Segontium

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Segontium is located in the town of Caernarfon in western Gwynedd. It was a Roman fort, which was inhabited right up until the end of the Roman occupation of Wales, and was garrisoned for most of that time by Roman auxiliaries from present-day Belgium and Germany. Segontium was the most important military base and administrative centre in this part of Britain. The fort of Segontium was established by Agricola in AD 77 or 78 after he had conquered the Ordovices people of North Wales. The original timber defences were rebuilt in stone in the first half of the 2nd century. Archaeological research shows that, by the year 120, there had been a reduction in the numbers of men serving at the fort, and the size of the garrison continued to decrease through the 3rd and 4th centuries. Coins found at Read more…


Holyhead Mountain Hut Circles

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The Holyhead Mountain Hut Circles are located in the northwesternmost corner of the isle of Anglesey and include foundations of prehistoric roundhouses and other buildings. When it was occupied, it would have been a sizable agricultural settlement. The hut circles were originally thought to date from the time of the Roman occupation of Wales. Roman coins and pottery have been found here and the huts closely resemble those at Din Lligwy in southeastern Anglesey. More recent excavations, however, have unearthed far older artifacts, including a stone axe, flint arrowheads, and pottery fragments. These finds date to the late Neolithic or early Bronze Age periods, indicating that the site was occupied for a much longer period of time.\ About 20 of an estimated 50 original buildings survive, mostly as circular hut foundations. Some huts include traces of internal divisions, storage areas Read more…


Pen y Castell

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Pen y Castell has been called “a primitive castle of unknown history”. It is located in North Wales, about 7 miles upstream from the town of Conwy, on the east bank of the Conwy River, near Cadair Ifan Goch and above the village of Maenan. During the medieval period, it would have guarded an important river crossing. The castle was constructed similarly to that of Garn Fadryn on the Llyn Peninsula. In his 12th century chronicle, Gerald of Wales indicates that in 1188 Garn Fadryn was newly built, likely by the sons of Owain Gwynedd. It is possible that Pen Y Castell was built by them at the same time. Still visible today, if you beat a path through the woods, are the remains of walls and a keep, all almost entirely overgrown with vegetation. It is particularly beautiful in Read more…


Dinas Dinlle

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Dinas Dinlle is an Iron age hillfort, and possibly once the site of a Roman lighthouse, located southwest of Caernarfon on the Irish sea in North Wales. The hillfort is a roughly rectangular defended enclosure with a high inner rampart and also an outer terraced rampart, which is divided by a deep ditch. It measures approx. 230m north-south by 145m east-west and would originally have enclosed approx. 4 hectares. The fortifications survive on only three sides today as the west side has been eroded away by the sea. Formerly the site may have stood well inland.  Even today, it is possible to make out small depressions which are thought to indicate the locations of Iron Age huts. It also includes a mound that may be the remains of a barrow or burial. Finds of Roman pottery suggest that the Romans Read more…


Prince of Wales

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Why is the Prince of Wales the son of the English king? And why are there so many people claiming to be the ‘true’ Prince of Wales running about? And why were the rulers called ‘prince’ instead of ‘king’? Like most of Europe, before the Norman conquest of England, all of Britain was divided up into many small kingdoms. At some point after 900 AD, the Saxons in England consolidated all their smaller kingdoms into one with one king, which is why there was a single throne later for William the Conqueror to lay claim to. At that point, Wales was still divided into a dozen small kingdoms, each with a king, not a prince. It was only in 1200 that Llywelyn Fawr conquered most of the country and in order to get recognized by the King of England and Read more…


Penrhyn Castle

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Penrhyn Castle is located just to the east of Bangor, on a promontory overlooking the Menai Strait. It was originally a medieval fortified manor house, founded by Ednyfed Fychan, who was the seneschal to the Kingdom of Gwynedd and served Llywelyn the Great and his son Dafydd ap Llywelyn. That original construction was destroyed in the building of the Neo-Norman folly that can be seen today. The present castle was begun in 1822 by George Day Dawkins-Penrhyn, who’d inherited the estate from his cousin, the first Baron Penrhyn. The Penrhyn fortune was built initially on the backs of nearly 1000 slaves who worked sugar plantations in Jamaica and then, after the abolition of slavery in 1833, through the exploitation of generations of Welsh slate miners. By the late 19th century, over three thousand men worked the Penrhyn mine, the largest Read more…


Aber Falls

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Aber Falls is a waterfall located about two miles south of the village of Abergwyngregyn in Gwynedd. Abergwyngregyn is a village adjacent to where the princes of Wales had a llys, known as Garth Celyn. The waterfall is formed as the Afon Goch (or the red river) plunges 120 feet (37 m) over a sill of igneous rock in the foothills of the Carneddau range. Two tributaries merge here and the enlarged stream is known as Afon Rhaeadr Fawr. Once past the road bridge, heading towards the village and the mouth of the river, it becomes known as Afon Aber. A smaller bridge at the foot of the falls is part of the North Wales Path, a long-distance coastal path between Prestatyn and Bangor. Ancient peoples lived in the area, some remains of which are visible to visitors walking along Read more…


Domen Ddreiniog

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Domen Ddreiniog, known in the medieval period as  Tal-y-bont, lies northeast of the village of Tywyn and southwest of Castell-y-bere on the bank of the Afon Dysynni, near what historically was its lowest crossing point.    This site has been documented as one of the 22 Welsh llysoedd of Gwynedd, though the mound that is visible today has been linked with other motte and Bailey Castles built by the Norman, Robert of Rhuddlan, in his attempt to conquer all of Gwynedd in the late 11th century. After his death, the Welsh retook the area and held it continually until the final conquest of Gwynedd in 1282 It is known that Llywelyn ap Gruffydd himself addressed a letter from the site in 1275, and King Edward I of England visited in 1295. The motte that is visible today is steep sided and Read more…


December 11, 1282

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Today is the 739th anniversary of the death of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the last native Welsh Prince of Wales.  He was ambushed and cut down by Englishmen, somewhere in the vicinity of Builth Wells (Buellt in Welsh), Wales, late on the afternoon on 11 December 1282.  It was a Friday. And then Llywelyn ap Gruffudd left Dafydd, his brother, guarding Gwynedd; and he himself and his host went to gain possession of Powys and Buellt. And he gained possession as far as Llanganten. And thereupon he sent his men and his steward to receive the homage of the men of Brycheiniog, and the prince was left with but a few men with him. And then Edmund Mortimer and Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn, and with them the king’s host, came upon them without warning; and then Llywelyn and his foremost men were Read more…


Castell Ewlo

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Castell Ewlo is located to the northwest of the town of Hawarden in far eastern Gwynedd. The castle was built during a period when Llywelyn ap Gruffydd was rising in power, but before he was crowned Prince of wales in 1267. Documents dating to 1311 state that Llywelyn ap Gruffydd erected a “castle in the corner of the wood” in 1257. Of all the native castles in North Wales Ewlo is the only with a non spectacular setting. It stands on a promontory overlooking the junction of two streams but is itself overlooked by higher ground to the south. Its position, near the English border, was intended to give Llywelyn control of the road to Chester and the ability to counter the English fortresses of Hawarden and Flint. There is no mention of Ewlo playing a role in either the Read more…


Christchurch Cathedral

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Christchurch Cathedral is located in the heart of what was once medieval Dublin, originally the center of Danish controlled Ireland. The cathedral precincts as they exist today were established by the Danes, but they were built over the top of a native Irish monastery that the Danes raided one too many times before taking over the area completely. The cathedral was begun around 1028 at the behest of Sitric Silkbeard, the King of Dublin, and has been rebuilt over the centuries. After the Norman conquest of Ireland, King Henry II celebrated Christmas here in 1171. The leader of that first Norman expedition to Ireland in 1169, Richard de Clare, known otherwise as Strongbow, is buried in the church’s nave. The crypt below the cathedral dates to the 12th century and contains many relics from the medieval period. In my books, Read more…


Beeston Castle

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Beeston Castle is located in Cheshire, and was part of the Earldom of Chester in the Middle Ages. It is a medieval fortress built in the 1220s on a high plateau by Ranulf, the 6th Earl of Chester, to consolidate his position in the northwest of England. Beeston has a long history of occupation, dating back to the Iron age, and the current castle incorporates these early banks and ditches into its construction. King Henry III took the castle in 1237, after the death of the last earl who died without an heir. The castle then became a jumping off point for the king’s campaigns in Wales. Prisoners captured at Evesham, during the Second Baron’s war, were held here, including Humphrey de Bohun, who died of his wounds while in custody. The castle remained in royal ownership until the 16th Read more…