A Field Trip To Ewloe Castle

Ewloe castle

Another, fabulous week at the pottery. I am still making work with an Celtic medieval influence. Alfie romping toward Ewloe castle

I had a intriguing field trip to Ewloe castle. This was a interesting place for researching mystical and Celtic ideas.

Heraldry on the gate to Ewloe castleThere is not such things there, but it's a place where the imagination runs away to a dream like state of a time traveler, going back in time to 1175. The ruins looking majestic through the trees

The castle is in woodland looking over a wooded gorge with a stream at the bottom. Ewloe Castle, which was built around 1257, is a relic of a brief triumph that the Welsh prince Llywelyn ap Gruffudd had over the English Crown and the Anglo-Norman Marcher Lords in the mid 13th century.

The keep built by Llwelyn Until then, this part of north east Wales had been the starting point for repeated Norman invasions of Gwynedd for more than 150 years.

But beginning in the early 1230s various Welsh leaders had started to gain the upper hand against the Anglo-Normans and Plantagenets who had taken territory in North Wales. Eventually by the late 1250s successive Princes of Gwynedd had reached Ewloe retaking lands up to Wales' historic borders. Steps up to keep tower

Llywelyn ap Gruffudd completed Ewloe Castle. The work, which began in 1257, incorporated previous works undertaken by both Owain Gwynedd and Llywelyn the Great.
View from Keep

A fortification had existed on or near the site since the Battle of Ewloe (Welsh: Brwydr Cwnsyllt) in 1157, when the Welsh successfully ambushed an English force under the command of Henry II (as they marched to Twthill at Rhuddlan). The English king only narrowly avoiding being killed himself having been rescued by Roger, Earl of Hertford.

The castle was built from local stone. Its design - such as the Welsh Keep - suggests it was conceived and built entirely by a Welsh workforce.              Ruins of the castle