Prestatyn Castle

Prestatyn Castle stands on a low mound in the flat coastal plain of Denbighshire, Wales. Built in 1157 by Robert Banastre under King Henry II, it was a motte and bailey castle designed to guard the coast road between Rhuddlan and Chester. The site once commanded wide views over the surrounding land and sea. Today only the earthen mound and faint traces of a causeway remain visible. A stone wall about 1.2 metres thick once surrounded the bailey, revealed by early 20th-century excavations. The castle’s history is brief but marked by conflict. Welsh forces led by Owain Gwynedd destroyed it in 1167, and the Banastre family later fled to Lancashire. By the 13th century the site had returned to English control, though records mention only a manor house. The motte’s unusual layout enclosed the entire mound within the bailey, a rare feature for such castles. Visitors find a quiet grassy mound beside Prestatyn railway station, near Nant Hall. A slight ditch surrounds the raised platform, and a low causeway leads south from the site. No walls or towers survive, leaving only the shape of the past to imagine. The flat fields stretch away, echoing the view the castle once held over the coast and the road it once protected.