Aberystwyth Castle

Aberystwyth's first castle stood a mile south of the present site: a motte and bailey raised around 1110 by the Marcher lord Gilbert de Clare. Gruffydd ap Rhys, King of Deheubarth, besieged it unsuccessfully in 1116, then succeeded twenty years later, in 1136, capturing and burning the castle with the help of Owain Gwynedd and his brother Cadwaladr ap Gruffydd, sons of Gruffudd ap Cynan, King of Gwynedd. Their sister, Gwenllian ferch Gruffydd — Gruffydd ap Rhys's own wife — had been killed leading a force into battle at Kidwelly against Gruffudd ab Llywelyn, who fought there for the Norman lord Maurice de Londres.

Owain Gwynedd then gave the castle to Cadwaladr to rebuild, but in 1143 Cadwaladr was implicated in the murder of Anarawd ap Gruffydd, the new King of Deheubarth; Owain Gwynedd sent his son Hywel to strip Cadwaladr of his lands in Ceredigion, and the castle was burned once more. It was rebuilt again, later reinforced with timber and stone revetment and stone footings, and after passing through at least three more owners it was taken by Llywelyn the Great in 1221.

Edward I built the castle standing today, together with a new walled town, on a fresh site to the north; construction began in 1277, after his first war against Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, Llywelyn the Great's grandson, at the same time as his castles at Flint, Rhuddlan and Builth Wells. Work went slowly, and when war with Wales resumed in 1282 the Welsh took and burned both the new castle and its town. It was finally completed in 1289, probably under the master mason James of St George, at a cost of £4,000. The inner ward was laid out as a diamond-shaped concentric castle with a twin D-shaped gatehouse keep and mural towers at each corner; the western stretch of inner curtain wall, absent from the original design, was added only after the 1282–83 war. The walled town beside it took its name from the older, important village of Llanbadarn Fawr nearby, and was known as Llanbadarn Gaerog — Fortified Llanbadarn.

The castle was besieged extensively during the revolt of Madog ap Llywelyn in 1294–5 but held out because it could be supplied by sea from Ireland. Decline followed: by the time of the Black Prince in 1343, the main gateway and drawbridges, the king's hall and long chamber, the kitchen range and the outer bailey were all falling down.

During his national uprising against English rule, Owain Glyndŵr captured Aberystwyth in 1404 and made it a seat of government; a treaty between Glyndŵr and the King of France was signed at the castle the following year. The English retook it four years later.

From 1637 the castle housed a royal mint, established in the castle hall after Thomas Bushell prevailed upon Charles I; it struck the half-crown, shilling, half-shilling, twopence, penny, groat, threepence and halfpenny from silver mined locally in Ceredigion. Its operator raised a regiment of Royalist soldiers during the Civil War, but the mint ceased work in September 1642, when Charles I issued the Wellington Declaration; Bushell appears to have moved its bullion and equipment to Shrewsbury, and minting continued at Oxford.

Oliver Cromwell's forces took the castle in 1646, and it was slighted in 1649. An enclosure to the north has since been lost to coastal erosion; the ruined gatehouse, wards and mural towers that survive are a Grade I listed monument.