Dawdling along the valley, low morning sun dazzling, shaded field-margins laced with frost, an impulse seized me at the Shropshire border to revisit Sycharth. Here’s one of the most revered, resonant places in Welsh history, where our national hero, warrior and statesman Owain Glyndŵr had his seat. His court bard, Iolo Goch, left a vivid portrait of his mansion and its courtly life in the last decade of the 14th century, just before the great insurrection Glyndŵr led against corrupt and insolent English rule.
I’ve come here often over the past 50 years – for its associations, and for the inherent beauty of the place in its now-tranquil Marches valley. Goch’s description of Glyndŵr’s court enables you to visualise it as it was: the four marvellous pillars on a green Norman motte supporting a fine, moat-encircled, timbered house; the surrounding orchards, hayfields, vineyards, deer park, a mill, dovecotes, a rabbit warren, fishponds: “A’i dir bwrdd a’i adar byw, / Peunod, crehyrod hoywryw” (“His land a table where birds dwell, / Peacocks, high-stepping herons”).
An idyll – but a precarious one in treacherous times. In May 1403, with Glyndŵr away on his victorious progress through Wales, the 15-year-old Prince Hal – who became England’s Henry V – arrived here at the head of a strong force on a punitive foray from Chester. He razed the empty Sycharth, with its culture, opulence and hospitality.
Come here in the summer and the landscape clearly attests to its fate. Fireweed still blooms across the bailey. Archaeological excavations revealed the smoke-blackened foundations of Glyndŵr’s great hall, in the shadow of mighty oaks that first took root on the motte at the time of its destruction. This understated shrine – a single sign, a tiny car park – to a crucial chapter in Welsh history reveals itself not through ruins but to the imagination’s eye.
I watched as a descendant of one of those strutting herons stalked out into the marsh where the fishponds lay. Its ash-grey plumage against bare trees and winter-grey grass blended perfectly with this landscape’s mood. He speared down at nothing, as young Hal and his soldiers did six centuries ago; unlike them, he glided solemnly, harmlessly away.
