Northern Monument #33
Castell Dinas Brân, a truly ancient corner of Britain. Roughly translated as the "crow's fortress" or "fortress of Brân", it has occupied this steep hill in the Vale of Llangollen since at least the Iron Age and possibly as far back as the 9th century. The early fortifications have largely been obliterated by a medieval castle built in the mid-thirteenth century by Gruffudd Maelor, who inherited the land and built the castle most likely in the place of a Royal Palace or Hall that preceded it.
Gruffudd Maelor died not long after the construction in 1269 and the castle passed to his son of the same name. He supported the Welsh cause during the First War of Welsh Independence. Dinas Bran's power did not go unnoticed by English forces. In 1277, during Edward I's venture into Wales, the Earl of Lincoln, Henry de Lacy, besieged the castle. The Welsh lord of Dinas Bran was forced to submit to the invading army, which promptly set the site afire, completely destroying it.
Though De Lacy exclaimed to the King that here was no greater castle in England nor Wales, Edward was not impressed and it was never restored. The hill was fortified on occasion by both kingdoms during small scale conflicts, but all accounts from the centuries that followed tell tales of travelers noting its ruinous state upon the hill serving merely as a viewpoint across the valley, with one of Henry VIII's chroniclers claiming that the only living being willing to inhabit the castle ruins was the eagle who returned each year to breed. The king would come to pass Acts of Union in 1707 extending English laws and norms into Wales. This was the first major political union in what would become the United Kingdom, and signalled the end of the need for defensive castles and fortifications across the Isles.
The poet William Wordsworth would eventually visit Dinas Brân, perfectly putting it into words;
"Relics of kings, wreck of forgotten wars, To the winds abandoned and the prying stars."
