Eerie Ewloe Castle
Ewloe Castle
stands on a promontory in North-East Wales near the town of Harwarden, Flintshire. Its position near the
English border gave it a strategic control of the road to Chester. Today its ruins are under the
control of the Welsh heritage agency (Cadw – pronounced ‘kadu’.)
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| Ewloe Castle - 2008 |
The area had earned its place in history even
before the castle was built as in 1157 Welshmen led by Owain Gwynedd, the then
King of North Wales, nearly killed the English King Henry II at the battle of
Ewloe.
Llywelyn the Last began the castle’s
construction in 1257, adding to work undertaken by Owain Gwynedd and Llywelyn
the Great.
At the outbreak of the Welsh Wars in 1277,
Edward I left Chester and established a base at Flint. Although Ewloe may
have been occupied by Edward, Flint
and Rhuddlan castles were preferred; they could be restocked by sea and that’s
why Ewloe went into decline.
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| Ewloe Castle - East Wing 2005 |
Stories of ghosts abound at Ewloe. A glowing
spectre strolling the ramparts once so startled a dog that it never recovered
from the shock and died two days later. Legends say that marching soldiers can
be heard in the surrounding woodland. During thunderstorms the singing of a
phantom crooner drifts down from the ramparts, loud enough to be audible above
the storms.
Image attribution:
- Ewloe Castle – 2008; by Brian Jorgensen; Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.
- Ewloe Castle (east wing) – 2007; by Peter Craine; Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.
- Images from the Geograph project collection.
