Castell y Bere

In 1221 Llywelyn the Great took control of neighbouring Meirionnydd from his son Gruffydd, in whom he had previously placed power before the two fell out. He began building Castell y Bere to control the local population and secure his new south-west border, which included the mountain trade routes linking Gwynedd to Powys Wenwynwyn and Deheubarth. It was the first of several stone castles Llywelyn built, raised on a rocky hillock in the Dysynni Valley near Cadair Idris and Llanfihangel-y-pennant, its towers arranged around a courtyard.

Following Llywelyn's death in 1240, Gwynedd's power declined and Henry III of England seized many of its eastern lands in 1247. His grandson Llywelyn ap Gruffudd took power in 1255, imprisoning his own brother Owain ap Gruffudd, and extended his authority across Wales, adding a further tower to the castle's south side, probably for extra accommodation.

Llywelyn fought a final campaign against Edward I in 1282 and was killed near Builth that December. His brother Dafydd ap Gruffydd took power but was driven south into Snowdonia during 1283. Forces under Roger Lestrange and William de Valence marched from south Wales and Shropshire, placed Castell y Bere under siege, and took it on 25 April. Edward deployed 7,000 troops to hunt down Dafydd, who was captured and executed that October. A team of five masons and five carpenters under Master Bertram the Engineer was left at the castle "to carry out various works" once the army withdrew, repairs to the siege damage, the historian A. J. Taylor has suggested.

Edward invested further in Castell y Bere, visiting three times in 1284 and founding a small town beside it. The 1284 town charter reflected his anti-Semitic policy, stating that "Jews shall not sojourn in the borough at any time." Walter of Huntercombe, appointed constable that year, spent £47 building a new chamber, possibly for the king's own use, and a further £262 was spent between 1286 and 1290 (most of it in the year after the revolt of Rhys ap Maredudd) probably on the linking walls to the south tower and, possibly, the barbican and gate towers.

In 1294 the Welsh leader Madog ap Llywelyn raised a major revolt across Wales. Richard Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, was ordered in mid-October to secure the castle, but by late October it was under siege from Madog's forces; the constable, Robert FitzWalter, was sent to lead a relief expedition. The castle's fate is uncertain, but it was probably taken by Welsh forces in late 1294 and burnt. Edward did not repair it.

Both the castle and Edward's new town were abandoned after the revolt. Unlike his coastal castles, Castell y Bere could not be provisioned by sea and never fitted well into his plan for controlling North Wales. By the 16th century it had fallen into decay; the Welsh poet Gruffydd Hiraethog described the site as one "where stood a large strong building but which is now destroyed and cast to the ground."

The ruins lay under undergrowth until the 1850s, when they were cleared and the owner, William Wynne, carried out the first archaeological investigations. In 1949 Charles Corbett, the last private owner, placed the ruins into the guardianship of the state. Castell y Bere is now in the care of Cadw, protected as a scheduled monument and a National Monument of Wales, and open to visitors.

The castle's two apsidal, or "D-shaped", towers are typical of early 13th-century Welsh castles, but the site also preserves something rarer: carved statues of soldiers and decorative floor tiles, a combination found at only one other Welsh castle, Criccieth. The historian Lawrence Butler judged it to hold "some of the finest stone carving from thirteenth-century Wales."