Castle and town walls

A view of the original walled town, from one of the towers of town walls.

Conwy Castle and the town walls were built, on the instructions of Edward I of England, between 1283 and 1289, as part of his conquest of the principality of Wales.^[8] The church standing in Conwy has been marked as the oldest building in Conwy and has stood in the walls of Conwy since the 14th century. However, the oldest structure is part of the town walls, at the southern end of the east side. Here one wall and the tower of a llys (palace/court house) belonging to Llywelyn the Great and his grandson Llywelyn ap Gruffydd have been incorporated into the wall. Built on a rocky outcrop, it has a prominent apsidal tower.^[9]

The walls are part of a World Heritage Site, Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd.^[10]

People born within the town walls of Conwy are nicknamed "Jackdaws", after the jackdaws which live on the walls there. A Jackdaw Society existed until 2011.^[11][12]

The population of the town in 1841 was 1,358.^[13]

Abbey

Conwy was the original site of Aberconwy Abbey, founded by Llywelyn the Great. Edward and his troops took over the abbey site and moved the monks up the Conwy valley to a new site at Maenan, establishing Maenan Abbey.^[14] The parish church St Mary & All Saints still retains some parts of the original abbey church in the east and west walls.^[15]

Suspension bridge

Conwy has other tourist attractions. Conwy Suspension Bridge, designed by Thomas Telford to replace the ferry, was completed in 1826 and spans the River Conwy next to the castle.^[16] Telford designed the bridge's supporting towers to match the castle's turrets. The bridge is now open to pedestrians only and, together with the toll-keeper's house, is in the care of the National Trust.^[17]

Railway bridge

The Conwy Railway Bridge, a tubular bridge, was built for the Chester and Holyhead Railway by Robert Stephenson. The first tube was completed in 1848, the second in 1849.^[18] The bridge is still in use on the North Wales Coast Line, along with the station, which is located within the town walls. In addition to a modern bridge serving the town, the A55 road passes under the river in a tunnel, Britain's first immersed tube tunnel, which was built between 1986 and 1991.^[19] The old mountain road to Dwygyfylchi and Penmaenmawr runs through the Sychnant Pass, at the foot of Conwy Mountain.^[20]

Aberconwy House

The National Trust owns Aberconwy House, which is Conwy's only surviving 14th-century merchant's house, one of the first buildings built inside the walls of Conwy.^[21]

Plas Mawr

Plas Mawr

Plas Mawr is an Elizabethan house built in 1576 by the Wynn family, which has been extensively refurbished to its 16th-century appearance and is now in the care of Cadw and open to the public.^[22]

Smallest house in Great Britain

The smallest house in Britain.

The house named in the Guinness Book of Records as the Smallest House in Great Britain, with dimensions of 3.05 × 1.8 metres, can be found on the quay. It was in continuous occupation from the 16th century (and was even inhabited by a family at one point) until 1900 when the owner (a 6-foot (1.8 m) fisherman – Robert Jones) was forced to move out on the grounds of hygiene. The rooms were too small for him to stand up in fully. The house is still owned by his descendants today, and visitors can look around it for a small charge.^[23]

Vardre Hall

Vardre Hall is a 19th-century Grade II listed building directly opposite to Conwy Castle. It was erected by Conservative Buckinghamshire MP William Edward FitzMaurice in the mid 1850s. In 1869 the building was sold to solicitor William Jones. The building was used as a solicitor's office until 1972, when it was bought out and became The Towers Restaurant.^[24] After lying empty for a number of years Vardre Hall changed hands again, and in 1999 was refurbished as a shop.^[25]

Medieval watchtower

Across the estuary is Bodysgallen Hall, which incorporates a medieval tower that was possibly built as a watch tower for Conwy Castle.^[26]

Administrative history

Conwy was an ancient borough. Unlike most such boroughs, it was not reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, and so the old borough corporation continued to exist and run the town. By 1876 the borough corporation was seen as an archaic and unaccountable impediment to the proper management of the town. The town's residents organised a petition to convert the town into a municipal borough with an elected corporation to take responsibility for public health and local government.^[37] A royal charter incorporating the town as a municipal borough was issued in December 1876, and the new borough corporation took over the running of the town from March 1877.^[38] The municipal borough boundary included land on both sides of the river, covering the parish of Conwy (or Conway) and parts of the parishes of Gyffin and Dwygyfylchi on the west bank, and part of the parish of Eglwys Rhos on the east bank. The urban parishes within the borough boundary were reorganised in 1894 to comprise Conwy and Gyffin on the west bank and Llanrhos on the east bank.^[39]

In 1972 the borough council voted to change the spelling of the town's name from "Conway" to "Conwy". The change was agreed by the Secretary of State for Wales and took effect on 1 August 1972.^[40] The municipal borough was abolished in 1974, with the area becoming part of the Aberconwy district in the new county of Gwynedd. A community called Conwy was established at the same time covering the area of the former borough.^[41] Further local government reorganisation in 1996 saw Aberconwy abolished and the town transferred to the new Conwy County Borough, named after the town but covering a much larger area.^[42]