Dolforwyn Castle

The main holdings of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Prince of Gwynedd, lay in Gwynedd, but to assert his claim to stand first among the Welsh princes he felt the need to exercise his authority in the Severn Valley, the strategic ground giving access to the heartlands of Wales. He invaded the area in 1257, and by 1263 had captured the districts known as Cedewain and Ceri. As a result Henry III recognised him as Prince of Wales under the terms of the Treaty of Montgomery of 19 September 1267.

To consolidate his newly conquered lands and affirm his control of them, Llywelyn built Dolforwyn between 1273 and 1277 at a recorded cost of £174 6s 8d, on a wooded ridge above Abermule commanding wide views of the upper Severn Valley. It was a native Welsh design rather than the work of the Cambro-Normans, and fairly primitive in concept beside structures to be found elsewhere, its platform hewn from the rock with a rectangular keep at one end and a circular tower at the other. No well had been constructed. He had raised the castle without the authorisation of the new English king, Edward I, whose frontier post stood at Montgomery Castle, and tensions grew between the king, Llywelyn, and Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn, Prince of Southern Powys, who held Powis Castle at nearby Welshpool.

In 1277, shortly after the castle had been completed, Roger Mortimer, Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, and Otto de Grandson besieged it. The occupants ran out of water for want of a well, and Dolforwyn fell to the besiegers on 8 April 1277.

The siege matters because it may well point to the appointment of James of Saint George as castle builder for Edward I. A letter sent from Dolforwyn, attributed to either de Lacy or Grandson, is considered to have been instrumental in bringing Master James of Saint George to Wales, the man who would later build Flint, Rhuddlan, Conwy, Caernarfon, Harlech and Beaumaris.

Custody of the captured castle was first given to Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn, but subsequently to Roger Mortimer, together with the lands of Ceri and Cedewain. Its new English overlords altered what they had taken. The south gate was blocked, new buildings were set up in the courtyard, and a well was dug.

Following the death of Roger Mortimer in 1282 the castle passed to his son Edmund Mortimer, and then to Edmund's son Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March, who lost the family estates in 1322 after an act of treason. An inventory taken at the time recites the rooms, among them an armoury in the round tower and domestic ranges running to a pantry, buttery, kitchen, brewhouse, bakehouse, chapel, hall, a lady's chamber and two granges for the storage of grain.

Dolforwyn appears to have been occupied until the reign of Richard II, but by 1381 it was already described as being in poor repair, and in 1398 as ruinous and worth nothing. After that date the castle was almost lost from memory and attracted little interest. Ownership passed to the Earls of Powis, and the site was subsequently bought by the grandfather of the antiquarian John Davies Knatchbull Lloyd, who gave it to the Welsh Ancient Monuments Board, now Cadw, in 1955.

Cadw arranged for the entire site to be excavated between 1981 and 2002, a joint project with the University of Leeds from 1981 to 1985 and the University of York from 1986 to 2002, under the directorship of Dr Lawrence Butler. More than 15 m of debris and infill was removed to reach its features. Those included a small stone-lined hall, English repairs to Welsh masonry shown up by the different types of mortar, a suspected wheat-drying oven, and a cistern or cellar well of 6 m with some indication that it might be deeper. The finds ran from part of a leather book cover, a small die and a silver coin from the reign of Edward II to a large array of spent stone catapult balls from the English siege of 1277.

Local masons employed by Cadw rendered the site, and in June 2009 Cadw commenced a six-month consolidation of the castle masonry. Cadw own and operate the monument, which is a scheduled monument, a Grade I listed building and a National Monument of Wales, and it is open to the public. Since 2024 Cadw have used the Welsh name Castell Dolforwyn in English as well, part of an effort to standardise the names in both languages. Dôl-forwyn translates literally as maiden's meadow, and in the Welsh folklore recorded by the antiquarian Thomas Pennant this is the place where the legendary Princess Habren was drowned in the Afon Hafren, giving her name to the river.