Promenade Wall, including steps and piers

Cadw's description

Location

On the W side of the Town Walls from Aber Bridge to Victoria Dock.

History

Originally built as the quay serving the medieval town. The original wooden quay was destroyed in the 1294 uprising and was superseded by a stone quay that is shown on John Speed's 1610 plan of Caernarfon. The present structure is mainly C19 and built in 2 main phases. The S section, parallel with the Town Walls, is shown in its present form on the 1834 town plan as part of 'The Terrace', demonstrating the growing importance of Caernarfon as a resort. The N end which projects outwards from the line of the earlier wall, was built in the early 1870s in conjunction with Victoria Dock and is first shown on the 1890 Ordnance Survey.

Exterior

Mainly of coursed rubble or rock-faced stone, with some areas of snecked rubble and much repair. The earlier S section is SSW-NNE parallel with the Town Walls, has a low rubble-stone parapet with flat copings and is approximately 220m long from a stone pier opposite the castle. Further S the wall curves to the S to Aber Bridge where there is a slipway partly cobbled, behind which the wall is of coursed rock-faced stone but with some repair in coursed hammer-dressed stone integral with bridge abutment. The stone pier shown on the 1834 town map. A similar stone pier, also on the 1834 map, is opposite the Royal Welsh Yacht Club and is reached down stone steps, which are shown on the town plan of c1810. The wall has an apsidal projection that follows the plan of the Yacht Club. Opposite the Bath Tower the wall curves outwards and continues N for approximately 120m to the NW end of Victoria Dock. This section has a parapet of monolithic dressed stone blocks, and has stone steps at the NW end, where the wall is of large blocks of coursed hammer-dressed stone.

Reason for designation

Listed as a C19 quay and promenade wall, a rebuilding of the medieval quay and emblematic both of the importance of Caernarfon as a port, and of the growing significance of tourism in the C19.