Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle, Wales 1978

Caernarfon Castle in 1978, looking down into the inner ward with the great Eagle Tower dominating the scene and the waters of the Menai Strait beyond. The view shows the castle as both fortress and visitor attraction, with people walking the battlements and crossing the neatly kept ward below, while small boats can be seen offshore beyond the seaward walls. The stark stonework, narrow window openings, polygonal tower form and surviving wall walks all help to explain why Caernarfon is considered one of the most impressive of Edward I’s Welsh castles, built from 1283 onwards as part of his campaign to secure North Wales. By the 1970s it had long since become one of the country’s best-known historic monuments, but this view still conveys the scale and severity of the medieval stronghold remarkably well.