Abstract
The castle at Harlech ‘standeth advanced on a very steep rock, and looketh down to the sea from aloft, which being built as the inhabitants report, by King Edward the First, took name of the situation. For Arlech in the British tongue signifieth as much, as upon a stony rock’. So wrote Saxton in the 17th century when describing the castle, built between 1283 and 1290 as a garrison for the English. The existence of a water gate at the castle shows that, when it was built, the sea lapped at the edges of the rock face which provided an ideal defensive position.
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© 1992 A. S. Goudie and R. A. M. Gardner
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Goudie, A., Gardner, R. (1992). Harlech Spit and the guarded cliff. In: Discovering Landscape in England & Wales. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2298-6_25
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2298-6_25
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-0-412-47850-5
Online ISBN: 978-94-011-2298-6
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