CARNARVON  , a

market town and municipal borough, and the county town of Carnarvonshire, north Wales, 681 m . W. of Chester by the London & North-Western railway . Pop . (1901) 9760 . It stands very nearly on the site of Caer Seint, capital of the Segontiaci, and was fortified in 1098 by Hugh Lupus, earl of Chester, after Roman occupation, a fort, baths and villa, with coins and pottery, having been exhumed here . As the castle was begun only in 1284, Edward II., supposed to have been born in its Eagle Tower on the extreme west, can only have been born outside . The castle is an irregular oblong building on the west of the town, surrounded by walls and having thirteen polygonal towers . There is still much of the town wall extant . The parish church (Llanbeblig) is some half-mile out of the town, the institutions of which include a town and county hall, a training college, and a gaol for Anglesey and Carnarvonshire jointly . Manufactures in the town are scanty, but Llanberis and Llanllyfni export hence slates, " sets " and copper ore . A steam ferry unites Carnarvon and Tan y foel, Anglesey, while a summer service of steamers runs to Menai Bridge, Bardsey, &c . The borough forms part of a district returning a member to parliament since 1536 .

_ To this district the Reform

Act added Bangor . The county quarter sessions and assizes are held in the town, which has a separate commission of the peace, but no separate court of quarter sessions . Three weekly Welsh (besides English) newspapers are published here .