Wales · Partial ruin
Dinas Emrys
Dinas Emrys is a rocky, wooded hillfort and medieval castle site on a 76 m crag above the Glaslyn valley near Beddgelert in Gwynedd, north-west Wales. Little of the superstructure remains today beyond multi-period ramparts, foundations and the base of a rectangular tower; the site is also associated with early medieval and Arthurian legends.
Its prime
1250
Today
Partial ruin
As it stood in 1250
What Dinas Emrys looked like in its prime.
A steep, rocky hillock rising above the Glaslyn valley and the southern end of Llyn Dinas, clothed with scattered birch and mixed scrub; the summit is an irregular rocky plateau encircled by up to three concentric stone ramparts and low curtain walls built to follow the rock contours. Ramparts are of grey local stone 2.5–3 metres thick in places; on the summit is the low rectangular stone base of a tower and a roughly circular tumble of stones about 9 metres across. A small enclosed pool and a raised platform sit within the interior; original approach is a steep western path and a later north‑east entrance is visible from below.
Its story
The story of Dinas Emrys.
The Rock Above Llyn Dinas: What the Excavations Found
Dinas Emrys is a rocky, wooded hillock rising about 76 metres above the floor of the Glaslyn river valley near Beddgelert, overlooking the southern end of Llyn Dinas in Snowdonia. Excavations in 1910 and again in 1954–56 revealed several periods of habitation: the earliest elements belong to the Iron Age, perhaps the 1st or 2nd century, with further traces suggesting people were still living there into the 5th century. H. N. Savory described the fortifications as stone walls between 2.5 and 3 metres thick, exploiting every irregularity in the rocky hilltop and enclosing an irregular area of about 10,000 square metres; the original means of access was a steep path on the western side, the present entrance from the north-east being a later addition.
Vortigern, the Dragons and Savory's Excavation of 1954–56
A pool within the enclosure, thought to be an artificial construction, is perhaps the pool of the tale of Vortigern and the dragons told in the Historia Brittonum. Fleeing into Wales to escape the Anglo-Saxon invaders, Vortigern is said to have chosen this lofty hillfort for his royal retreat, only for his men to find their masonry collapsed in a heap each morning, until the boy Myrddin Emrys, or Merlin Ambrosius, explained that the fort could not stand because of a hidden pool holding two dragons — the white dragon of the Saxons, winning the fight for the present, and the red dragon of the Welsh, which would soon defeat it. When Savory excavated between 1954 and 1956 he was surprised to find that the fortifications were of about the right time frame for either Vortigern or Ambrosius Aurelianus, and that a platform stood above the pool as the Historia Brittonum described; the platform itself, though, he found to date much later than the accepted floruit of either man.
The Undocumented Castle of the Princes of Gwynedd
The remains still visible on the hill — three series of ramparts, further walls and some foundations — mostly date from the Middle Ages. The most conspicuous object on the summit is the base of a rectangular tower, generally accepted as part of an undocumented castle built by the princes of Gwynedd in the eleventh century. Some believe the castle was erected by Llywelyn the Last, to guard the road to the mountain pass of Snowdon.
Step inside
9 places to explore in 1250.
The record describes 9 distinct spots at Dinas Emrys, including 2 interiors: enclosed interior courtyard, pool and raised platform. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
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