For nine centuries, this town has lived with the presence of war. Sometimes it arrived suddenly, in the clash of steel and the fall of blood on open fields. At other times, it came quietly through drill halls, training camps, memorial stones, and the silent absence of names carved into church walls. From medieval resistance to modern global conflict, Kidwelly has repeatedly found itself drawn into the wider struggles that shaped Wales, Britain, and the world.

My journey into this military history began, as so many of my discoveries have, with names. Names on memorials. Names half-forgotten in archives. Names spoken once by families and then left behind as generations passed. I started to realise that Kidwelly’s story of war was not a single chapter, but a continuous thread running through its entire existence.

This is a town born in conflict. From the Norman occupation and the defiant stand of Gwenllian ferch Gruffydd in 1136, Kidwelly was a place contested, fortified, and fought over. The castle was not a symbol it was a weapon. The surrounding land was not scenery it was strategy. Control of Kidwelly meant control of river, road, and power.