Sycharth

Sycharth is a small hamlet in the community of Llangedwyn in Powys in eastern Wales, near Llansilin and Oswestry. It was the location of Owain Glyndŵr's birthplace and castle.

Location

Sycharth sits in the valley of the River Cynllaith, a tributary of the Afon Tanat. Sycharth Castle, just to the north, was the birthplace of Owain Glyndŵr.^[1]

Glyndwr's Home

Sycharth from field, showing motte

Sycharth, showing motte and moat

It was here that Glyndwr lived with his wife Margaret Hanmer and their children. Today the site is a flat topped mound or motte some eight metres high, with remaining defensive earthworks.

Iolo Goch's Description

Iolo Goch described Sycharth as containing ‘nine plated buildings on the scale of eighteen mansions, fair wooden buildings on top of a green hill’ and ‘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’.^[2]

Archaeological Evidence

Excavations in the early 1960s revealed the presence of two timber halls on the flat topped mound, one being 43 metres in length and provided evidence of the site being burned, as it was by Harry of Monmouth, later to become King Henry V when he was present to oversee the total destruction of the site in May 1403.

Destruction

He wrote to his father King Henry IV on May 15, 1403 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 in the manner as he said, 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 and then went directly to his other place of Glyndourdy (Glyndyfrdwy) to seek for him there. We caused a fine lodge in his park to be burned and all the country therabout and we lodged at rest there all that night..."

References

External links

• Map sources for Sycharth
• Aerial photo of the site

Coordinates: 52°49′03″N 3°10′57″W / 52.81754°N 3.18256°W / 52.81754; -3.18256

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