The first of these was Beaumaris Castle, the last and possibly largest of Edward I's Welsh castle construction projects. Though it was never actually finished, historians describe it as the "perfect" concentric castle, that is, a castle whose walls are surrounded by a lower "curtain" wall, itself with towers and turrets, thereby doubling the firepower with arrows and projectiles streaming from both sets of walls. If the curtain were breached, then the gap between curtain and high wall became a killing field. As I noted about Conwy, these castles were so designed that they could be defended by a very small number of men, even against an army. And, of course, the adjoining town was also fortified, walls, towers, etc.
As much of Beaumaris as I could fit in the lens
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Interior corridor, sufficiently narrow that any fighting here
would be single combat, mano y mano
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Killing field, between wall and curtain
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Structure in the yard
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Arrow slits in wall
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Beaumaris had a moat too as well as fortified access to the
harbor
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British warning sign; should be prefaced by "I'm terriby
sorry to bother you, but..."
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