Welsh Journals

CEFN LLYS CASTELL CLAN 1THON. CEFN LLYS, or the Court House HILL, the site of the time-honoured Castle of the Mortimers, and a Radnorshire Borough, environed by its chain of hills, and almost surrounded by the serpentine course of the Ithon, deserves a short record for its historical associations, and the beauty of its scenery, which is entitled to admiration, even among the picturesque landscapes of South Wales. On its storied height were once stationed in camp, and castle, two grandsons of Llewelyn the Great, Llewelyn ap Griffith, Prince of North Wales, and Sir Roger Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore, Herefordshire, the son of the Princess, Gladys, the flower of English chivalry, and ancestor of Edward IV. Who rent the crown from vanquished Henry's Head, Raised the White Rose, and trampled on the Red." Waller. But Llewelyn triumped over his kinsman, and the capture of Castell Glan Ithon cast a halo on the declining cause of Cambrian independence. *The Castle of the Mortimers derived peculiar advantages from its romantic position, which seemed designed by the hand of Nature for a fortification, and had rivetted on that account the special interest of the far-seeing chiefs of that illustrious house, while it won their admiration from its range of magnificent scenery, embracing the woods of Baily Inon, and the sunny slopes of Pant Purlas. A castle of unusual extent, and great strength, was erected here about the year 1242 by Ralph Mortimer, which is sometimes called Castell Glan Ithon from its occupying an elevated, and commanding site on the banks of the Ithon. Cefn Llys was a borough by prescription, and probably owed that distinction to its ancient castle the corporation consisted of a bailiff, recorder, and burgesses, chosen at the courtleet of Montgomeryshire Collections, Vol. xv., p. 77.