Pen y Bryn
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Pen y Bryn is the demesne messuage of the old royal manor of Garth Celyn in Abergwyngregyn in the North Welsh county of Gwynedd.
"Aber Village August 1874
The castle of Llywelyn is but a few minutes walk from the centre of the village. To reach it by the quickest and most picturesque road you have to traverse the nook at the back of the mill and to scramble over the loose stones that rise about the surface of the widespread stream. Once over the somewhat perilous brook, you have to pass a gate, then a field, still following the side of the watercourse. Mounting a steep rustic ascent you find yourself a few minutes more before a huge barbaric Round Tower, the principal and almost only vestige of Llywelyn’s Castle at the present day. Attached to this Tower is an interesting looking structure built entirely we are told of the ruins of the ancient palace. It is at present used as a farmhouse, and is known as Pen y Bryn. This most picturesque house is well worth a visit, though from its private isolated character it is known to few out of its immediate neighbourhood.
The farmer’s wife, though little prepared for the intrusion, nevertheless kindly allowed us to traverse the house, contenting herself with showing us alone one particular room in the tower, a clothes press and four chairs, evidently as old as the building itself and quite as primitive.
She also favoured me with a bit of lighted candle and led me to the steps of a vast cellar or dungeon under the tower, telling me to inspect it if I wished, which I hastened to do - I beg pardon, I did not hasten, for the steps down to it were so slimy, damp, and shaky, that any over haste would have been accompanied with serious bodily harm, so needs was to be slow and cautious.
On descending into this cavern, as well as the faint light of the candle would permit of, I noticed several contiguous cells with prison - like apertures. Could these possibly have been dungeons? At least there were good reasons for the conjecture. At the further end of the cavern, or cellar, or prison, or whatever it was and had been, I could perceive the commencement of a subterranean passage, which led, I was afterwards informed, to some solitary spot in the glen - for what purpose, must be left to the imagination, for there are no printed memorials to the spot, nor any written ones, unless Lord Penrhyn, the owner of the property, happens to have any such in the archives of his Castle.
Tracy Turnerelli (1874)"
"'ABERGWYNGREGYN': The river runs into the Menai past Garth Celyn where the manor of the royal family of Gwynedd stood in the thirteenth century. The main home of the princes Llywelyn the Great, Dafydd ap Llywelyn and Llywelyn ll (the Last prince of Wales) was located where the old house of Pen y Bryn stands.
For fifteen of the forty-six years of the reign of Llywelyn the Great, his arch enemy was John, king of England. The relationship improved for a while when Llywelyn married the King’s daughter, Joan, ‘Siwan’ in the drama of that name by Saunders Lewis. In the senate of Aberdyfi 1216, Llywelyn demonstrated his diplomatic skill when he succeeded in giving the independent and divided Wales an administrative system which remained in place throughout the remaining quarter of his life. He also made an agreement at Ystrad Fflur with the princes of Wales to acknowledge his son Dafydd as his heir. But the princely line was shattered with the premature death of Dafydd.
Llywelyn the Great’s grandson, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, managed to draw the Principality together and expand it. In 1267, half a century after the Aberdyfi senate, he was recognised by England as the Prince of Wales. But Edward I ascended the throne fifteen years late determined to reduce the size of the Principality of Wales and then destroy it.
His chance came in the spring of 1282, with the rebellion of Dafydd, Llywelyn’s brother. A truce was announced at the end of the autumn. But the Norman-English terms offered were completely unacceptable to Llywelyn. He responded with a dignified declaration from Garth Celyn, that stated the long history of the Welsh, insisting that they were fighting for more than Gwynedd alone. They were fighting for the rights of all the people of Wales; they were battling for a nation. Better for them to die, he said, than to live under the oppression of the English.
Within weeks after these discussions, Llywelyn lay dead.
Six months later Prince Dafydd was delivered into the hands of the English at Bera, a mountain that rises above Garth Celyn.
Gwynfor Evans Cymru O Hud (2001)"
In 2006, the BBC sponsored an historical assessment whether or not Pen Y Bryn, a chicken farm overlooking the Menai Straits in Caernarvonshire, was, in fact, the historical palace of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the last Prince of Wales. They determined that not only was it the site, but it was far more elaborate then they had previously thought. The site includes separate buildings for administration and residence, as well as an extensive tunnel system. For further information, please see: http://www.castlewales.com/pen.html
[edit] Location
- Pen y Bryn: SH 65827273
- Gatehouse: SH 65847279
[edit] Bibliography
- Y Traethodydd (Gorfennaf 1998) Tystiolaeth Garth Celyn ISSN 0969 8930
- Cymdeithas Hanes Sir Gaernarfon (1962) Aber Gwyn Gregin T. Jones Pierce
- Cymru o Hud (2001, ISBN 0-86243-545-5) (English version: Eternal Wales (2001) ISBN 0-86243-608-7)
- Drawing by Sir Richard Colt Hoare Views in Wales Pen y Bryn 1811 National Library of Wales Vol. 9 no. 25
- http://www.llywelyn.co.uk
