Gwerclas

Gwerclas lies in the uplands above the Dee valley near Cynwyd, a quiet corner of the old cantref of Edeyrnion. Once a modest castle stood here, built in the early Middle Ages and now reduced to grassy banks and broken walls. The Hughes family of Cymmer yn Edeyrnion once ruled from this spot, calling it their ancestral home. Before the Hughes arrived in 1186 the site belonged to the Maer Du, the ‘Black Mayors’ of Edeyrnion, whose origins remain mysterious. The Hughes family still point to Gwerclas as the cradle of their line, tracing their descent through centuries of Welsh history. Philip Yorke’s 18th-century work on the Royal Tribes of Wales records the castle as a key power centre in medieval Gwynedd. Visitors walk over the low earthworks that mark the castle’s former halls and towers. The surrounding moorland stretches away in every direction, giving a sense of the site’s old strategic importance. There are no buildings left, only the shape of the past in the turf and a few scattered stones. The silence and wide views recall a time when this small upland fortress shaped the fate of a whole commote.