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23-404: The location of the former hillside castle ( 193 m above  sea level (NN) ) is about 1 km ( as the crow flies ) north-northeast of the town of Vienenburg (141 m above NN ), in the county of Goslar and around 10 km (as the crow flies) northeast of the town of Goslar . The River Oker flows below the castle site to the south and east, around the southeastern end of

46-589: A lower ground floor chamber. Defensive arrowslits were placed on the curved sides of the tower. The flat side, which overlooks the outer ward, has a Romanesque window. Formerly thought to have been built around 1257 by Llywelyn ap Gruffudd , it is now thought that Ewloe was started much earlier by Llywelyn's grandfather, Llywelyn ab Iorwerth . Various periods have been put forward for its construction, including 1213–18 or 1221–37. An earlier fortification might have already existed on this site in Ewloe Woods following

69-516: A result of being dominated by higher ground on the uphill side. Whereas hilltop castles tend to have good inter-visibility with other castle sites, the restricted view of hillside castles such as Ewloe Castle means they were used to monitor movement along particular transport routes. Examples of hillside castles include Katz Castle in Sankt Goarshausen , Ehrenfels Castle in Rüdesheim and

92-492: Is a Grade I listed building , is incorporated within Wepre Park ; a country park managed by Flintshire County Council . The castle is under the care of Cadw —the national heritage agency for Wales. It can be reached by footpaths through Wepre Woods. Public access is free. In November 2009, the castle was among five lots of farmland and woodland put up for sale by Flintshire County Council. The local authority stressed Ewloe and

115-610: Is not mentioned in the war chronicles of 1276–77 but the presence of what appears to be a siegework outside the castle may suggest it was besieged. Ewloe had no military value to Edward I because his strategic castles at Flint and Rhuddlan could be provisioned by sea. The last contemporary references to the Ewloe Castle are in the Chester Plea Rolls that mentions a report sent by the Justice of Chester to Edward II in 1311. It

138-543: Is regarding the history of the manor at Ewloe from the middle of the 12th century. The rolls record that by 1257 Llywelyn ap Gruffudd had regained Ewloe from the English and 'strengthened' a castle in the wood, noting in 1311 that much of the castle was still standing. The castle was ruinous by the late medieval period. Much of the dressed stone work from its curtain walls and keep had been removed for construction material around Mold and Connah's Quay . Ewloe Castle, which

161-555: The B ;241 federal road . The Harliburg was built in 1203 by King Otto IV as an imperial stronghold. Like the Liebenburg , that stood around 10 km to the northwest, it was intended to threaten the access roads to Goslar, which were held by the Hohenstaufen lord, Philip of Swabia . In 1218, Otto himself stayed at the castle shortly before his death. In the late 13th century,

184-784: The Rietburg near Rhodt in the Palatinate . Ewloe Castle Ewloe Castle ( Welsh : Castell Ewloe or Castell Ewlo ) is a native Welsh castle built by the Kingdom of Gwynedd near the town of Ewloe in Flintshire , Wales . The castle, which was one of the last fortifications to be built by the native Princes of Wales , was abandoned at the beginning of the invasion of Wales by Edward I in 1277. Its construction, using locally quarried sandstone , appears to have continued piecemeal over many years and may have not been completed. On taking

207-557: The circular ramparts and moats remaining. The contemporary poet, Heinrich Rosla , from Nienburg published the Latin epic poem, Herlingsberga about the Harliburg. Hillside castle A hillside castle is a castle built on the side of a hill above much of the surrounding terrain but below the summit itself. It is thus a type of hill castle and emerged in Europe in the second half of

230-447: The marcher lordship of Mold in the early 1240s, Ewloe was used as a base for failed negotiations between Llywelyn's son, Dafydd ap Llywelyn , and officials of Henry III of England which led to war between 1244 and 1246. After Dafydd ap Llywelyn's defeat, Ewloe appears to have been abandoned by the Welsh when English authority was re-established in this part of north-east Wales . Ewloe

253-402: The 11th century. As a result of the particular danger to the site from attacks on the castle from the rising ground above it, this weak point is usually strongly protected by a shield wall or a Bergfried . Often a combination of these two passive defensive works were used. The advantage of a hillside castle was that its well was much less deep than that of a hilltop castle . The boring of

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276-401: The 1220s. The tower's outer walls—which are 2 m (6 ft 7 in) at their base—rose to about 11 m (36 ft). They were higher than the upper storey to protect its pitched roof from projectiles. A parapet ran around the top of the tower. Spaces in the stonework show where storage slots were placed in the upper roof spaces. The tower had a single first-floor hall that stood above

299-462: The Bishop of Hildesheim captured the Harliburg after a four-month siege, and had it slighted . Its stone was used inter alia to build the water castle of Wiedelah between 1292 and 1297, some 2 km southeast. The stone was also used in the construction of the nearby castle of Vienenburg in the town of the same name in 1300. Today the site of the former Harliburg is covered by dense forest, only

322-552: The Harly Forest. A few hundred metres southwest of the Harliburg, in the Oker valley, lies Lake Vienenburg ( Vienenburger See ). Almost exactly 2 km west-northwest is the hill of Harlyberg (255.9 m above NN), the highest point of the Harly Forest. A section of the A ;395 motorway runs past the Harly Forest, a few hundred metres east of the old Harliburg, where it is crossed by

345-703: The castle was transferred to the House of Welf . At the Diet of Erfurt in 1290, the Bishop of Hildesheim accused Henry the Admirable of Brunswick-Grubenhagen of breaking the Landfriede or "imperial peace" that had been in force since 12834, by tolerating highway robbery by the soldiers garrisoning the castle. As a result, the Herlingsberg War was precipitated, during which, in 1291,

368-624: The castle, the English Crown gave it little military value and allowed it to fall into ruin. Ewloe was sited on high ground within Tegeingl , a cantref in the lands of north-east Wales ( Welsh Perfeddwlad ). Standing near the Chester road, it maintained a strategic position near the Wales–England border . The castle is located on a steeply sloped promontory within a forested valley. It overlooks

391-414: The junction of two streams with higher ground to the south. Ewloe Castle combines features from both motte-and-bailey and enclosure castles . An asymmetrical curtain wall —with parapets —encloses two courtyards. A rock-cut neck ditch defends the southern side of the castle. In the upper triangular inner ward is a D-shaped tower known as the "Welsh keep ". This stands on a stone outcrop that forms

414-413: The motte; it has a stone revetment around its base (a basic chemise ). The lower outer ward is enclosed by two separate sections of wall that meet at a circular fortified tower , which stands upon a rocky knoll . As the curtain walls are not joined together, ladders would have had to be used to reach their parapets. No gateways connected the inner ward to the outer courtyard. Access into Ewloe Castle

437-542: The shape of the tower does not conform with keeps of the later Plantagenet period . D-shaped towers usually projected out from a wall or gatehouse but at Ewloe the castle builders placed the tower/keep on a motte in the upper ward surrounded by its own curtain wall. This feature has precedence in Welsh military architecture. Llywelyn the Great built a similar D-shaped tower at Castell y Bere at Llanfihangel-y-Pennant in Gwynedd in

460-452: The victory of Owain Gwynedd , prince of Wales in the Battle of Ewloe against the forces of Henry II in 1157. If construction commenced in the 1210s, Ewloe may have been a factor in prompting Ranulf de Blondeville , Earl of Chester , to normalise relations with Llywelyn. After 1218, the two men remained allies until the earl's death in 1237. During protracted legal disputes over control of

483-760: The well was often the most expensive and time-consuming element in the overall construction of a castle. Often, however, its water supply was ensured with the additional help of donkeys as pack animals , entailing the construction of special donkey tracks. There are numerous hillside castles in the German Central Uplands , especially in stream and river valleys, for example on the Middle Rhine . They were often built as customs posts ( Zollburgen ) and lay close to trading routes. In all they make up less than 1% of all medieval castles as categorised by topographic location, because they had enormous strategic disadvantages as

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506-400: Was entirely via wooden ramps. The outer ward had several wooden buildings. An external defensive rampart occupies the higher ground to the south of the castle above the neck ditch. Within the inner ward is a D-shaped (or horseshoe-shaped) tower known as the "Welsh Keep". Although a flight of stairs lead up to a first floor gateway—a similarity shared with contemporary military architecture ,

529-611: Was recaptured and refurbished by Llywelyn ap Gruffudd during his forces reconquest of the Perfeddwlad in 1256–57. It again provided the backdrop for negotiations between the Welsh and the English in 1259 and 1260. In 1276, Edward I began the first Welsh War by marching his forces out of the castle at Chester and up the west coast of the Dee Estuary . After an advanced base was established at Flint (a day's travel from Chester), building work immediately began on Flint Castle . Ewloe

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