, he just didn't give the final bit of money

that was needed to complete his work.

Despite that, it's still the most impressive military architecture

I think in the whole country from the Middle Ages.

Thousands of labourers worked from dawn till dusk to build these walls.

The health of many of them suffered with every stone they laid.

So, the construction of Beaumaris required thousands of labourers,

and there is a legend that their chants and their work songs

can still be heard reverberating around the castle walls to this day.

This legend has various versions nowadays.

It is said that these chants

are actually the heart-rending laments of the exhausted labourers.

THOR EWING: Almost always when you build a large castle,

then you're going to displace people.

And so yes, they will have moved people,

and there'll have been a lot of resentment

because King Edward I had just conquered Gwynedd.

And it was the last stronghold in Wales.

It was the last part of Wales that held out against English rule.

Today, Beaumaris is a haven of peace and tranquillity.

At those times when the only sound is the leaves in the trees

being swayed by the breeze,

it is said that steps can be heard coming from the walls.

Could it be the ghosts of those stonemasons

trying to tell us something?

If the Middle Ages have bequeathed something to us,

it is stories and legends of war,

played out by characters with a strong personality.

The historical epic in this imposing castle goes by the name of a woman.

Gwenllian ferch Gruffydd.

Here, at Kidwelly Castle in south Wales,

the beautiful princess Gwenllian was decapitated

during the fight to expel the Normans from this fortress,

a struggle worthy of those medieval stories.

And the legend has it that her headless body

roams tirelessly around passageways, towers and the surrounding area.

LEO RUICKBIE: Kidwelly is said to be haunted

by a headless ghost.

This is believed to be Gwenllian,

and she was a warrior princess

who was forced to raise her own army

to defend her people against the invading Normans.

Unfortunately, she lost the battle and had her head cut off,

and ever since, people have claimed to have seen

her headless ghost looking on the battlefield for her missing head.

10th-century scribes left a written testimony

of the heroic deed of this young Welsh princess

who, in her husband's absence, tried to support the local revolts

against the Norman invaders.

Accompanied by two of her sons, she laid siege to Kidwelly,

one of the most emblematic and carefully constructed fortresses

of its time.

Gwenllian ferch Gruffydd was a local Welsh princess.

She was fiery, she was trained as a warrior,

and she decided to attack Kidwelly Castle

with another Welsh prince.

But that other Welsh prince, he betrayed Gwenllian

and he told the Normans of her position.

She was outside the castle, blocking off a road

into which supplies to the castle would come.

The Normans rode out and they attacked her army,

and in front of her eyes they rode down and killed her son,

named Morgan.

And then she was seized from her own horse,

taken back with the Normans,

and the Norman lord, Maurice de Londres, beheaded her.

And her headless ghost has been said to haunt the castle ever since.

The castle had all the elements necessary

to make it difficult to conquer.

Portcullises on the only two entrance gates.

Carefully designed arrow slits that covered all the angles.

Towering walls at the steepest part,

and a semicircular wall at the weakest part

to make it easier to defend against any attack.

The Normans locked any Welshman that they were suspicious of

in the dungeons - another feature of the castle.

The prisoners never re-emerged from there,

although the castle had its secret passageways.

Sally ports were one of the most cutting-edge designs in castles.

It was a secure exit from which people inside the castle

could then leave

and attack those that were laying siege to their castle.

Gwendllian was captured and executed,

together with two of her sons, very near the castle.

It is said that there, in the village of Carmarthen,

the wizard Merlin was born.

But that's another story.

Seen from a distance, it is impossible to predict

that this elegant castle, situated in Aberdeenshire,

is the standard bearer of Scotland's enchanted castles.

Fyvie Castle is exactly that - an enchanted fortress.

We are going to tell you the story

of the most tragic and spine-chilling events that surround Fyvie.

Apart from murders, secret chambers...

..curses and legends,

it is said that up to nine different ghosts

have been either heard or spotted in spectral form

in its elegant rooms.

Lady Lilias Drummond was the beautiful lady of the castle.

She had married the earl, Alexander Drummond Seton, in 1592.

A happy marriage.

But then the children arrived - or rather, the daughters.

Lady Lilias gave birth to five girls.

Like all the noblemen of the period, the earl craved a male heir

to continue his line.

He sought solace in the arms of a lover,

and focused his rage on Lady Lilias.

Fyvie Castle is said to be haunted by Lady Lilias,

who is known to have been kept prisoner and punished by her husband

for failing to provide him with an heir.

A rescue attempt was launched but it failed

and she was punished again by having members of her family murdered

and their body parts thrown past the window.

Eventually, she starved to death in that very room.

Legend has it that Lady Lilias died of starvation,

but it is also said that she was murdered,

and that the blood spilt in the room where she was locked away

has never been erased.

He remarried not that long after.

He married Grizel Leslie, who was the cousin of Lilias.

It seems that in the bedchamber

where the earl and his new wife were celebrating their wedding night,

sighs and strange noises could be heard.

It was a night of panic and terror.

The following morning when they looked out of the window

they saw the name of Lady Lilias Drummond

etched into the stone windowsill.

It is still there today.

It is said that the ghost of the countess appears often,

wearing a green dress,

and that it keeps the other Fyvie ghosts in check.

One of them is Annie, the girl on the stairs.

SAM WILLIS: Some say that actually she's been captured on film.

Others say they've seen a ghostly adult

walking away with her up the stairs.

In fact, it's even claimed that she's been made contact with,

and when asked if she minded visitors to the castle,

she said no, because she had someone to play with.

Nobody knows who she is.

It is not known

whether it is the soul of one of Lady Lilias's daughters,

or some other unexplained death.

THOR EWING: I don't think anyone really knows who she is,

or who she was,

but she seems to be a friendly ghost.

She's a little girl that likes to play on the stairs

and likes to have people about

because they're friends that she can play with.

Another of the Fyvie legends revolves around a trumpet player

called Andrew Lammie.

SAM MILLER: He fell in love with the local miller's daughter

called Agnes Smith,

but the local laird had ALSO fallen in love with her

and he made sure that Lammie was sent away in slavery

to the West Indies.

She died - according to the story, she was...

..she was actually beaten up by her brother

and that was what killed her.

And her grave is still in the churchyard.

Lammie eventually escaped and came back to discover

that Agnes had died.

And upon HIS death,

he then said that the castle would be cursed

with the sound of trumpets

that would always foretell the death of the castle's laird.

Some claim to have heard heart-rending trumpet melodies

while strolling around the gardens at Fyvie -

the same gardens where one of the three weeping stones,

another of this castle's famous legends, is supposed to be buried.

This relates to the period when it was built,

and comes from the Middle Ages.

Fyvie Castle was built with stones taken from church lands,

and Thomas the Rhymer said if those stones were not replaced,

then there would be a curse on the castle.

It would never pass down the male line for more than two generations.

Two of those three stones have been discovered,

and it's said that they weep - that they produce water

whenever a tragedy is about to befall the owners.

Hence the name "weeping stones".

And it is true that, for generations, the heirs of Fyvie

have never lived in the castle.

Perhaps they would find it unpleasant to live in a residence

which still has a woman's skeleton within its walls,

a skeleton that was uncovered 100 years ago during renovation work.

This was in the 1920s, and they buried it in the churchyard.

But after they buried it, then strange knocks and noises were heard

and you couldn't get peace in the castle at all.

And so they had it disinterred again

and put back into the same place where it had come from,

and everything returned to normal

and everything was peaceful again in the castle.

The possible identity of this woman has never come to light,

nor even the exact spot where she is to be found.

It is said that there is a dungeon in the basement

that might be the skeleton's resting place,

and that anyone opening the door will be cursed.

Two earls of Fyvie died after doing so,

and their wives went practically blind.

This is the outline of Fyvie Castle, Scotland's most enchanted fortress.

Don't say we didn't warn you.

Standing before us is the largest castle in Wales,

the second-largest in the United Kingdom

and one of the largest in Europe.

Caerphilly Castle.

It has one of the largest-known water defence systems.

A peculiar leaning tower.

And a ghost dressed in green that transforms into ivy.

Red Gilbert was given this nickname because of his red hair.

A man with a fiery temper and violent character,

he had Caerphilly built in 1268

in a display of power

that can be seen from the large area of land it occupies,

and from its enormous moat,

which was a real feat of engineering for the period.

JAMES WRIGHT: Caerphilly has an enormous system of water around it.

It's a whole sequence of moats and lakes and meres

to create this enormous aquatic landscape

which is partly there to defend the castle

but also to demonstrate just how powerful its builder was

by being able to tame the landscape in such a way.

SAM WILLIS: The design of Caerphilly Castle is remarkable.

It's one of the earliest concentric castle designs in the country.

That means that there's an outer ring of defence

which mimics the inner ring,

creating an area where an attacker would be exposed to fire.

From the air we can see Caerphilly's defensive rings perfectly.

The moat, although not particularly deep, prevented enemy troops

from advancing in the conventional way.

We can also see from various perspectives

the inclination of one of its towers -

the so-called Leaning Tower.

The tower has a leaning angle of more than 10 degrees, which is even more

than the famous tower in Italy.

It was said that it may have resulted from an explosion

or an artillery attack.

One of the towers at Caerphilly is leaning over

at quite a crazy angle.

It's sometimes rumoured

that this was a result of slighting during the civil war.

It's almost certainly a result of subsidence

after the moat was drained and the land has actually moved,

creating that lean in the tower.

The castle is impressive when seen close up.

From its entrance towers with their imposing portcullis

to its huge, powerful walls...

..everything in this fortress in south Wales

is a demonstration of its robust construction.

The peace and tranquillity that pervades Caerphilly contrasts

with a certain coldness in its interior.

Perhaps this sensation is transmitted by a tragedy

that remains alive in the memory -

a love drama that ended in the worst possible way.

Its protagonist is a lady dressed in green.

Alice de Angouleme, the French wife of Red Gilbert.

Caerphilly is also famous for its green lady.

According to the legend, this was Red Gilbert's wife,

Princess Alice.

And she apparently had an affair.

He, when he found out, had her sent back to France,

and the unfortunate man she was having an affair with

was captured and executed.

Then triumphantly he tells Alice in France

that his lover has been murdered.

Alice falls dead on the spot,

and it's said that her ghost haunts the walls of Caerphilly

and that she wears a green dress -

green for the envy of her husband.

It is also said that the ghost of the lady in green

is given this name because it can transform itself

and appear in the form of the vegetation

that is permanently present in Caerphilly.

Nowadays, wandering around Caerphilly Castle

produces a flood of sensations,

although some send a shiver down your spine.

In the estuary of the River Conwy, on the north coast of Wales,

this impressive fortress bearing the same name rises above the water.

It was intended to control the coastal areas

and prevent incursions into the territory along the river.

Conwy forms part of the group of castles

built on the orders of King Edward I

after conquering Wales at the end of the 13th century,

like Beaumaris and Caernarfon.

Of all of them, Conwy was the most expensive.

It is said that the king invested almost 20,000 pounds at the time

in creating this defensive wall, fearing a Welsh revolt.

As part of Edward I's invasion and conquest of Wales,

he built the iron ring around north Wales -

a system of castles, which included the castle of Conwy.

THOR EWING: So he built these three castles,

and Conwy is one of the most impressive.

And it's a concentric castle, like the others,

and it's the work of his great mason, James de St George.

The royal architect looked to take advantage

of the rock on which the castle stands

to prevent tunnels being built by possible attackers.

It has two wards - an inner one and an outer one,

which overlooks the coast.

Its eight towers have walls more than four metres thick.

The castle is also built on two levels, thanks to the land

and the design of its walls.

Conwy Castle has an outer curtain wall

and then inside that, you have another castle.

And so when people take the outer wall,

then they've still got a castle to take inside that.

And the relative heights are such that you can shoot down

from the inner castle onto people in the outer castle.

Unlike other castles in Wales, Conwy's construction was adapted

to the land, and thus did not have a concentric floor plan,

and also lacks an imposing entrance.

Access to it was over a bridge crossing the estuary,

which gave it an extra element of security.

So, Conwy has a very, very elaborate defensive system

which involves gate after gate after gate,

with portcullises and arrow slits and fields of fire

to ensure that it was an incredibly difficult castle to take.

The siege to which King Edward was subjected in Conwy by the Welsh years later

meant that it was adapted to his presence for a number of years,

notably the religious part.

It's said that the castle was once built near a monastery

and in spite of all of this enormous military architecture,

that sense of the place being religious has never left,

and it's known to be haunted by monks.

And it is said that today the monks can still be seen,

and remarkably, they seem to be levitating monks.

People have seen them rising up into the air.

This is not the only legend that is alive and well in Conwy.

Its location in a sea port

is part of a story told with great conviction

because of its consequences.

One of the stories that survives around Conwy

concerns a mermaid that was discovered by fishermen

and she was paraded through the town,

but that led to her death

because she needed to go back in the water,

and she cursed the town.

And then recently, on the very spot where the mermaid was said to have died,

the town hall was destroyed by fire.

And that was replaced by a library, and that also burned to the ground.

Perhaps because of the fear that took hold of Conwy's inhabitants,

the castle gradually fell into disrepair over the years.

One of its last owners

even decided to sell off the castle's iron and lead,

and the fortification became the ruin that we see today.

A gloomy, desolate ruin,

perfect for telling stories of cursed mermaids and ghostly monks.

Captions by Red Bee Media (c) SBS Australia 2021