1st Edition
Natural Stone and World Heritage The Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd
This book is about the stone used to build the castles of Edward I in North West Wales. It provides a description of the available geological resources and the building materials used in the construction of Caernarfon, Conwy, Harlech and Beaumaris Castles. It takes a broad view of this subject, placing the stone used in the castles in the context of both earlier and later buildings across the region of study, from the Neolithic up until the present day.
The book will serve as a useful source book for geologists, archaeologists, architects, representatives of the natural stone industry, historians and cultural heritage management professionals specifically and for academic and non-academic communities, travellers and tourism industry operators in general.
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. Regional Geology, Building Stones and Quarries in North West Wales
2.1 Introduction
2.2 A History of Geological Research
2.3 The Precambrian Rocks of Anglesey
2.4 The Neoproterozoic to Cambrian Rocks of the Mainland
2.5 Ordovician
2.6 Silurian and Devonian
2.7 The Carboniferous Rocks of Anglesey and the Mainland
2.8 Intrusive Igneous Rocks
2.9 Pleistocene and Quaternary Deposits
2.10 Stone from outside the region
2.11 Ballast
Chapter 3. Gwynedd before Edward I
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Stone building in the Neolithic Period
3.3 Neolithic Industry: Stone Tools
3.4 The Bronze Age
3.5 Bronze Age Industry
3.6 The Iron Age
3.7 The Roman Occupation
3.8 Iron Age and Roman Industry
3.9 The Early Christian to Norman Periods
3.10 The Early Medieval Castles
3.11 The last King of Gwynedd
Chapter 4. The Castles and Town Walls of Edward I
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Building Castles and Castle Builders
4.3 Caernarfon Castle and Town Walls
4.4 Harlech Castle
4.5 Conwy Castle and Town Walls
4.6 Beaumaris Castle
4.7 Concluding Remarks
Chapter 5. Building the Towns of North West Wales: Churches, Civic Centres and Manor Houses
5.1 Historic Building and Buildings in NW Wales in the 14th to 17th Centuries
5.2 New Castles of the 18th and 19th Centuries
5.3 18th and 19th Century Towns, Roads and Railways
5.4 North Welsh Weather and Natural Stone
5.5 Modern Building: A Return to Welsh Stone
5.6 The Towns of North Wales: Natural Stone and Local Character
5.7 The Slate Ports
5.8 A Final Note on Gravestones and Memorials
Chapter 6. The Building Stones of North West Wales: A Final Word
Biography
Ruth Siddall was a lecturer/senior lecturer in Geology at UCL from 1996 to 2013 and currently works in the area of student experience for the Office of the Vice-Provost for Education and Student Affairs (OVPESA) at UCL. She has been working for over 30 years on the applications of geological knowledge and techniques to further the understanding of materiality in cultural heritage, in research fields ranging from prehistoric, Classical and Medieval archaeology to Egyptology. She is also involved in the studying and archiving of building materials used in British cities, both historically and at present day. She was awarded the Halstead Medal by the Geologists’ Association in May 2019.
