Talk:Criccieth Castle

Comments on the article

I've only read through part of the article so far, but I thought I'd leave some comments here:

• The lead summarises the article well. One thing I'd be tempted to add would be an acknowledgement of the buildings within the castle and their state (or rather their lack). The current emphasis is on the curtain walls, towers, and gatehouse as the surviving remains, but I assume there would have been buildings within the castle that don't survive.
• It might also be worth mentioning in the lead that the castle is open to visitors. It is in the infobox, so it could go either way.
• "At this time the only structures in Criccieth were the parish church of St Catherine and its associated buildings": First of all, I think this is an accurate reflection of what O'Neil wrote in his 1945 article; O'Neil says "So far as is known, before the early thirteenth century the only buildings at or near the site of the present castle and town of Criccieth were the church and any concomitant buildings in its immediate vicinity." However, I'm not sure it rings true. My reading of it places emphasis on "So far as is known", because the presence of a church near a castle would make it likely that there is a settlement nearby. The pairing of a castle and church was fairly common, especially in settlements intentionally founded by the local lord. The church must have been intended to serve some community outside the castle walls, otherwise a chapel in the castle would have been sufficient. The issue here is what to do without overstepping the guidance on original research. I'd be tempted to water down the wording.

Richard Nevell (talk) 23:01, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Sorry Richard, I completely missed this until now! To respond:

• I've mentioned the inner ward buildings and that the castle is open to the public to the lead. I've not mentioned opening times or similar as they could become outdated at any time.
• It's not particularly clear in O'Neil, but Dolbenmaen is about five miles north of Criccieth, so we're not dealing with a nucleated settlement built around a church and castle. The promontory on which the castle is built was apparently unoccupied beforehand except for a possible prehistoric camp, so it's not unreasonable to assume the church at Criccieth was an isolated structure which primarily served the scattered farms around it.

A.D.Hope (talk) 12:48, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

No worries, they really are minor points. On a related note, the sources used are pretty much what I would expect for an article like this and I'm not seeing significant gaps. I checked Nicola Coldstream's "Architects, Advisers and Design at Edward I’s Castles in Wales" but it only mentions Criccieth and I don't think there's anything there that can be adapted here. Richard Nevell (talk) 20:44, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

They're points worth raising, Richard! Thanks for checking Coldstream, much appreciated. It's good to have some reassurance that the bibliography is more or less comprehensive. A.D.Hope (talk) 09:45, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Criccieth Castle/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Zawed (talk · contribs) 06:42, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

I will take a look at this one, comments to follow in due course. Zawed (talk) 06:42, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Comments as follows:

Lead

• Further repairs took place under Edward II in the early fourteenth century.: this sentence is out of place chronologically with the following sentence

• Rearranged, done

• Just a suggestion, but I wonder if it is worth linking 'romantic ruin' to Romanticism?

• Done

Early history

• No antecedence for "the area"

• Fixed

• Since it is presented in italics, shouldn't there be a translation of Llys?

• Done

• Is there an appropriate link for St Catherine that could be added?

• There isn't, unfortunately

• Because the use of phase 1 etc... in the infobox, this phrasing could be worked into the text in this section for consistency

• I see you have done this in the building sequence, so striking here

• link Edward I in the second paragraph

• Done

• In the third para, an issue here: The these changes

• Fixed

• link 'borough'?

• Done

• Suggesting adding Sir William Leyburn as a past commander in the infobox, particularly the garrison value in the infobox corresponds to the period when he was in command

• Done, I've also corrected to use the 'Leyburn' spelling throughout

• The way I read it, the fourth paragraph is uncited. It ends with note [a], and the cite is for that note, not the paragraph

• Fixed by duplicating citation at end of paragraph

• O'Neil identifies these: suggest adding context for O'Neil, e.g. English archeologist Bryan O'Neil identifies...

• Done

Later history

• the castle was captured during the Welsh Revolt...

• Fixed

• The state carried out extensive consolidation of the fabric,: 'fabric'?

• In this context 'fabric' means 'building', and it's a common term in the sources. I could add a Wiktionary link if you think that would be helpful?

• supervision of Bryan O'Neil;: the link on Bryan O'Neil should be moved to his first mention (see final bullet point of previous section above)

• Done

• link Cadw

• Done

Building sequence

• Dupe link here: Bryan O'Neil

• Fixed

• considered Llywelyn ab Iorwerth to be the more probable builder.

• Fixed

Architecture

• The sequence of the castle's construction is not entirely clear, but the general consensus is that it was built in three main phases.: this is a bit repetitive given it is discussed in the previous section. Perhaps trim it a bit and recast along the lines of "As noted above, ..."

• Fixed as suggested

• The first paragraph of the outer ward section is uncited

• I've deleted the introductory paragraphs in the inner and outer ward subsections, as they largely repeat the section introduction.

• Other than that, this section reads well

• Thank you!

• Is it possible that the images under the headings 'The inner gatehouse' and 'The outer ward' could be centred to match the position of those headings?

• I do agree, but the images have caused me no end of trouble so I'm a bit afraid to poke them again.

Sources

• No need for the garrison number in infobox to be cited since it is (will be) cited in the fourth paragraph of the Early history section

• Fixed

• I don't get the formatting of cites 3 and 4 due to the use of the ampersand; to me it implies two cites?

• Those cites use Template:National Historic Assets of Wales, which for some reason includes the ampersand. I don't like it, but I'm also unsure if it's possible to remove it.

• Looks to be RS otherwise
• Spotchecks

• Cite 29, only supports the finer details of the crucifix, but not the precise location of where it was found (the gatehouse). Everything else in that paragraph up to the placement of cite 29 is not supported.

• This is now cite 30, and cites O'Neil to support the location. Fixed the unsupported previous sentence.

• Cite 6 (Wiles), supports a lot of the material discussed, I assume the rest comes from Avent

• Having re-read the paragraph I'm not happy with my interpretation of the sources, so I've re-written it. Avent supports the Norman origin and the move to Criccieth, the RCAHMW and Wiles should support the rest.

• Cite 24, doesn't support the 42,000 and 48,000 visitors per year fact, but that would be supported by the cites used in note b

• Fixed by including the cites in note b at the end of that sentence

• Cite 17, OK
• Cite 21, OK
• Cite 42, it may be because O'Neil is a bit hard going to read, but I'm not getting the point that the first and second storeys were probably identical

• Similar to the above, I've re-written the passage. You're right about O'Neil not supporting the two floors being identical, that was my mistake.

Images

• Well illustrated and appropriate tags used

• Cheers!

That's it for me at this stage, putting on hold for now. Cheers, Zawed (talk) 09:49, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Zawed. Thank you for taking on the review, firstly, it's much appreciated! As you can see I've now responded to your points, apologies if I've inadvertently missed any. In a couple of cases your feedback has prompted larger changes than you suggested, but nothing too massive. Let me know what you think, and I'm looking forward to the next stage of the process. All the best, A.D.Hope (talk) 15:40, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Just to keep you abreast of things, while editing another article I stumbled across some good aerial images of the castle on Commons, so I've used one as the lead image and labelled one in lieu of a plan. I did enquire about using these plans but I think they're licenced in a way we can't use. A.D.Hope (talk) 23:12, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm happy with the responses and changes to the article. As I believe the article meets the necessary criteria, I am passing it as GA. Cheers, Zawed (talk) 08:06, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

That's wonderful! Thank you for undertaking the review, much appreciated. All the best, A.D.Hope (talk) 12:36, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Bruxton talk 23:33, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

The castle from the north-west

• ... that Criccieth Castle (pictured) combined the "latest advances in military technology" with the "haphazard Welsh castle building style"? Source: Richard Avent, Cestyll Tywysogion Gwynedd / Castles of the Princes of Gwynedd, Cardiff: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1983 (footnote 38 in article)
  • Reviewed: N/A

Improved to Good Article status by A.D.Hope (talk). Self-nominated at 11:58, 20 December 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Criccieth Castle; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: - Offline/paywalled citation accepted in good faith Interesting:

Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
Freely licensed: Used in article: Clear at 100px:

QPQ: None required.

Overall: AGF on source, but as it is a GA reviewed by an experienced editor, should be fine. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 02:02, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

@AirshipJungleman29 and A.D.Hope: I am not sure if we need to attribute the quote as it is the opinion of the author Richard Avent. I will promote it without attribution because Avent is the leading authority on the subject of Welsh castles. Bruxton (talk) 23:29, 21 December 2023 (UTC)