The Prisoner of Dolbadarn

By Annie Whitehead

Last time, I talked about the hidden history to be found along the trails in Padarn Country Park. It seemed that every time there was a clearing through the trees which offered a view, I could see Dolbadarn Castle in the distance. During my stay in Llanberis, most of my walks started from the castle, which is in the grounds of the Royal Victoria Hotel where I was staying.

Dolbadarn (stress on the middle syllable) is an imposing ruin and is notable for being a Welsh Castle. Yes, of course, you might be thinking; it’s a castle in Wales so it’s a Welsh castle, obviously! But what I mean is that this is not one of the ‘Iron Ring’ castles built by Edward I when he subjugated the Welsh, nor is it one which he remodelled - unlike, say, Rhuddlan where he even altered the water course.

Dolbadarn was built by a native prince, Llewelyn Fawr, ruler of Gwynedd, probably in around the 1230s. The very fact that however far I walked - up to ten miles most days - I could almost always see the castle, just shows what a good site he chose, and how imposing it would have been.

Situated at the tip of Llyn Padarn (Lake Padarn), it was built to protect the route from north to south. No one was getting through without being seen. Like another Welsh castle, Dolwyddelan, it appears that the entrance to the castle was on the first floor, (or second floor, for US readers) as seen here, but originally access might have been provided by a moveable wooden ladder which, when taken away, would make it hard to get inside.

Despite the fact that today it nestles in one of the most popular tourist areas, only a short walk from the foot of Mount Snowdon and the National Welsh Slate Museum, on many of my frequent visits I had the place to myself. Although of course when it was garrisoned, there would have been a lot of soldiers there, still one can have a sense of isolation, even today.

So how must it have been for the man who spent twenty years imprisoned here?

Although the castle was built by Llewelyn Fawr (Fawr means ‘great’), it was his descendants who created the ‘human’ story of this place. Despite being married to King John’s natural daughter, Joan, Llewelyn Fawr had an uneasy relationship with the king of England. Not much changed with the next generations. The Welsh were fighting for their independence, but unfortunately they were fighting each other, too.

Llewelyn with Gruffudd & Dafydd

There were separate Welsh ‘kingdoms’ which Llewelyn Fawr had, during the course of his reign, managed to incorporate into his sphere of authority. The trouble was that Welsh laws of inheritance meant that lands were divided amongst brothers, which led to fraternal discord.

Llewelyn Fawr had a son Gruffudd, who was not the son of princess Joan, but the product of an earlier liaison. Joan gave birth to a son named Dafydd. To cut a long and complicated story relatively short, Dafydd was the one who succeeded his father and Gruffudd was imprisoned, along with his son, at another Welsh castle, Criccieth. The prisoners were then handed over to King John’s successor, Henry III and incarcerated in the Tower of London. Famously, Gruffudd attempted to escape, but fell and broke his neck.

Gruffudd falls from the
tower

The son who was imprisoned with him was called Owain, known as Owain Goch (Goch means red, so presumably he was a redhead). War broke out between Dafydd of Gwynedd and Henry of England, who no longer had the prisoner Gruffudd as leverage. When his Uncle Dafydd died without issue, it was not Owain, however, who succeeded.

Gruffudd had three other sons besides Owain and it was Owain’s younger brother, another Llewelyn, who was able to take control. Brotherly love was conspicuous by its absence. Of the four brothers, Rhodri, who might have been the youngest, played less of a part in the fighting between England and Wales and, indeed, between the Welsh siblings.

Owain, and another Dafydd, the fourth brother, were more prominent. Dafydd was often a thorn in Llewelyn’s side, sometimes fighting alongside him, sometimes throwing in his lot with the English.

To begin with, though, Llewelyn and Owain were allies. When their Uncle Dafydd died childless, technically the king had a legal claim to Gwynedd. Henry tried to stir up support for Owain, but Owain, held at Chester at this point, managed to evade his captors, fleeing into Wales, and catching up with his brother where the two were able to put up a united front.

They had to come to terms with the English, though, and the Treaty of Woodstock in 1247 saw Llewelyn and Owain forced to agree to Henry’s conditions. As has been pointed out by Michael Senior, the very fact that the brothers ‘had to arrange to meet [there], and under the auspices of a neighbouring king, implies that they were not that close.’ Had they already begun to argue? They controlled only a small part of their grandfather’s old kingdom, but seem at first to have managed to work together, forming alliances with neighbouring princes.

However, when Dafydd, their younger brother, came of age he ingratiated himself with the English king, paying homage to him and receiving land in return. His share was not as great as that controlled by his brothers though and he wasn’t especially happy about it. Owain took his side, happy for Dafydd to have a greater stake in Gwynedd. Llewelyn was not so well-disposed to the idea.

Now, brother fought brothers. At the battle of Bryn Derwin in June 1255, Llewelyn took on Owain and Dafydd, and won. He then went on to breach the terms of the Treaty of Woodstock, retaking the Perfeddwlad, an area of Gwynedd which had been under Henry’s control.

Thereafter, Llewelyn’s story became inextricably linked to that of Simon de Montfort - he married Simon’s daughter - and the fighting with King Henry’s son Edward which eventually saw the deaths of both Llewelyn and, fighting at that point on Llewelyn’s side, Dafydd, too.

But what of Owain Goch? The brothers initially worked together to control the lands confirmed by the Treaty of Woodstock, but when Dafydd came of age, bent the knee to the English and received land in return, Llewelyn got cross, and Owain did not support him. The battle of Bryn Derwin apparently lasted only an hour or so, and Llewelyn emerged the victor. Both of his brothers were then imprisoned. Dafydd was released not long after, but Owain was not so lucky.

The Brut y Tywysogion (Chronicle of the Princes) describes the fight: "Llywelyn and his men, trusting in God, awaited, unafraid on Bryn Derwin the fierce coming of his brothers, and a mighty host along with them. And before the end of one hour Owain Goch was captured and Dafydd fled, after many of his host had been slain."

Owain remained a prisoner until 1277. Not everyone agrees that he was incarcerated at Dolbadarn, but it is generally assumed that this was where he spent his years as a prisoner. The sixteenth-century antiquarian John Leland believed he had been held in a tower, and the thirteenth-century court poet, Hywel Foel ap Griffri ap Pwyll Wyddel, described how the prisoner was kept in a tower as a ‘guest’ for a long time: "Gŵr ysydd yn nhŵr yn hir westai." Surely this was the tower?

Imprisoned first with his father in 1239 at Criccieth, then again at the Tower of London, and now in the stronghold at the head of Llyn Padarn; Owain must have wondered at his ill-fortune. He was released under the terms of the Treaty of Aberconwy, in 1277, when Llewelyn was forced to submit to Edward I at Rhuddlan. By the terms of the treaty, Llewelyn was allowed to retain the title of Prince of Wales, but he was no longer an overlord, although he was now finally able to meet and formally marry his bride, Eleanor de Montfort. Perhaps all might have been peaceful, had Dafydd not risen up and attacked Hawarden Castle and provoked Edward's ire. Perhaps Llewelyn might have stayed out of things had his wife not died in childbirth. The attack on Hawarden occurred in March, 1282, on Palm Sunday. Things 'escalated quickly', and were not destined to end well for these two brothers.

What did Owain make of it? After he was released, he lived quietly on his estates and is believed to have lived until around 1282. Long enough to see his brother seemingly triumphant over the hated English king? Or a little longer, enough to learn that Llewelyn, apparently betrayed, lost his head in an ambush in Powys?

Standing at the foot of this imposing castle, on a quiet sunny evening, I couldn’t suppress a shiver. It is one of the most beautiful places on earth, but it is bleak too. How must it have felt, to be a prisoner here for over twenty years? How much would it have worsened the suffering to know that one was a prisoner at the command of one’s own brother? Owain’s story does not occupy much space in the books about Welsh history. Most of it, after all, was spent here in this tower. But it’s certainly a story worth thinking about, if we want to think, write, and learn about the human stories which lie in hiding amongst the pages of those books.

Further reading: A Time for Princes - Michael Senior
The Welsh Kings - Kari Maund
The Welsh Princes - Roger Turvey
Brut y Tywysogion - available online here

Illustrations: Public Domain images via Wikipedia - Mss from Matthew Paris
Photographs: taken by and copyright of Annie Whitehead

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Annie Whitehead is an author and historian, and a member of the Royal Historical Society. She has written three award-winning novels set in Anglo-Saxon Mercia. Her history of Mercia, from Penda the pagan king to the last brave stand of the earl of Mercia against the Conqueror, Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom, is published by Amberley. Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England is published by Pen & Sword Books. Annie has a deep and abiding love of North Wales and its rich history and takes every opportunity to visit.

Connect with Annie: Website, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Amazon

The People's History Hiding around Snowdon

By Annie Whitehead

Pretty much everyone has heard of Mount Snowdon, or, to give it its Welsh name, Yr Wyddfa. It's there, it's big (1,085m) and it doesn't 'do' much. But take some time to not climb it and you'll discover some interesting history.

By 'not climbing' it, I mean take a walk nearby; you'll still have to scramble pretty high though so wear stout shoes!

Across the road from the base of Snowdon is Padarn Country Park and it's here where our tour begins. This was the site of the Dinorwic Quarry workshop and now houses the National Slate Museum. Admission is free, and you can still see much of the original tools and machinery. Look up at the hillside and you can also see how the quarry transformed it:

From there, you can walk trails which do, I admit, sometimes make climbing Yr Wyddfa seem like the easier option.  The trail I took brought me first to the Quarry Hospital. This was built in 1860 and is open now to the visitor who might wish to see how the hospital looked and operated in Victorian times. In fact, general surgery was still being carried out here as late as the 1940s. The rooms are now all laid out as in a museum and it literally smells like history. I felt a slight detachment until I went into the little building to the side of the hospital and stared for a while at the mortuary slabs.

Photo: Eric Jones - attribution link

There are some horror stories, that's for sure. Take Edward Jones, from Bethel, who needed to have both arms amputated; one at the shoulder and one at the wrist. Thanks to the doctors working at the hospital, a device was constructed which enabled him to hold cutlery and to take his hat off when going to Chapel on Sundays. The hospital boasted an X-ray machine, only three years after such things were invented. It also had, unusually for the time, hot and cold running water. The hospital was not able to help everyone, however. Deeply poignant was the tale of a young lad named Christmas - he was born on 25th December - who was crushed to death by machinery whilst working in the quarry. The hospital was a boon, though, meaning that injured men could be treated quickly.

The woodland trail is supposed to be one of the gentler walks which radiate out from the park centre. Somehow, though, I found myself on the Vivian Quarry trail, climbing higher than I meant to, but coming across the most vivid piece of history. Now, I'll be the first to admit that industrial history does not interest me overly much and a lot of the information about the quarry workings themselves was not of any special interest to me. But when I stumbled upon Anglesey Barracks, here, like the hospital, was another link to the men who worked at the quarry and spoke to me in a way that old wheels, giant bellows and engines simply couldn't.

'Anglesey' Barracks? Anglesey is not terribly near this area, so what was this all about? Well, these were cottages built to house the quarry workers who came from Anglesey, so that they could live on site during the week and return home at weekends. They would leave to go home on a Saturday afternoon and return to start work on Monday morning, so had at least part of the weekend away from the site. It all sounds very enlightened, doesn't it? Before I read up about it, I looked at these buildings and thought they were quite quaint, until I discovered that in each cottage, four men were crammed in, sharing the tiny space, roughly 20ft by 10 ft. The cottages had no running water, and there was only a coal fire for heating and cooking. Relics from the Victorian age? Incredibly, these cottages were still occupied in 1948, when a visit from the authorities saw them condemned, unfit for human habitation, and closed down.

Despite the appalling conditions, there was apparently a strong camaraderie, which saw the men gathering for choir singing and poetry readings. I can well believe it. These men lived and worked alongside each other and here, halfway up a hillside, was a mini-village. Ties of friendship and shared origins must have counted for a lot among these men from Ynys Mon (Anglesey).

Descending from here, once again it is clear how the quarrying affected the landscape:

The only way down from here is via a walkway piled high with enormous slate and you can get a slight feel for the hazardous conditions which prevailed here. I was just a tourist, walking on a lovely sunny spring day, but I wouldn't have cared to walk down this hillside in wet, slippy conditions, or to be working machinery or hefting equipment.

Here, too, is a reminder of people who lived in this area in ages gone by. In the distance of the photograph above, you can just make out Dolbadarn Castle (which will be the subject of my next article) which was the starting point for my walk that day. There is a rather tragic story associated with the castle, involving a man who was locked up there for many years, and which I'll relate next time. This landscape carries reminders of all the people who have lived and worked in the area over the centuries.

The next day, I went up Snowdon. It's a beautiful mountain and the views from the summit are breathtaking - almost literally, on a windy day - but what really caught my attention was a building halfway down the mountain.

This ruin is Hebron Chapel, built by the families who lived in the valley, the folk who worked the land, or in the quarries. They raised the money themselves, poor though they were, and built this Calvinist chapel. There seems to be some dispute over the completion date and I can't find the definitive answer, but the consensus seems to be that it was completed in 1797, which would have seen it completed only a decade or so after the first quarrying was carried out at Dinorwic, so perhaps the alternative date of 1833 might be considered nearer the mark. What can be said for certain is that it is now a ruin, yet another marker on this landscape to remind us of the ordinary folk who lived and worked in an area that, nowadays, we tend to think of as a natural playground for us to enjoy in our leisure time. A reminder, also, that history is all around us.

[all photos by and copyright of Annie Whitehead unless otherwise attributed.]

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Annie Whitehead is an author and historian, and a member of the Royal Historical Society. She has written three award-winning novels set in Anglo-Saxon Mercia, including To Be A Queen, the story of Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians. Her history of Mercia, from Penda the pagan king to the last brave stand of the earl of Mercia against the Conqueror, Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom, is published by Amberley. Annie has a deep and abiding love of North Wales and its rich history and takes every opportunity to visit.

Connect with Annie: Website, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Amazon