Monthly Archives: May 2012

05/30/12

Iron Age Hill Forts: Dinas Bran, Dinas Emrys, and Tre’r Ceiri

The Iron Age in Wales occurred during the 500 years leading up to the Roman conquest of Britain.  “The earliest iron artefact in Wales is a sword dating to about 600 BCE, but by 400 BCE iron was being smelted and crafted into tools all over the British Isles.

The tribes of Wales developed regional styles of working iron, gold, and other metals, following the exquisite western European style known as La Tene (after the village of La Tene in Switzerland). At the same time as iron was introduced to Britain a new crop of settlers arrived from northern Europe.”  http://www.britainexpress.com/wales/history/iron-age.htm   This new group were the Celts.  They overran the whole of Britain, whether by conquering the then-native peoples, or gradually settling the country over a period of time.

According to the National Museum of Wales, there are over 1000 iron age hillforts in Wales (though some could be more aptly viewed as ‘defended farms’).

  • Hillforts are fortified enclosures built of earth, timber or stone and frequently sited on defensible hilltops. They were built from the Late Bronze Age, throughout the Iron Age (1100BC-AD50) and some were also occupied during Romano-British times. They enclose areas of between 0.1 and 80 hectares, although in Wales most are under 2 hectares in area.
  • Hillfort defences usually consist of a bank (rampart) made of material dug from an outer ditch. Some hillforts were provided with additional defences. Many hillforts have elaborate and strengthened entrances incorporating impressive gate structures.
  • More recently, a number of archaeologists have emphasised the great diversity in hillfort characteristics. They argue for a number of different roles, not merely defensive ones. Many hillforts are sited in poorly defensive locations, others do not seem to have been lived in continuously or intensively. Instead, they may have acted as stock enclosures, agricultural fair grounds and religious centres at certain times of the year. As monuments, they may have been as much about displaying the status and power of different community groups, as they were about defence. A large number of small hillforts in Wales should essentially be seen as single farms occupied by small family groups.  http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/2370/

 

Three hill forts of particular interest that cover the whole range of styles and periods are Dinas Bran, Dinas Emrys, and Tre’r Ceiri.

The ruins that sit atop Dinas Bran (meaning literally, “Hill of the Crow”, or “Bran’s Stronghold”) were built in the medieval period, but the site was continuously occupied from the Iron Age and the ditch and earthen embankments visible today date from that initial settlement.  http://www.castlewales.com/dinas.html

“The hillfort has a single bank and ditch enclosing an area of about 1.5 hectares. To the south and west the defences are most considerable being up to 8 metres high in places. The entrance lies in the south-west corner of the fort and is defended by an inward curving bank. To the north the fort is defended by the natural steepness of the land and no earthwork defences were required.”  http://www.cpat.org.uk/educate/guides/dinasb/dinasb.htm

Dinas Emrys sits atop a rock that is one of the strongest, natural fortifications in Wales.  Modern archaeology reveals: “Dinas Emrys was occupied to some extent in the late Roman period, but that rough stone banks around its Western end are later. They were poorly built of stone two or three times and took strategic advantage of natural crags. Still less substantial walls were also discovered to the north and south. Broken sherds of Eastern Mediterranean amphorae, Phoenician red slip dishes and a pottery lamp roundel featuring a Chi-Rho symbol indicate that these features do indeed date to the 5th and 6th century.”
http://www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/archaeology/emrys.html
http://www.castlewales.com/dinas_em.html

The last site, Tre’r Ceiri is a spectacular iron age site, located on the Llyn Penninsula in Wales. A climb to the top of the 457 meter hill reveals 150 hut circles still clearly discernable, capable of housing upwards of 500 people. The stone walls surrounding the fort were 4 meters (12+ feeet) high in places and the huts range in size from 3 meters to 8 meters across.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/northwest/sites/celts/pages/trer_ceiri.shtml

05/30/12

Castell y Bere

My daughter says that Castell y Bere is in ‘the freaking middle of nowhere’ which is why King Edward couldn’t convince any English settlers to live there after he conquered Wales.  Plus ‘it’s really, really windy.’

Potentially, that is all you need to know about Castell y Bere, but if that turned you away from visiting, that would be unfortunate.  Historically, Castell y Bere was also one of the most important castles of the Welsh Princes–certainly it is one of the largest and most elaborate.  It sits on elongated plateau of rock in the Upper Dysynni Valley.  Because of its central location (at the time), it helped Llywelyn Fawr, who built it, control the territory along the old mountain road from Cadair Idris to Dolgellau.  It also guards the territory between the Dyfi and Mawddach estuaries (see above mentioned ‘freaking middle of nowhere’).  Llywelyn built it with luxuries in mind, and included stained glass windows, inlaid tile, and stone carvings (Paul Davis, Castles of the Welsh Princes).

 

Llywelyn Fawr began the castle after a dispute with his son, Gruffydd in 1221 AD.  Llywelyn took these territories for himself, and began work on Castell y Bere.  His grandson, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, added onto the structures, eventually creating a sprawling complex of buildings, surrounded by a system of walls and ditches that made the castle virtually impossible to assault.  It was the last castle to be taken in 1283, after the fall of Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, surrendering to King Edward’s forces without a fight.

King Edward maintained the castle (to the tune of 265 pounds) from 1286 to 1290, but Adrian Pettifer states in his book Welsh Castles, ‘the castle proved too remote to be supplied in times of siege.’  It was burned during Madog ap Llywelyn’s uprising in 1294 and never restored.

Links:  http://www.castlewales.com/cybere.html

http://www.castlexplorer.co.uk/wales/bere/bere.php

*Thanks to Stephen Colbert’s Better Know a District.

05/30/12

Medieval Planned Communities

When Edward I conquered Wales, he did more than build castles.  He also built townships.  These were villages associated with one of his castles.  In most cases, he imported English people to live in them, ousting the native Welsh.  Caernarfon, Rhuddlan, Conwy, Flint, Harlech and Beaumaris were among these combined castles/villages.

“The strategy of building Welsh Medieval Castles was combined with King Edward’s ambition to build and integrate fortified towns with the great castles. These purpose-built townships were designed to predominantly house the English conquerors. The towns were defended by the city walls and, of course, the castles. The Constable of the castle would often perform a dual role as Mayor of the town. Not only did the English have control over the local Welsh population they also had control of commerce and finance. The townships were established as trading centres – for the English. Welshmen were generally forbidden from entering the townships, let alone conducting trade in them.”  http://www.castles.me.uk/welsh-fortified-towns.htm

From UNESCO:  “The royal castles bear unique testimony of construction in the Middle Ages. The accounts that have survived specify the origin of the workmen, who were brought in from all regions of England, and describe the use of quarried stone on the site. They outline financing of the construction works and provide an understanding of the daily life of the workmen and population and thus constitute one of the major references of medieval history.

Throughout his reign (1272-1307) Edward I, King of England, worked to expand and defend his domain, implementing at the same time a military and settlement policy whose traces are still visible from the Pyrenees to Scotland. Above all in Wales, it is the major illustration of the great construction policy of his reign: a series of superb castles, which in some cases are combined with new towns surrounded by fortified walls, are the examples of the medieval urban planning.

From 1283 he undertook a castle-building programme of unprecedented scale. What he did was to station garrisons so as to quell any possible revolts, foster the settlement of castral towns by settlers and finally illustrate in a more symbolic than strategic fashion English power.”  http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/374

 

 

 

05/29/12

The Battle of the Menai Strait

“And he sent a fleet of ships to Anglesey, and they gained possession of Arfon. And then was made the bridge over the Menai; but the bridge broke and countless numbers of the English were drowned and others slain.”    –Brut y Twysogion, Peniarth Manuscript 20  (Chronicle of the Princes).

On November 6th, 1282, the Welsh achieved an historic victory over the English, who had thought to surprise them by crossing the Menai Strait and driving down the coast to Aber (Garth Ceylyn), Prince Llywelyn’s seat on the Welsh north coast.

The Menai Strait is the narrow body of water that separates Anglesey from Gwynedd proper.  The river-like flow changes course according to the tide.  The rising tide approaches from the south-west, causing the water in the Strait to flow north-eastwards as the level rises. It then flows counter-clockwise around Anglesey until, a few hours later, it shifts, and begins to flow the opposite way.

At that point, the water runs through the Strait in a south-westerly direction from Bangor (on the mainland) and Llanfaes (on Anglesey).   It was Llanfaes where the English commander, Tany, held his troops, waiting to cross to attack.

By the time the tide reverses course, the tidal flow from the Caernarfon end has weakened, even if the tide continues to rise in height throughout the straight.   Thus, slack water between Anglesey and Gwynedd tends to occur approximately one hour before high tide or low tide.

On the day of the attack, the English hoped to cross near high tide, when the water would be it’s calmest.  They began at noon, with high tide at 1 pm.  But the Welsh swept down from the heights above the beach and stopped them. The ferocity of their attack forced the English soldiers back across the bridge, which then broke under the weight of the men, horses, and equipment.  By then, the tide was in full spate, moving west at 2.5 knots.

History records that 16 English knights, another 16 squires, and 300 footmen died that day.

Prince Llywelyn believed he could capitalize on this victory by leaving his brother, Dafydd, in charge of Gwynedd and going southeast to Powys to garner support among the other Welsh lords of Wales.  Unfortunately, he was lured into a trap at Cilmeri and killed only a month after the Battle of the Menai Straits, on 11 December 1282.

05/29/12

Aber Garth Celyn

Aber Garth Celyn was the seat of the Princes of Wales since Aberffraw and Deganwy were destroyed sometime in the early middle ages.  With the fall of the Royal House of Wales and the subsequent conquering of Wales by Edward I, the location of Garth Celyn was lost to history.  It is only in the last 20 years that we have a better idea of where it might be.

One possibility put forth by CADW, the Welsh Archaeological society, is at ‘y Myd’–a man-made mound to the west of the Aber River in North Wales.  ”Excavations at Abergwyngregyn, near Bangor, unearthed the remains of a medieval hall dating back to the 14th century, the period when Llywelyn the Great and Llywelyn the Last were fighting for Welsh independence.

A test dig on the same site in 1993, revealed medieval pottery, a bronze brooch and a coin dating back to the post-conquest era.

“You can see a large area with some substantial walls and the floor plan of a medieval hall with large wings either side,” said John Roberts, archaeologist for the Snowdonia National Park Authority.

“There’s also an enclosure which has features that might relate to industrial activity – metalwork or large ovens.”"  http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/northwestwales/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_9140000/9140324.stm

These excavations were covered over in 2010 to protect them.

Another possibility for the location of Garth Celyn, and the one I chose for my books, is just on the other side of the river and includes a still-standing tower, situated on a hill overlooking the Lavan Sands and with a view of Anglesey.

From the Garth Celyn web page:  ”During the centuries between 1283 and 1553, the English crown owned the home and allowed it to become derelict, while at the same time expunging any mention of ‘Garth Celyn’ from the written record.   It is not until the time of Henry Vlll, that his surveyor, John Leland notes, ‘the palace on the hille still in part stondeth.’

Then, on June 14, 1551, Rhys Thomas of Aberglasney, appointed by Roger Williams, the surveyor of crown lands in north Wales, to be the deputy surveyor, obtained a lease for himself for the house.  Subsequently, on 27 April 1553 King Edward VI, seriously ill with tuberculosis, granted the royal manors of Aber and Cemais to William Herbert, earl of Pembroke and William Clerke.  Rhys Thomas and his wife, Jane, then built a house among the ruins of the palace.   (http://www.garthcelyn.com/thomas_family_7.html)

Culturally speaking, one of the most important records of Garth Celyn is found in the letters written in the last months of Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffydd’s life to Edward I and the Peckham, the Archbishop of Canterbury.  http://www.garthcelyn.com/letters_14.html

As the house itself, the following is a written account from 1874:

Aber Village August 1874                                        

The castle of Llywelyn is but a few minutes walk from the centre of the village.

To reach it by the quickest and most picturesque road you have to traverse the nook at the back of the mill and to scramble over the loose stones that rise about the surface of the widespread stream. Once over the somewhat perilous brook, you have to pass a gate, then a field, still following the side of the watercourse. Mounting a steep rustic ascent you find yourself a few minutes more before a huge barbaric Round Tower, the principal and almost only vestige of Llywelyn’s Castle at the present day. Attached to this Tower is an interesting looking structure built entirely we are told of the ruins of the ancient palace. It is at present used as a farmhouse. This most picturesque house is well worth a visit, though from its private isolated character it is known to few out of its immediate neighbourhood. 

The farmer’s wife, though little prepared for the intrusion, nevertheless kindly allowed us to traverse the house, contenting herself with showing us alone one particular room in the tower, a clothes press and four chairs, evidently as old as the building itself and quite as primitive.

She also favoured me with a bit of lighted candle and led me to the steps of a vast cellar or dungeon under the tower, telling me to inspect it if I wished, which I hastened to do – I beg pardon, I did not hasten, for the steps down to it were so slimy, damp, and shaky, that any over haste would have been accompanied with serious bodily harm, so needs was to be slow and cautious.

On descending into this cavern, as well as the faint light of the candle would permit of, I noticed several contiguous cells with prison – like apertures. Could these possibly have been dungeons? At least there were good reasons for the conjecture. At the further end of the cavern, or cellar, or prison, or whatever it was and had been, I could perceive the commencement of a subterranean passage, which led, I was afterwards informed, to some solitary spot in the glen – for what purpose, must be left to the imagination, for there are no printed memorials to the spot, nor any written ones, unless Lord Penrhyn, the owner of the property, happens to have any such in the archives of his Castle.

http://www.llywelyn.co.uk/

05/28/12

Roman Roads (Bwlch y Ddeufaen)

In an earlier post, I discussed the routes across the Welsh and English countryside during the Middle Ages.  Many of these roads were based in the Roman roads, built between the 1st and 4th centuries AD.  In Wales, the Romans built roads but also improved old ones, which wasn’t their normal operating procedure. It was forced upon them, however, because they found the land so inhospitable that it made it difficult for them to lay down their straight roads.

The Roman roads lasted such a long time because the Roman legions who built them designed them to do exactly that.  The Romans built over 53,000 miles of roads, intended to connect every corner of their empire ultimately with Rome.  Britain, of course, was one of the places Rome conquered that couldn’t connect directly, as it is separated from Europe by the English Channel.  Still, within Britain itself, the road system was extensive.    “The roads were first surveyed to keep them straight. Roadbeds were dug three feet down and twenty three feet across. It was then filled with large gravel and sand for the foundation. A layer of smaller gravel was placed down and leveled. The sides were lined with blocks and hand-carved stones. Stones were often pentagonal in shape (five sided) and fitted together to make the top layer of the road. The roads were sloped from the center so rainwater would drain off into ditches at the sides of the roads.”  http://www.historylink102.com/Rome/roman-roads.htm  The following image is an illustration of this construction:

http://nuke.romeheritagetours.com/EARLYCHRISTIANROMETHEAPPIANWAYTOUR/tabid/473/Default.aspx

In Gwynedd, in particular, the Romans built a road from Chester to Caernarfon. Instead of following the coastal plain, as the modern highway now does, it skirted the rock formations along the coast, running through St. Asaphs, curving north to Caerhun where it crossed the Conwy, took the ancient Welsh track between the standing stones at the pass of Bwlch y Ddeufaen, and then back down to the coast at Aber.

This is the road that Welsh people used from ancient times, through the Middle Ages and beyond. The best maps in for this era in Wales are the Ordnance Survey maps of Roman Britain and Ancient Britain, and online: http://www.multimap.com/maps/

Make sure you choose the ‘ordnance survey’ map, to show all the castles, forts, roads, and ruins.

Much of what existed in the past has disappeared into the earth, as evidence by the discrepancy between this map, and what archaeologists have actually uncovered.

05/28/12

Caerhun (Canovium)

The Roman fort of Canovium (Caerhun) sat at an important ford on the Conwy river that connected the Roman center at Caernarfon (Segontium) with Chester (Deva).  The following site has an extensive discussion of viritually every aspect of the Roman fort:  http://www.betws31.freeserve.co.uk/Kanovium_Index/kanovium_index.html

“Situated on the west bank of the River Conwy, the Roman fort at Caerhun, known to the Romans as Kanovium or Conovium, is believed to have been established at this point to control a network of trackways already in existence at the time of the forts founding in the late 70’s A.D.  Basically known as a ‘route blocker’ a fort situated at an area of strategic importance with the aim of restricting native movement.  These tracks which ran N-S, and E-W had been dictated by the nature of the land which North Wales consisted of, basically the N-W area was a great upland massif, which consisted of the Carneddau, Glyderau, and Snowdonia mountain ranges, while the N-E area consisted of the Mynydd Hiraethog (Denbigh Moors) which ran north to end at a flat coastal plain.  The people before the Romans desired easy routes into this area (and indeed Anglesey and the western seaboard) the route N-S entered North Wales near Llangollen, and used the Dee Valley to enter this broken landscape.

The E-W track connected the modern area of Deeside to Anglesey and the west, climbing up from sea level at modern Greenfield (near Basingwerk Abbey). The route today is slightly mirrored by the A55 road, however it veered away from the coast near St Asaph to eventually reach the Conwy river (above).  From the river crossing it reached for the mountain pass of Bwlch y Ddeufaen, (pass of the two stones) to finally descend to Aber and once more be reunited with the coast (and now the A55).  It would seem this track was considerably antique by the time of the arrival of Vespasian’s legionaries and auxiliary cohorts during 75-8 A.D, it was common practice for the army to utilize tracks already in existence especially in difficult terrain.  While the Roman road was a strong factor in impressing the local folk and could be built as a large straight ‘agger’ even when the ground did not dictate such vast amounts of man hours to construct, however such ostentations were not considered appropriate in North Wales, and natural arteries already in use were transformed into something resembling the Roman road, though often were narrower than a Roman road in gentler countryside.”   http://www.betws31.freeserve.co.uk/Bath-house/Caerhun_s_Dock/caerhun_s_dock.html

“About the year 1650 the antiquarian Samuel Lee unearthed a hypocaustand tiles stamped

LEG XX V

, and Gale in 1719 reported others, recently unearthed, bearing the legend

LEG X

, which may have been broken. In 1801 Samuel Lysons uncovered a bath-house, 128 feet (39m) long, outside the north-east defences of the fort, along with tile-stamps marked

LEG XX VV

.

This fort is contemporary with the forts at Cicucium (Brecon Gaer/Y-Gaer) and Segontium (Caernarfon), being built around AD75. This is a square fort, each side measuring 410 feet within the ramparts, giving an occupation area of 3¾ acres. Defenses consisted of a 20 foot wide clay bank, fronted by two ditches. The gateways and internal buildings were of timber construction.

The size of the fort and the arrangement of its interior buildings suggest that Caerhun housed a Cohors Peditata Quingenaria, a regiment of foot-soldiers nominally five-hundred strong. The names of none of the garrison units stationed at Canovium are known.

“Additions in stone were made in the first quarter of the second century, and early rather than late in that period. The outer margin of the clay rampart was cut off to a width of 2 feet, and a stone wall 6 feet thick at its base built between the rampart and ditch. The inner ditch was filled up soon afterwards in order to strengthen the foundation of this wall. … The gateways also were rebuilt in stone. The east gate (porta praetoria) was a double opening with guard-rooms, singular in having its two arches of different widths (15 feet and 5 feet respectively). The new south gate was a double opening with no guard-rooms; but one of the arches seems to have been blocked up during construction for use as a guard-room. At the same time the internal buildings were all reconstructed in stone.” (Collingwood, p.37)

Excavation has revealed two timber periods in the early history of this fort, rebuilding being carried out sometime during Flavian times. The sacellum in the centre of the camp was the first building to be replaced in stone during the reign of Trajan, followed by the rampart-wall in Hadrian’s reign. Hadrianic and Antonine samian ware shows continued occupation through these times, but the well in the principia was filled around AD196/7, which may indicate either destruction or desertion at this time. Occupation at the fort was soon resumed, however, as attested by the building of a new cook-house behind the rampart around 235, and continued occupation throughout the third and fourth centuries is proven by pottery and coins dateable to both these periods. The last coin recovered from the site is one of Gratian (367-383).

After the fort was destroyed in c.AD200, the civilian settlement or vicus outside the defences was only sporadically occupied until the 4th century when it was finally abandoned. There were Roman copper mines at Pen-y-Gogarth (Great Orme’s Head), eight miles north of the settlement near Llandudno at the mouth of the River Conwy.”  http://www.roman-britain.org/places/canovium.htm#rib2265

05/28/12

Dolwyddelan Castle

 

 This is an aerial view of Dolwyddelan Castle, courtesy of this site:  http://www.coflein.gov.uk/images/l/DI2006_1686/

 

 

The site of Dolwyddelan Castle has been on a major thoroughfare through Wales for millenia.  Before the present castle was built by Llywelyn Fawr (Llywelyn ap Iorwerth) early in the 13th century, an older castle sat on a knoll on the valley floor below it.   http://www.castlewales.com/dolw.html

Before that castle, a major Roman road through Snowdonia passed just to the east, connecting Tomen y Mur with the small fort of Bryn y Gefeilliau and the larger fort of Canovium (Caerhun).   (See Roman Roads:  http://www.sarahwoodbury.com/?p=29)

The present Dolwyddelan Castle has been heavily restored, in keeping with it’s position as the birthplace of Llywelyn Fawr, even if  that even really occured a quarter of a mile southeast of the present castle.

 

The newer Dolwyddelan Castle represented a major stronghold for both Llywelyns throughout the 13th century.  Both of them improved its defenses, luxuries, and overall structure numerous times over the course of their reign.  Of Llywelyn ap Iorwerth (Wales – A History, Wynford Vaughan-Thomas, Michael Joseph Ltd. Publishing, London WC1, 1985):

“Llywelyn deliberately set out on a policy of reconstructing the whole basis of Welsh political life, and not every Welshman was happy about it. Llywelyn lived in an age which saw the emergence of the centralized feudal state. Both France and England presented the spectacle of societies elaborating their administrative machinery, putting their taxation on a new and sounder footing and systematizing their codes of justice, but Llywelyn’s principality was small and lacking resources. Hostile English observers could wax satirical about its pretensions to international status.

Gwynedd had always been the core of the power of the princes, and the expansion of Llywelyn’s territory gave him the ability to do many things beyond the power of previous Welsh rulers. We find Llywelyn ap Iorwerth (the Great) and Llywelyn ap Gruffydd (the Last) developing castle building on a considerable scale. The remains of Castell y Bere or of Ewloe, Dolbadarn and Dolwyddelan even show distinctive Welsh style. The princes gave charters to the small towns growing in their domains. They supported the abbeys and the friaries. We sense a new Wales coming into being, and, at the moment, it was basically an independent Wales.”  http://www.castlewales.com/llewelyn.html

Dolweyddelan was one of the last castles that Edward I captured in the war against Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, and even then he didn’t conquer it until 1283, after Llywelyn’s death.

05/28/12

Rhuddlan Castle (s)

Rhuddlan Castle was begun by Edward I in 1277, immediately after he defeated Llywelyn ap Gruffydd.  In fact, Llywelyn made his submission to Edward in the bailey of the old castle, after which Edward immediately had it torn down.

 

“Rhuddlan first appears in recorded history in the last years of the eighth century, when there was no town of Rhyl and the shore road from Prestatyn to Abergele did not exist. Instead, the Clwyd and the marshes off its estuary, now reclaimed and drained and cultivated, formed a natural barrier athwart the coastal approach to the mountainous heart of North Wales. The settlement of Rhuddlan is likely to have owed its origin to the presence at this point, from very early times, of the lowest fording-place on the river, from which a track led across the marsh to Vaynol and beyond. Its position thus marked it out as a key point in the racial struggles which for some 600 years (c.700-c.1300) swayed to and fro across the Welsh and English border.

… in 1063, it is a royal seat of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn and the base from which that powerful prince (actually considered the last true High King of Wales) plundered the English lands as far east as Oswestry and Wrexham. In that year Gruffydd was driven from Rhuddlan by Earl Harold (Godwinson) and his palace burned.

… At the command, William the Conqueror, a new castle of the motte-and-bailey pattern, which marked every stage of the Norman penetration, was thrown up at Rhuddlan in 1073 by Robert of Rhuddlan, a kinsman and lieutenant of Hugh d’Avaranches, earl of Chester. Earlier, in the 1050s, Robert had been a squire at the court of King Edward the Confessor, by whom he had been knighted. From the Domesday book (1086) we learn that in return for an annual rent of L40, the Conqueror had granted him power over the whole of north Wales beyond the Clwyd; it was in this capacity that Robert made Rhuddlan the base from which he set out to exploit and consolidate the holding entrusted to him by the king in Gwynedd, and from which he also took his surname.”  http://www.castlewales.com/rhudln.html

“‘Rhudd’ is the old Welsh word for ‘red’ and ‘glan’ means ‘bank’. The Normans left us with ‘roe’, a word derived from the French ‘le rous’, meaning redhead. ‘Roeland’ is first mentioned in 1086 but by 1277 it was known as Rhuddlan and Edward I’s chosen location for a mighty scary castle.

For centuries, Rhuddlan had been a fiercely contested strategic location leading to much bloodshed. Edward’s muscle power triumphed long enough to build a muscle-bound symmetrical castle, showcasing the latest in ‘walls-within-walls’ technology. Edward I needed access to the sea to keep his castle supplied so he diverted the River Clwyd for over 2 miles (3.5km) to provide a deep-water channel for ships. The remains of a defended river gate still exist in the outer ring of the walls.

The castle also played a seminal role in Welsh history: it was here that a new system of English government was established over much of Wales by the Statute of Rhuddlan (1284) – a settlement that lasted until the Act of Union in 1536. After the Civil War the castle was rendered untenable – hence its present condition.”   http://cadw.wales.gov.uk/daysout/rhuddlancastle/?lang=en

05/28/12

The Pillar of Eliseg

Engraving taken from chapter about the pillar on pages 349-53 of Hone's Table-book

The Pillar of Eliseg is a 9th century tribute to Eliseg, a king of Powys.  ”The first mentioning is an indirect one: the Brut y Tywysogion mentions that the Abbey of Valle Crucis was founded in A.D. 1200 ‘near the old cross in Yale‘.

This so-called fragmentary free-standing pillar-cross stands in a field overlooking the ruined Valle Crucis Abbey (SJ 2142), a few miles from Llangollen in Clywd (former Denbighshire), en route to Horse-Shoe Pass. … The Pillar inspired the name Valle Crucis (Valley of the Cross). It was once erected by Cyngen, Prince of Powys for his great-grandfather Elise or Eliseg. The cross was defaced, thrown down and broken by Cromwell’s troops in the 17th century, hence the ‘pillar-shape’ now. This pillar stands on a large artificial mound where it was re-erected in 1779. At that time the mound was re-opened. Inside was a skeleton, buried inside a blue stone cist, along with a silver coin. Could it have been Cyngen or Eliseg? The skull was guilded and re-buried (as it was done in those days!). The shaft bears an elaborate Latin inscription, which has weathered away and is now illegible to an unpractised eye. On the opposing face is a later inscription, also in Latin, recording the restoration of the monument in 1779.”   http://www.vortigernstudies.org.uk/artsou/pillar.htm

From Wikipedia:  ”The Latin inscription not only mentions several individuals described in the Historia Britonum but also complements the information presented in that text. A generally accepted translation of this inscription, one of the longest surviving inscriptions from pre-Viking Wales, is as follows:

† Concenn son of Cattell, Cattell son of Brochmail, Brochmail son of Eliseg, Eliseg son of Guoillauc.
† And that Concenn, great-grandson of Eliseg, erected this stone for his great-grandfather Eliseg.
† The same Eliseg, who joined together the inheritance of Powys . . . throughout nine (years?) out of the power of the Angles with his sword and with fire.
† Whosoever shall read this hand-inscribed stone, let him give a blessing on the soul of Eliseg.
† This is that Concenn who captured with his hand eleven hundred acres [4.5 km²] which used to belong to his kingdom of Powys . . . and which . . . . . . the mountain

[the column is broken here. One line, possibly more, lost]

. . . the monarchy . . . Maximus . . . of Britain . . . Concenn, Pascent, Maun, Annan.
† Britu son of Vortigern, whom Germanus blessed, and whom Sevira bore to him, daughter of Maximus the king, who killed the king of the Romans.
† Conmarch painted this writing at the request of king Concenn.
† The blessing of the Lord be upon Concenn and upon his entire household, and upon the entire region of Powys until the Day of Judgement.”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillar_of_Eliseg

More recently, an archaeological excavation has been going on at the mound by university staff and students from Bangor and Chester.  ”Upon excavation, it appeared that the top of the monument had been subject to considerable disturbance, and we identified post-medieval pottery and other finds quite deep within the cairn material. However, conclusive evidence of an antiquarian excavation was elusive. Below this upper-layer, we encountered primary cairn material including spreads of charcoal and at least two cist-graves. One small cist was identified in plan, the other was a large cist revealed in the section of our trench and therefore just outside our area of excavation … we were unable to find a single prehistoric or early historic artefact in the primary cairn material.”

The group is planning a 2012 field season in hopes that they might uncover ancient remains, though if they don’t, they’ll learn something from that too :)

Read more >> http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/11/2011/project-eliseg-digging-for-early-medieval-myths-and-memories#ixzz1fEGWcRyM
Read the Archaeology News – then buy the Trowel at Past Horizons Tools.”