Bleddfa Castle

Bleddfa Castle stands in the rolling hills of Powys, Wales, near the village of Llangunllo. It was a motte-and-bailey fortress built before 1195 and abandoned by 1304. Today only a low, oval mound remains, measuring 46 by 36 metres, with traces of old walls. Around the mound runs a rectangular bailey 100 by 60 metres, bordered on one side by a hedge. The castle lies beside the A488 road, close to the Radnor Forest. The site witnessed swift changes of power in the 12th and 13th centuries. In 1195 Hugh de Say received a licence from King Richard I to build a square tower, but he was killed the same year at the battle of Radnor. In 1262 Llewelyn ap Gruffydd captured and demolished the castle, wresting it from the Mortimers. Edward I later took stone from the ruins to build a church tower nearby, which itself was destroyed in 1403. Visitors find a quiet grassy mound ringed by the old bailey earthworks. A deep moat, now ruined, once surrounded the mound on three sides. Fragments of masonry mark where the square tower stood, and an inscription from 1195 records its rebuilding. On the western and southern edges remnants of two further towers survive, protected by an artificial lake. The name Bleddfa recalls the wolves that once roamed this part of Wales.