Troed yr Harn Motte

Troed yr Harn Motte stands on the edge of Aberhonddu in Powys. It is one of the many small earth-and-stone mounds built between the late 11th and the late 12th centuries. The Normans brought this style of fortress from France and the Welsh soon copied it. A deep ditch usually surrounds each motte, though this one lacks the usual outer bank. Cadw has listed the site and it carries the SAM number BR046.

The borderlands between England and Wales hold the greatest concentration of such mottes anywhere in Britain. Shropshire, Cheshire, Herefordshire, Powys and Flintshire together form this historic march once known as the Mers. Each motte was a quick wooden tower on a steep mound, a fast way to control a stretch of land.

Visitors walk up the grassy slope to the flat top of the mound. From there the valley of the River Usk stretches away to the Black Mountains. The ditch below is still deep enough to mark the old defences. A single hawthorn grows near the centre of the summit, the only survivor of the wooden tower that once stood guard.