Gwydir Castle

There have been fortifications associated with this site since AD 600. In the Early Middle Ages, numerous skirmishes were fought in the area between the post-Roman kingdoms of Wales. Two significant encounters were in AD 610, when Llywarch Hen, a bardic prince of Rheged, fought a bloody battle nearby and later when the Kingdoms of Gwynedd and Deheubarth fought a major battle near Llanrwst in AD 954. By the 14th century, the Welsh knight Hywel Coetmor, who had fought in the Hundred Years' War as a commander of longbowmen under Edward, the Black Prince at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356, is recorded as the first owner of a manor house on the site. He would later go on to support the rising led…