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Castell Dinas Brân
Castell Dinas Brân is a medieval castle, built by the Princes of Powys Fadog, who occupy a prominent hilltop site above the town of Llangollen in Denbighshire, Wales. The presently visible stone castle was probably built in the 1260s by Gruffydd Maelor II, a prince of Powys Fadog, on the site of several earlier structures, including an Iron Age hillfort. ''Dinas Brân'' has been variously translated as the "crow's fortress" or "fortress of Brân", with ''Brân'' as the name of an individual or of a nearby stream. An English name, "Crow Castle", has also been used since at least the 18th century. Name The name Dinas Brân has been debated since at least the 17th century. In modern times it is sometimes incorrectly translated as ''the City of Crows'': the word ''dinas'', "city" in modern Welsh, in Middle Welsh signifies a defended enclosure, while ''brân'' is the Welsh for "crow", singular, (plural: ''brain''), suggesting a meaning "the crow's fortress". An alternative theory ...
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Powys Fadog
Powys Fadog (English: ''Lower Powys'' or ''Madog's Powys'') was the northern portion of the former princely realm of Powys, which split in two following the death of Madog ap Maredudd in 1160. The realm was divided under Welsh law, with Madog's nephew Owain Cyfeiliog inheriting the south (see Powys Wenwynwyn) and his son Gruffydd Maelor I, who inherited the north. Gruffydd received the cantref of Maelor and the commote of Iâl as his portion and later added Nanheudwy, Cynllaith, Glyndyfrdwy and Mochnant Is Rhaeadr. This northern realm became known as Powys Fadog after the accession of his son Madog ap Gruffudd in 1191 who reigned until 1236, and after whom it may be named (see alternative translations above). During his reign, Madog initially adopted a neutral position between Gwynedd and England but by 1215 had settled on an alliance with Llywelyn ab Iorwerth of Gwynedd. This policy of alliance with Gwynedd altered under his successor Gruffudd II over his thirty-three year re ...
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Llangollen
Llangollen () is a town and community, situated on the River Dee, in Denbighshire, Wales. Its riverside location forms the edge of the Berwyn range, and the Dee Valley section of the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, with the easternmost point of the Dee Valley Way being within the town. It had a population of 3,658 at the 2011 census. History Llangollen takes its name from the Welsh ''llan'' meaning "a religious settlement" and Saint Collen, a 7th-century monk who founded a church beside the river. St Collen is said to have arrived in Llangollen by coracle. St Collen’s Church is the only church in Wales dedicated to St Collen, and he may have had connections with Colan in Cornwall and with Langolen in Brittany. Above the town to the north is Castell Dinas Brân, a stronghold of the Princes of Powys. Beyond the castle is the impressive Lower Carboniferous limestone escarpment known as the Eglwyseg Rocks. The outcrop continues north to Wo ...
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Bran The Blessed
Bran, also known as miller's bran, is the hard outer layers of cereal grain. It consists of the combined aleurone and pericarp. Corn (maize) bran also includes the pedicel (tip cap). Along with germ, it is an integral part of whole grains, and is often produced as a byproduct of milling in the production of refined grains. Bran is present in cereal grain, including rice, corn (maize), wheat, oats, barley, rye and millet. Bran is not the same as chaff, which is a coarser scaly material surrounding the grain but not forming part of the grain itself, and which is indigestible by humans. "chaff, which is indigestible for humans" Composition Bran is particularly rich in dietary fiber and essential fatty acids and contains significant quantities of starch, protein, vitamins, and dietary minerals. It is also a source of phytic acid, an antinutrient that prevents nutrient absorption. The high oil content of bran makes it subject to rancidification, one of the reasons that it ...
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Beddgelert
Beddgelert () is a village and community in the Snowdonia area of Gwynedd, Wales. The population of the community taken at the 2011 census was 455, and includes Nantmor and Nant Gwynant. It is reputed to be named after the legendary hound Gelert. The community is large and sparsely populated and covers 86 square kilometres. Location The village stands in a valley at the confluence of the River Glaslyn and the River Colwyn. Just above the confluence of the rivers, in the centre of the village, is an old stone bridge with two arches. The River Gwynant also exists in the area, coinciding with the River Colwyn under what locals know as ‘Pont Bren’, creating the River Glaslyn. Many of the houses and hotels are built of local dark stone. To the west is Moel Hebog and its neighbours to the north and a series of hills rising to the top of Snowdon. A lane of the A4085 between Caernarfon (13 miles north) and Porthmadog (8 miles south) runs through the village. The outdoor e ...
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Dinas Emrys
Dinas Emrys () is a rocky and wooded hillock near Beddgelert in Gwynedd, north-west Wales. Rising some above the floor of the Glaslyn river valley, it overlooks the southern end of Llyn Dinas in Snowdonia. Little remains of the Iron Age hillfort or castle structures that once stood here, save its stone ramparts and the base of a keep rid reference Some believe the castle was erected by Llewelyn the Last to guard the road to the mountain pass of Snowdon. Description Little remains of the structures that once stood on the hill. Such remains as are visible today, including three series of ramparts and other walls and some foundations, mostly date to the Middle Ages. Archaeologist H. N. Savory described the fortifications as consisting of stone walls between thick, which exploited every irregularity in the rocky hill-top, enclosing an irregular area of about a in size. The original means of access was by a steep path on the western side of the hillfort. The present entrance fr ...
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Berwyn Range
The Berwyn range (Welsh: ''Y Berwyn'' or ''Mynydd y Berwyn'') is an isolated and sparsely populated area of moorland in the northeast of Wales, roughly bounded by Llangollen in the northeast, Corwen in the northwest, Bala in the southwest, and Oswestry in the southeast. Description The area is wild and largely vegetated by heather about one metre thick, with some acidic grassland and bracken. It is not very popular for hill-walking or scrambling since the peaks are lower than those in nearby Snowdonia. However, the topmost peaks are rugged and have a distinctive character. Nearby towns include Llangollen and Corwen, which are popular tourist destinations. The main summits are Cadair Berwyn at above sea level, Moel Sych at and Cadair Bronwen at above sea level. The Berwyn range is crossed to the southwest by the B4391 Milltir Cerrig mountain pass at an elevation of . Cadair Berwyn is the highest point in the Berwyn range, and the highest point in Wales outside the N ...
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Craig Rhiwarth
Craig Rhiwarth is a mountain in the Berwyn range, in Powys (formerly Montgomeryshire), Wales, overlooking the village of Llangynog to the south. On the summit is an Iron Age hillfort, and there are remains of slate quarrying on the southern slopes. Prehistoric remains The altitude of Craig Rhiwarth is ; the hillfort is one of the highest in Wales. The size of the enclosure is about east to west by . The site has precipitous slopes on all sides except the north: on this side there is a ruinous stone wall above a scarp. There is a simple entrance near the centre of the wall and a slanting entrance at the west end.Christopher Houlder. ''Wales: An Archaeological Guide''. Faber and Faber, 1978. Page 89. Within this area are the foundations of about 170 circular stone structures, of diameter . It is thought that the settlement may have begun in the late Bronze Age and continued into the Iron Age, and that its function probably ceased by the time of the Roman conquest in the 1st century ...
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Roundhouse (dwelling)
A roundhouse is a type of house with a circular plan, usually with a conical roof. In the later part of the 20th century, modern designs of roundhouse eco-buildings were constructed with materials such as cob, cordwood or straw bale walls and reciprocal frame green roofs. Europe United Kingdom Roundhouses were the standard form of housing built in Britain from the Bronze Age throughout the Iron Age, and in some areas well into the Sub Roman period. The people built walls made of either stone or of wooden posts joined by wattle-and-daub panels, and topped with a conical thatched roof. These ranged in size from less than 5m in diameter to over 15m. The Atlantic roundhouse, Broch, and Wheelhouse styles were used in Scotland. The remains of many Bronze Age roundhouses can still be found scattered across open heathland, such as Dartmoor, as stone 'hut circles'. Early archeologists determined what they believed were the characteristics of such structures by the layout of the po ...
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Palisade
A palisade, sometimes called a stakewall or a paling, is typically a fence or defensive wall made from iron or wooden stakes, or tree trunks, and used as a defensive structure or enclosure. Palisades can form a stockade. Etymology ''Palisade'' derives from ''pale'', from the Latin word ', meaning stake, specifically when used side by side to create a wood defensive wall. Typical construction Typical construction consisted of small or mid-sized tree trunks aligned vertically, with as little free space in between as possible. The trunks were sharpened or pointed at the top, and were driven into the ground and sometimes reinforced with additional construction. The height of a palisade ranged from around a metre to as high as 3–4 m. As a defensive structure, palisades were often used in conjunction with earthworks. Palisades were an excellent option for small forts or other hastily constructed fortifications. Since they were made of wood, they could often be quickly and easil ...
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Earthworks (archaeology)
In archaeology, earthworks are artificial changes in land level, typically made from piles of artificially placed or sculpted rocks and soil. Earthworks can themselves be archaeological features, or they can show features beneath the surface. Types Earthworks of interest to archaeologists include hill forts, henges, mounds, platform mounds, effigy mounds, enclosures, long barrows, tumuli, ridge and furrow, mottes, round barrows, and other tombs. * Hill forts, a type of fort made out of mostly earth and other natural materials including sand, straw, and water, were built as early as the late Stone Age and were built more frequently during the Bronze Age and Iron Age as a means of protection. See also Oppidum. * Henge earthworks are those that consist of a flat area of earth in a circular shape that are encircled by a ditch, or several circular ditches, with a bank on the outside of the ditch built with the earth from inside the ditch. They are believed to have been used as mo ...
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Ordovices
The Ordovīcēs (Common Brittonic: *''Ordowīcī'') were one of the Celtic tribes living in Great Britain before the Roman invasion. Their tribal lands were located in present-day North Wales and England, between the Silures to the south and the Deceangli to the north-east. Unlike the latter tribes that appear to have acquiesced to Roman rule with little resistance, the Ordovices fiercely resisted the Romans. They were eventually subjugated by the Roman governor Gnaeus Julius Agricola in the campaign of 77–78CE when the Romans overran their final strongholds on Anglesey. Etymology The Celtic name could be cognate with the words for 'hammer': ga, ord, cy, gordd (with a prothetic ''g-'') and br, horzh (with a prothetic ''h-''). John Edward Lloyd suggested that the name of this tribe is preserved as the element ''-orwig'', ''-orweg'' in the place nameDinas Dinorwig("Fort of the Ordovices") in North Wales, though Melville Richards rejected the idea. Geology In 1879 the pioneerin ...
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British Iron Age
The British Iron Age is a conventional name used in the archaeology of Great Britain, referring to the prehistoric and protohistoric phases of the Iron Age culture of the main island and the smaller islands, typically excluding prehistoric Ireland, which had an independent Iron Age culture of its own. The parallel phase of Irish archaeology is termed the Irish Iron Age. The Iron Age is not an archaeological horizon of common artefacts but is rather a locally-diverse cultural phase. The British Iron Age followed the British Bronze Age and lasted in theory from the first significant use of iron for tools and weapons in Britain to the Romanisation of the southern half of the island. The Romanised culture is termed Roman Britain and is considered to supplant the British Iron Age. The tribes living in Britain during this time are often popularly considered to be part of a broadly-Celtic culture, but in recent years, that has been disputed. At a minimum, "Celtic" is a linguistic ter ...
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