Top 3 Castles around Hawarden

Originally a Norman motte-and-bailey from 1070, heart of the Earldom of Chester, now Crown Courts with free Agricola Tower (medieval wall paintings) and walls over the Dee.

Great views from the towers looking south east towards Ellesmere. Also great looking north eastward to The Wirral across the River Dee to Neston and Parkgate.

Great views from the castle towers up a new spiral staircase. We walk north west along the coast through birch woodland. Many seabirds to observe from the headlands on the Dee mudflats. Check the tides for best viewing at low water.

Ewloe Castle is nestled in a beautiful wooded area and is a small yet intriguing medieval fortress. It was built in the 13th century by Llywelyn ap Gruffudd and refelcts the Welsh resistance against English conquest.

A walk round the city walls is a worthwhile experience, giving not only good views of the centre of town, but also a number of other sights including the river, the castle and the racecourse

A great place to visit with Free entry and a free car park ! Also a great start or finishing plase for the North Wales Coastal path

Flint Castle in Flint, Flintshire, was the first of a series of castles built during King Edward I's campaign to conquer Wales. The site was chosen for its strategic position in North East Wales.

The earliest and most unusual of Wales’ English-built castles Fans of military architecture make a bee-line for Flint. The first castle to be founded as part Edward I’s campaign against Llywelyn ap Gruffydd (Llywelyn the Last) in north Wales, it boasts a unique and unusually sophisticated design. Started in 1277 and largely completed by 1284, the castle is dominated by the great tower (or donjon) at its south-east corner. Surrounded by its own moat and accessed via a drawbridge, it’s essentially a castle within a castle. Built with exceptionally thick walls and equipped with all the facilities required to withstand a siege, it was presumably intended to be a final refuge in the event of an attack. Flint Castle is also famous as the location of a fateful meeting in 1399 between Richard II and his rival to the crown Henry Bolingbroke (later Henry IV), an event immortalised in Shakespeare’s Richard II.