Castell Dinas Bran

Description

Aerial view showing Castell Dinas Bran.
Crowning the summit of Dinas Bran are the ruins of a thirteenth century castle of the Princes of northern Powys. The castle is thought to have been built in about 1270, if not rather earlier. Although the ruins are stark, the castle seems to have been magnificent and sumptuous, as befitted the principal residence of a prince. It was burnt by its own garrison in 1277 in the troubles of the late thirteenth century. The castle was abandoned after 1282, when the castle of Holt on the Dee was built as the centre of a new lordship.
The castle consisted of a rectangular court, about 82m east-west by 35m, enclosed by a stone curtain wall and with a massive rock-cut ditch and counterscarp bank except on the north where there are headlong slopes. On the short east side there was a great rectangular tower, isolated from the court by a rock cut ditch, and an ornate twin towered gatetower. Midway along the long south side a D-shaped tower projected from the court wall and there appears to have been a hall between this and the tower ditch. There was a further stone built range on the west side of the court. All this is now greatly ruined.
The castle stands within the earthworks of what appears to be an Iron Age hillfort. There is a slighter outer circuit of earthworks of unknown date and purpose.