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Wales wall art is mostly castle ruins: Conwy, Raglan, Kidwelly, Beaumaris, Carreg Cennen, Chepstow and Laugharne, standing on hillsides, cliffs and riverbanks across the country. A medieval fortified bridge, a coastal harbor and the Pembrokeshire coastline complete the range.
Wales is often described as having more castles per square mile than anywhere else in Europe, built in waves by Welsh princes and then by English kings consolidating control of the country. That density shows up directly in this range: seven separate castles appear across the pieces here, more than any other single subject, which makes ruin architecture the actual center of Wales wall art rather than the coastline or countryside.
Conwy Castle and Beaumaris Castle are both part of the group of fortresses built for Edward I in the late thirteenth century, and both survive in more complete form than most of the others here, with full curtain walls and towers still standing. Beaumaris appears with its courtyard and lawn in view, which gives it a calmer, more manicured look than the roofless ruins elsewhere in the range.
Raglan, Kidwelly and Chepstow are shown as roofless stone shells, walls and towers standing without the buildings that once stood inside them. Chepstow is the oldest surviving post-Roman stone fortification in Britain, begun within a year of the Norman conquest, which makes it the single oldest structure in this entire range even though the photograph shows it as a ruin rather than a complete building.
Where most Welsh castles occupy a rise of ground, Carreg Cennen is built directly on top of a limestone cliff in the Brecon Beacons, so the picture of it here carries a drop beneath the walls that the hillside castles do not. That vertical drama makes it read as a landscape picture as much as an architectural one.
Near Llangollen, Castell Dinas Bran sits on an isolated hilltop above the valley, visible from a distance as a broken silhouette against the sky rather than as a detailed structure. It is the range's one true landscape and ruin combined into a single shot, closer in spirit to a mountain view than to the close in castle photographs elsewhere here.
Monnow Bridge in Monmouth carries a fortified gatehouse across the river, the only remaining example of a fortified river bridge left standing in Britain. It is a smaller, more domestic structure than any of the castles, and it suits a narrower wall than the wide hillside ruins do.
A red boat in a historic harbor and the coastline toward Newgale in Pembrokeshire are the two coastal pieces here without a ruin in frame, giving the range a lighter, more everyday counterpoint to the castles. These pair more naturally with a British coastal collection than with the fortress pictures.
A hillside or cliff top castle like Carreg Cennen or Castell Dinas Bran depends on the surrounding landscape for scale, so it wants a wide format and a size large enough that the drop or the valley below still reads. A closer, more intact structure like Beaumaris or Conwy holds up at a smaller size, since the subject is the building itself rather than its setting.
Each canvas is printed to order on museum quality canvas stock with archival, fade resistant inks, then stretched over a solid wooden inner frame so it arrives ready to hang, with free shipping.
Wales carries an unusually high density of castles for its size, built first by Welsh princes and then by English kings securing the country. Seven different castles appear across this range, which is why ruins outnumber every other subject here.
Chepstow Castle, begun within a year of the Norman conquest of England and the oldest surviving post-Roman stone fortification in Britain, though the picture here shows it as the roofless ruin it is today rather than a complete building.
Beaumaris and Conwy both survive with more of their original walls and towers intact than the others in this range, so those two read as complete fortresses rather than as broken shells.
Yes. A red boat in a historic harbor and the Pembrokeshire coastline near Newgale appear without any ruin in frame, giving the range a lighter coastal counterpoint to the castle pictures.
Yes. Every canvas, castle or coastline alike, is printed to order with archival inks that resist fading, stretched over a solid wooden inner frame and shipped ready to hang, with free shipping. For the rest of the country see United Kingdom wall art, and for the neighboring nation see England wall art.
