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Flint Castle

Flint Castle and Foreshore

The earliest and most unusual of Wales’s 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.

Contact

Castle Rd, Flint CH6 5PE

Opening hours

  • Monday
    10:00 - 16:00
  • Tuesday
    10:00 - 16:00
  • Wednesday
    10:00 - 16:00
  • Thursday
    10:00 - 16:00
  • Friday
    10:00 - 16:00
  • Saturday
    10:00 - 16:00
  • Sunday
    10:00 - 16:00

Last admission 30 minutes before closing
Closed 24, 25, 26 December and 1 January

Gallery