Beaumaris on Anglesey is a history lover’s dream.
Beaumaris Castle was ambitiously designed to be concentric: a large castle containing several identically shaped smaller castles – just like Russian dolls or a set of Tupperware boxes. It was intended to be the pinnacle of Edward I’s castle building spree in Wales and he demanded that it be ‘the castle to end all castles.’
It was commissioned after Edward’s conquest of Wales, and work began in 1295 … and in 2025 it still isn’t finished. To be fair to the builders, they started off strongly and the part they built between 1295 and 1300 was so well constructed that it’s still standing. But they slacked off a bit after that, and the castle lacks such essentials as doors, floors, and even a roof in some places. So it was never destined to become a thriving military stronghold, and instead it mouldered away while Edward turned his attentions – and his cash – towards subduing the Scots.
This failed project cost £15,000, which was a colossal sum for the time, and would have cost more if all the tradesmen and workers had been paid in full. It’s nice to see that we have a long and proud tradition of expensive, unfinished projects and they aren’t a uniquely modern phenomenon.
But my favourite place in Beaumaris was the Old Gaol. I hadn’t really appreciated this before, but up until the mid-Nineteenth Century prisons were only meant for holding suspects until they were put on trial. After that the vast majority of prisoners were either executed or transported – it doesn’t appear that many of them were ever found not guilty.
Theft was regarded as a much more serious offence than crimes against the person, such as manslaughter or violent assault, so you could find yourself sentenced to hard labour for what we would regard as the most trivial offences. And the death penalty was applied to over two hundred offences.
Class was obviously a factor too when it came to deciding punishment; and a thuggish, drunken vicar was treated much more leniently than an illiterate, and presumably hungry, peasant.
And this has to be my absolutely favourite offence – with each turnip being worth more than one day’s labour … even pricier than Duchy Originals:
When times changed and prisons were required to hang on to their prisoners for longer, it was essential to give them punishing tasks to fulfil every day. Otherwise wily scoundrels would realise that in prison they didn’t have to worry about where their next meal was coming from and would opt to commit further crimes in order to stay in prison, rather than have to earn a living on the outside.
Punishment by hard labour was the name of the game. Breaking rocks into small chips was meaningless hard labour, just done for the sake of it. But then someone in Beaumaris Gaol decided that it would be far better to have hard labour with some sort of purpose behind it, and so they created a treadwheel, which would provide water for sinks and toilets in each cell. This was an ingenious device for its time; running water in prisons was unheard of in 1867 – but it came at a terrible human cost.
Prisoners worked in pairs along the length of the wheel. One prisoner would keep climbing the treads on the wheel as it rotated – if he stopped or fell he would be mangled in the pit below. After ten minutes he and his partner would swap over and he would have ten minutes rest while his partner in turn climbed for his life. They would do this for eight hours a day.
And on a visit to the Old Courthouse I walked past barristers and a judge engaged in lively debate, watched by just one spectator in the gallery, with information boards making it clear that there was no such thing as impartial justice. Grand juries would vet cases before they came to court, and petty juries would be locked in a bare room without fire, refreshment or even a chamber pot until they gave the desired verdict – and disagreeing with the judge could result in imprisonment.
I had fondly thought that justice for all had been in existence in England since the Magna Carta … no man being above the law etc. How wrong I was!