When: Saturday 6 April 2024
Where: Plas Mawr, 22 High Street, Conwy, LL32 8DE, United Kingdom
We are delighted to be supporting our friends in Sir John Owen’s Regiment of Foote at their living history event in the stunning setting of Plas Mawr in the ancient medieval town of Conwy, North Wales.
Maintained by Cadw, Plas Mawr (which means ‘Great Hall’ in Welsh) is the finest surviving Elizabethan town house anywhere in Britain. This is a living history event – built around presentations by author Charles Cordell – set during the Siege of Conway in 1646.
The Order of the Day
10am – event opens
10.30am – Talk by author Charles Cordell on the Siege of Conway in 1646
11.30am – Demonstration of British Civil War military drill
2pm – Talk by author Charles Cordell on the Siege of Conway in 1646
3pm – Demonstration of British Civil War military drill
4pm – Event closes
How to get there
Plas Mawr postcode: LL32 8DE
Road: take exit 17 on N Wales Expy/A55 into Conwy
Rail: Conwy Station is on the Crewe-Llandudno Junction/Holyhead route. Llandudno Junction station is 1.3 miles away.
Bus: Route No 5, Caernarfon-Conwy/Llandudno
The history
In 1627, King Charles sold the dilapidated medieval castle at Conwy to Edward Conway, 1st Viscount Conway, for £100 and Edward’s son, also called Edward, inherited it in 1631. When war broke out in 1642 the Archbishop of York, John Williams, took charge of the castle on behalf of the King, and spent a fortune repairing and garrisoning it. However, in 1645 Sir John Owen – a tough, battle-scarred cavalry commander with a reputation for arrogance – demanded Prince Rupert grant him the governorship of Conwy, much to Williams’s fury. Williams refused to leave the Castle but Sir John forced his way in, threw his rival out and moved his troops in, including an Irish contingent.
The following year, and with the Royalist cause failing, the Parliamentarians took Chester and marched along the North Wales coast, pursued by a Royalist army that had become little more than an undisciplined rabble, stealing cattle and destroying crops – including on Williams’s Penrhyn Estate. Infuriated, Williams switched sides.
In August 1646, a Parliamentarian army surrounded Conwy and began a bombardment – coordinated by Archbishop Williams himself. The town was taken – despite the scaling ladders being too short – and some of the Irish soldiers bound and thrown into the estuary. The Castle was then besieged and bombarded from August until November. Eventually, the Royalists were allowed to march out with their banners and swords, but not their muskets, and the troops, including the remaining Irish, were allowed to leave unharmed.