Qualla: Builth Castle

Builth Castle: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jeremy Bolwell, CC BY-SA 2.0. There is nothing to see at Builth Castle now. A grassy mound rises about thirty feet above the meadow east of the town, ringed by ditches and embankments, and on top of it there is empty air where for several centuries there stood one of Edward I's stone fortresses. The stones are gone, carried off to build the houses and barns of Builth Wells. What remains is the shape: the great motte, the two baileys around it, the lines in the ground where curtain walls once stood. The shape has been on this hill since long before Edward; the Welsh and the Normans had been fighting over it for two hundred years when the English king arrived in 1277 to build a stronger castle than any that had stood here before. He started in confidence and stopped, unfinished, in August 1282. Four months later Llywelyn ap Gruffudd was dead a few miles up the river, possibly turned away from Builth's gates the night before he died.

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Image: Jeremy Bolwell | CC BY-SA 2.0

Builth Castle: Edward's First Welsh Castle

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eirian Evans, CC BY-SA 2.0. Builth Castle was begun in 1277, the first castle Edward I commissioned in Wales after his first war against Llywelyn. The site he chose was already fortified: a pre-existing motte-and-bailey castle with two baileys and a surrounding wall, taken from the Normans by various Welsh ...

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Image: Eirian Evans | CC BY-SA 2.0

Builth Castle: The Night Llywelyn Did Not Come In

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. On the night of 10-11 December 1282, the Welsh chronicles say Llywelyn approached Builth Castle hoping to find shelter or perhaps to negotiate. The garrison turned him away. The Welsh stories that grew up after his death called the men who refused him "the traitors of Builth" - b...

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Image: Public domain

Builth Castle: Mortimers and the Black Prince

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bill Nicholls, CC BY-SA 2.0. Edward I gave the castle to his son, the future Edward II, in 1301. Between 1310 and 1315 it was held as castellan by Roger Mortimer, the magnate who would later become Queen Isabella's lover and de facto regent of England before being executed by Edward III in 1330. Mortimer had...

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Image: Bill Nicholls | CC BY-SA 2.0

Builth Castle: Glyndŵr at the Gate

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Velela assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. When Owain Glyndŵr's rebellion swept through mid-Wales in the early 15th century, his forces attacked Builth Castle. The garrison was commanded by Sir John Oldcastle, the original of Shakespeare's Falstaff, although the Falstaff of the plays bears almost no resemblance to the act...

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. Velela assumed (based on copyright claims). | Public domain

Builth Castle: The Mound on Castle Road

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Christine Matthews, CC BY-SA 2.0. What stands today is the shape of what Edward built and nothing of the material. The motte rises with the original twin baileys still visible as flat lawns around it. The ditches are filled in but recognisable. From the top of the mound you can see the Wye flowing east through th...

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Image: Christine Matthews | CC BY-SA 2.0