Qualla: Dolforwyn Castle

Dolforwyn Castle: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris Andrews, CC BY-SA 2.0. Llywelyn ap Gruffudd paid 174 pounds, 6 shillings, and 8 pence to build Dolforwyn Castle. The accounts survive, which is unusual; the castle has been gone for seven centuries, which is not. Llywelyn was the last native Welsh prince to hold the title Prince of Wales without an English crown's permission, and Dolforwyn was the last castle he raised himself. He built it between 1273 and 1277 on a wooded ridge above the Severn Valley, in defiance of an English king who had specifically forbidden it. Within four years the castle had fallen, Llywelyn was dead, and the line of native Welsh princes had ended with him. The siege took eight days because the masons had not dug a well.

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Image: Chris Andrews | CC BY-SA 2.0

Dolforwyn Castle: The Prince's Statement

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Llywelyn2000, CC BY-SA 4.0. Llywelyn's power base lay in Gwynedd in the north, but to be Prince of all Wales he needed presence in the strategic middle ground around the upper Severn. In 1257 he invaded the area, and by 1263 he had taken the districts of Cedewain and Ceri from the Marcher lords. Henry III r...

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Image: Llywelyn2000 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Dolforwyn Castle: The Siege That Brought Master James

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit fairlightworks, CC BY 2.0. Edward I became king in 1272 and saw Dolforwyn for what it was. In the spring of 1277 he sent Roger Mortimer, Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, and Otto de Grandson to take it. The siege began in early April and was over within days. The castle had been built without a well, and th...

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Image: fairlightworks | CC BY 2.0

Dolforwyn Castle: The Maiden's Meadow

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alexander Forst-Rakoczy, CC BY-SA 2.0 at. Dol-forwyn means maiden's meadow in Welsh, and a story attached to the place long before Llywelyn built his castle there. The antiquarian Thomas Pennant recorded a local legend that the maiden Sabrina had drowned at Dolforwyn and given her name to the River Severn that flows belo...

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Image: Alexander Forst-Rakoczy | CC BY-SA 2.0 at

Dolforwyn Castle: Three Decades of Spades

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Keith Salvesen, CC BY-SA 2.0. John Davies Knatchbull Lloyd's grandfather bought the site in the 19th century. Lloyd gave it to the Welsh Ancient Monuments Board, the predecessor of Cadw, in 1955. For more than fifteen metres of debris had built up over the original floors. Between 1981 and 2002 archaeologists...

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Image: Keith Salvesen | CC BY-SA 2.0