Dinas Dinlle

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…

St. Mary’s in Castro (Saxon Church at Dover)

We talked about Dover Castle last season, but it’s worth revisiting, in large part for the same reason we devoted a video to it before: the long history of occupation. Specifically, in regards to the Saxons, Dover was one of the first places William the Conqueror conquered—and thankfully, he left the original Saxon church intact for us to visit to this day and, according to English Heritage, is the ‘largest and finest Saxon building in Kent’. The first record of the church at Dover is around 630 AD, when the records talk about a church built within the castle, which is where it gets its name Saint Mary in Castro. This is in the time of Eadbald, son of Æthelberht, the first Saxon king to convert to Christianity. Credence is given to the idea that the structure we see today Read more…