Rebellion, workforce, and cost

The castle's origin lies in Edward I's post-conquest division of Wales into English-style counties and the 1294 revolt on Anglesey. A castle on the island had previously been deferred to save money, but the rebellion and death of the sheriff made fortification urgent. Builders prioritized the castle over the surrounding town wall and gathered roughly 2,800 masons, quarrymen, carpenters, soldiers, laborers, and support workers at the site. Supplying them required carts, wagons, boats, stone, sea coal, timber, metalwork, food, and wages on a scale that made Beaumaris a logistical project as much as an architectural one. Pay fell into arrears, workers were housed in huts inside the works, and construction slowed as debts mounted. A comparison of £15,000 with horses, cattle, wheat, and skilled-work days conveys the scale of those resources more clearly than a single modern currency conversion.