Dryslwyn Castle

Rhys ap Gruffydd, known as the Lord Rhys, reigned over the kingdom of Deheubarth in the 12th century, and on his death in 1197 his three sons contested the inheritance and fought each other for supremacy. Neighbouring Welsh kingdoms and the English took advantage to infiltrate Deheubarth, and it was around this time that Dryslwyn was raised on an isolated rocky hill above the Towy Valley, roughly halfway between Llandeilo and Carmarthen. Who built it is not clear; it was probably put up in the 1220s by one of the princes of Deheubarth, perhaps Rhys Gryg, who died in 1234. It may be that he built Dryslwyn and neighbouring Dinefwr to provide legacies for his two sons after his death. The two are of very similar construction, each with a round tower on a flared base inside a ward whose curtain wall contours round the hillside.

The two castles were for a long time central to the security of the kingdom. The ward at Dryslwyn held a great hall with an adjoining building that was probably a kitchen, and between the hall and the curtain wall a small enclosed structure that has been suggested as a prison. The castle was apparently assaulted in 1246: the Annales Cambriae record a siege by the Seneschal of Carmarthen, said to be acting on behalf of its rightful owner, though who that owner was, and whether the siege succeeded, is not known.

The castle went through a lengthy expansion in the late 13th century. After the death of Dafydd ap Gruffudd, the last native prince of Wales, in 1283, Dryslwyn was one of the few substantial stone castles in Wales still held by a Welshman, and Rhys ap Maredudd, the most prominent surviving Welsh lord, continued to augment its defences. The English allowed him to keep it because he had shown a more conciliatory attitude towards them than other Welsh lords.

In 1287 Rhys revolted against English rule. Edward I's forces, numbering 11,000, besieged Dryslwyn and took it after three weeks, using a trebuchet and undermining the curtain walls; several English knights were killed when one of the mine workings collapsed while they were inspecting it. The revolt petered out the following year, and Rhys himself was captured and executed in 1292.

Owain Glyndŵr seized Dryslwyn in the summer of 1403. When English forces recaptured it they decommissioned the place thoroughly, blocking various access routes, walling up the gatehouse, removing the treads from the stone stairs and even taking the hinges off the main gate. At some later stage all the major buildings were burned to the ground, and a great deal of the stone was then carried away from the site. The systematic demolition of the early fifteenth century was presumably meant to stop Welsh rebels using the castle again.

Excavation between 1980 and 1995 revealed much of what can now be traced, the inner ward keeping the polygonal plan adopted to fit the shape of the hilltop. Dryslwyn is considered one of the most important remaining structures built by a Welsh prince, and is noteworthy as the only native Welsh castle to have had three wards. It is a Grade I listed building and a National Monument of Wales, in the care of Cadw, which since 2024 has used the Welsh name Castell Dryslwyn in English as part of an effort to standardise the names in both languages.