Wales · Ruin
Sycharth Castle
Sycharth was a medieval motte-and-bailey manor-site near Llansilin in Powys, Wales, long associated with Owain Glyndŵr. Today only earthwork remains survive; the site is in Cadw guardianship with a small carpark and information boards. Excavations revealed large timber halls on the motte and traces of surrounding enclosures.
Its prime
1400
Today
Ruin
As it stood in 1400
What Sycharth Castle looked like in its prime.
A rounded, flat-topped earthen motte rises from pasture, encircled by shallow ditches and low banked baileys whose footprints form visible concentric arcs in the grass; a belt of higher woodland lies to the east. On the motte’s flat summit stand a cluster of timber halls and cottages with steeply pitched tiled roofs and chimneys; the largest hall is a long timber building along the summit. Surrounding grounds are open pasture with faint terraces and building platforms.
Its story
The story of Sycharth Castle.
A Norman motte in Powys Fadog, and Owain Glyndŵr's home from 1369
Sycharth sits in the valley of the river Cynllaith, a tributary of the Afon Tanat, about a kilometre west of the boundary between England and Wales, with the woodland of Parc Sycharth on the higher ground to the east. The site lay in Powys Fadog, once part of the Welsh Kingdom of Powys, and after the Norman Conquest the commotes of Cynllaith and Edeyrnion came under Norman control. There seems little doubt that Sycharth, or 'Cynllaith Owain', began as a Norman motte and bailey, and an entry in the Domesday Book would indicate that it stood before 1086. The Normans also built a castle at Rhug that would have been the centre for Edeyrnion.
The two commotes passed into the possession of Madog Crypl, described as Lord of Glyndyfrdwy and Lord of Cynllaith Owain, in around 1275–1304. Madog was a direct descendant of the Princes of Powys, and Gruffudd Fychan II, father of Owain Glyndŵr, was probably his grandson. Owain Glyndŵr, who was born at Sycharth, inherited it in 1369, and it was here that he lived with his wife Margaret Hanmer and their children.
Nine halls on a green hill: Iolo Goch's Sycharth
The poet Iolo Goch described Sycharth as containing 'nine plated buildings on the scale of eighteen mansions, fair wooden buildings on top of a green hill', with 'a tiled roof on every house with frowning forehead, and a chimney from which the smoke would grow; nine symmetrical, identical halls, and nine wardrobes by each one'.
'We caused the whole place ... to be burnt', May 1403
The destruction of Sycharth was recorded by the man who oversaw it. On 15 May 1403 Prince Henry — Harry of Monmouth, the future King Henry V — wrote to his father King Henry IV that 'we took our people and went to a place of the said Oweyn, well built, which was his principal mansion called Saghern, where we supposed that we should have found him if he had been willing to have fought ... but upon our arrival we found no one; hence we caused the whole place and many of his other houses of his tenants in the neighbourhood to be burnt'. The prince then went directly to Glyndŵr's other seat at Glyndyfrdwy to seek him there, burned 'a fine lodge in his park' and all the country thereabout, and lodged there that night.
The 1962–63 excavations and Cadw's guardianship
Excavations on the flat-topped mound in 1962–63 revealed two timber halls, one of them 43 metres in length, and provided evidence of the site being burned, as it was in May 1403.
Until 1996 Sycharth lay in the historic county of Denbighshire, before being transferred to the Montgomeryshire area of Powys. The site is a scheduled monument and a National Monument of Wales, in the guardianship of Cadw, reached by a minor road close to the B4580 south of Llansilin, with a small carpark and information boards for visitors.
Step inside
7 places to explore in 1400.
The record describes 7 distinct spots at Sycharth Castle, including 2 interiors: inside the great timber hall on the motte, second timber hall on the summit. 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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Recreate Sycharth Castle with AI to explore it.
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Clans who held Sycharth Castle.
The families that held Sycharth Castle for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
Held by the lords of Glyndyfrdwy from Madog Crypl (c.1275–1304); Owain Glyndŵr inherited Sycharth in 1369 and lived here with Margaret Hanmer and their children.
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