Garth Celyn

Garth Celyn
File:Pen y Bryn, Garth Celyn Manor.jpg
General information
Architectural style	Romanesque
Location	Abergwyngregyn, Aber, in Gwynedd, north Wales

Garth Celyn at Aber Garth Celyn, now known as Abergwyngregyn, Aber, in Gwynedd, north Wales, was the 13th century home of the Welsh princes (or Tywysog Cymru), Llywelyn Fawr, Dafydd ap Llywelyn and Llywelyn ap Gruffudd.

Early history

Garth Celyn is a promontory of land overlooking the Menai Strait and the ancient port of Llanfaes. The Roman road that linked Conovium to Segontium (Caernarfon) looped round the Garth. Protected to the east by the headland of Penmaenmawr, and at its rear by Snowdonia (Welsh: Eryri), it controlled the ancient crossing point of the Lafan Sands to Anglesey (Welsh: Ynys Môn). A pre-Roman defensive enclosure, Maes y Gaer, which rises above Garth Celyn on the eastern side of the valley, has far reaching views over Irish Sea with the Isle of Man visible on a clear day. The Roman road from Chester, linking the forts of Conovium and Segontium, crossed the river at this point.

Celyn, the brother of Gildas 'the Historian', was the son of Caw ap Geraint Llyngesog ab Erbin ap Custennin Gorneu ap Cynfor ap Tudwal. He took over the responsibility of a watchtower, Tŵr Caw which became known as Tŵr Celyn, by the Copper Mountain on the Island of Anglesey. Caw's cousin Cybi ap Selyf ab Erbin founded a religious community at what became known as Holyhead (Welsh: Caergybi), Anglesey. The precise dates of Celyn ap Caw's birth and death are unknown, but from other evidence he can be dated to the first three decades of the sixth century. He features, together with his father and brothers, in the earliest surviving Welsh folk tale Culhwch ac Olwen.

Llys Garth Celyn, the royal court

At the end of the twelfth century, beginning of the thirteenth century, Llywelyn ab Iorwerth, Llywelyn Fawr, Llywelyn the Great, utilized the promontory to build a royal home, known as Ty Hir, the Long House, in later documents. To the east was the newly endowed Cistercian Monastery of Aberconwy; to the west the cathedral city of Bangor. Between Garth Celyn and the shore, the fertile farmland provided food for the royal family and the members of the court. The sea and the river had fish in abundance and there was wild game to be hunted in the uplands. In 1211 King John of England brought an army across the river Conwy, and occupied the royal home for a brief period; his troops went on to burn Bangor. Llywelyn's wife, John's daughter Joan, Siwan, negotiated between the two men, and John withdrew. Joan died at Garth Celyn in 1237; Dafydd ap Llywelyn died there in 1246; Eleanor de Montfort, Lady of Wales, wife of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, died there on 19 June 1282, giving birth to a baby, Gwenllian of Wales.

On 11 December 1282, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Tywysog Cymru, the Prince of Wales, was killed. The correspondence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, preserved in Lambeth Palace Archives, London, provides details of the events surrounding the death. In November 1282 Llywelyn had been offered a bribe by the English crown; the sum of one thousand pounds a year and an estate in England if he would surrender his controlled lands to the king of England (Lambeth Palace Archives). From his home, Garth Celyn, Llywelyn wrote his response, a total refusal of the offer and a clear statement of his duty towards his inheritance. Within a month, Llywelyn had been lured into an ambush and killed.

After the Conquest the name Garth Celyn continued in local use but was not used by the English administration. Instead the settlement Aber Garth Celyn adjacent to the royal home became officially known by the English conquerors simply as Aber, ‘Estuary’ with its identity removed; later more descriptively as Aber Gwyn Gregyn, ‘Estuary of the White Shells’.

On 18 January 1283, Dolwyddelan Castle was occupied by the army of invasion (PRO. E101/359/9) and immediately munitioned to provide a base in the Lledr valley. At Edward’s command raiding parties were sent out into the mountains of Snowdonia to search for booty. The troops were informed that they could claim one shilling as the king’s gift for the head of every Welshman that they brought back to camp.

On 22 June 1283, Prince Dafydd ap Gruffudd, heir to the Principality, was captured, his hiding place at the foot of Bera in the uplands above Aber Garth Celyn, betrayed. (E101/3/30) Dafydd, seriously wounded ‘graviter vulneratus’ in the struggle was taken that same night to Edward at Rhuddlan. (Cotton Vesp. B xi, f. 30) Wales was plundered, and Edward’s trophies taken across the border into England.

The matrices of the personal seals of Prince Llywelyn, his wife Eleanor de Montfort, daughter of Earl Simon, and his brother Prince Dafydd were seized and placed in the royal Wardrobe. Edward ordered that these also were to be melted down and the silver used to craft a chalice, which he intended to present to the new Cistercian foundation of Vale Royal abbey in Cheshire.

The Statute of Rhuddlan

On 2 October 1283, Prince Dafydd was put to death by hanging, drawing and quartering. 'Geofrey of Shrewsbury' was paid 20s. for carrying out the gruesome execution. (P.R.O. E101/351/9) (see the lament by Bleddyn Fardd, mourning the loss of a man of great valour, whom he had known personally).

The Welsh royal children were locked away, and never released. Dafydd's two sons, heirs to the Principality/Kingdom of Wales were imprisoned in Bristol castle where they remained for the remainder of their lives. (see Accounts of Bristol castle) Gwenllian was held at Sempringham Priory, Lincolnshire, until her death 54 years later. Dafydd's daughter Gwladys was held at Sixhills Priory.

In 1301, king Edward I granted the title prince of Wales to his heir, prince Edward. The ceremony was held at Lincoln, where prince Edward was invested with all the conquered territories of the crown of England in Wales. Prince Edward was also granted the allegiance of all the barons who held lordships which had been in the possession of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd.

Prince Charles is considered as being prince of Wales, with prince Edward as being the first to hold the title. This however proves that the Principality was not a new creation, but that it existed before the conquest.

On 6 April, 1320, in a letter, now known as the Declaration of Arbroath, the Scots sent a letter to Pope John, stating Scottish status as an independent nation. The Declaration of Garth Celyn predated this by 38 years.

Garth Celyn after the English conquest

In 1283 Garth Celyn fell to the forces of King Edward I. Edward spent a few days there in August 1284 during his victory progress through north Wales.

1283 - 1553 Garth Celyn was held by the Crown of England. The buildings that had formed the royal home on the promontory of land were not repaired and over the decades became derelict.

John Leland, Henry VIII’s surveyor noted, ‘Tussog Lluelin uab Gerwerde Trundon (Tywysog Llywelyn ab Iorwerth) had a castel or palace on a hill by the Chirch, wherof yet part stondeth.’

On June 14, 1551, Rhys Thomas of Aberglasney, appointed by Roger Williams, the surveyor of crown lands in north Wales, to be the deputy surveyor, obtained a lease for himself of the royal manors of Aber [Aber Garth Celyn] in Caernarfonshire and Cemais in Anglesey.

In October 1551, William Herbert was made Baron Herbert of Cardiff and then Earl of Pembroke.

On 27 April 1553 the young king, seriously ill with tuberculosis, signed documents that had been placed before him and knowingly or unknowingly granted the royal manors of Aber and Cemais from the Crown to William Herbert, earl of Pembroke and William Clerke.

On 8 June William Herbert, earl of Pembroke and William Clerke obtained a licence from the king to sell Aber and Cemais to Rhys Thomas and his wife Jane. Garth Celyn passed from Crown of England ownership, to the Thomas family. King Edward VI died on 5 July 1553. The Thomas’s according to family tradition ‘built a manor house amongst the palace ruins on Garth Celyn, using the palace ruins.’ Garth Celyn, the 'demesne messuage of the manor of Aber' was also known locally as Bryn Llywelyn, Llywelyn’s Hill.

The Elizabethan Manor house, incorporating a watch tower built c. 1200, was known as Pen y Bryn, simply 'top of the hill'. The watchtower was known as Twr Llywelyn, 'Llywelyn’s Tower': the small building to the east of the main house as Hen Gapel, 'the Old Chapel'. SH 65827273

Current Status of Garth Celyn

See also Pen y Bryn

The manor house Pen y Bryn with a medieval tower, adjacent to the A55, five miles east of Bangor, Abergwyngregyn, was formed from the remains of the royal long house, Garth Celyn.

Professor David Austin of the University of Wales, one of the world’s top medieval archaeologists, states "This is an immensely important site in the national psyche of Wales." The Royal Commission of Ancient Monuments has finally declared it, "the most important site to come to light in Wales."

The scholar Professor J. E.Caerwyn Williams said "Garth Celyn holds a memory of what is dear to the people of Wales"

The late Edith Pargeter (Ellis Peters) said "[Garth Celyn] was somewhere just so special to the princes of Gwynedd that they made it their home, and just by standing there, it is easy to see why. At this place time is timeless. You can feel that in our bones." Dr Gweneth Lilly "Garth Celyn reaches to the very heart of what is Welshness. Once what could be describd as the capital of independent Wales it was deliberately overshadowed during the Edwardian Anglo Norman conquest by the massive castles and garrison towns of Conwy, Caernarfon and later Beaumaris; the latter being the final gesture, a menacing finger pointing across the Menai Strait to warn against any further struggle to attempt to regain freedom."

References

• Tystiolaeth Garth Celyn Y Traethodydd ISSN 09698930
• Caernarvonshire Historical Society Transactions 1962 Article Aber Gwyn Gregin Professor T. Jones Pierce
• Gwynfor Evans (2001) Cymru O Hud Abergwyngregyn
• Gwynfor Evans (2002) Eternal Wales Abergwyngregyn
• Bezant Lowe Mountain Walks from Llanfairfechan
• Kathryn Pritchard Gibson Gohebiaeth Llyfrgell Llys Lambeth (1995)
• F. E. Fynes-Clinton The Welsh Vocabulary of the Bangor District (Oxford, 1912)
• Brut y Tywysogyon, Peniarth MS 20, ed. T. Jones (Cardiff, 1941.)
• Brut y Tywysogyon, or The Chronicle of the Princes, Peniarth MS 20 Version, Translation and Notes, ed. T. Jones (Cardiff, 1952).
• Calendar of Ancient Petitions relating to Wales, ed. W. Rees (Cardiff, 1975).
• Registrum Epistolarum Fratis Johannis {Peckham Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis, ed. C. T. Martin, 3 Vols (RS, 1882-86)
• John Edward Lloyd (1911) A history of Wales from the earliest times to the Edwardian conquest (Longmans, Green & Co.)
• Public Record Office, London: Welsh Rolls (C47; Exchequer Books (E36); Charter Rolls (C53); Miscellanea (E163); Pipe Rolls (E372), Ancient Correspondence(SC1); Ancient Petitions (SC8)
• Vatican Library, Rome, MSS
• National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth: NLW MSS; Peniarth MSS; Church in Wales Records.
• The Mystery of Llywelyn's Tower
• Pen Y Bryn, The Prince's Tower
• Handbook for England and Wales

See also

• Saunders Lewis, play: Siwan
• Thomas Parry, play: Llywelyn Fawr
• Edith Pargeter, novel: The Green Branch
• Edith Pargeter, novel: The Brothers of Gwynedd
• Barbara Erskine, novel: Child of the Phoenix
• Sharon Penman, novel: Here be Dragons
• Sharon Penman, novel: The Reckoning

External links

• Garth Celyn