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Below is an excerpt from Archaeologia Cambrensis Volume 6 published in 1860 – The Journal of the Cambrian Archaeological Association. It mentions the freebooter (outlaw) Davydd ap Siencyn and his hideout at the Llanrwst cave Carregygwalch – recently an ancient spear was unearthed at Carregygwalch with the story featuring in the North Wales Weekly News.
Llanrwst – Davydd ap Siencyn – Carreg y Gwalch – 1461
Owen Glyndwr’s wars, which continued during the first fifteen years of the fifteenth century, had so desolated the country that deer grazed in Llanrwst church-yard, and the marketplace was green with grass. Before the ravaged country could be restored, the wars of York and Lancaster occurred, when an outlaw, called Davydd ap Siencyn, had full sway over Nan Conwy. Several fruitless expeditions were directed against the stronghold of this freebooter, at Carregygwalch. “All the whole country,” says Sir J. Wynne, “was then but a forest, waste of inhabitants, and all overgrown with woods.”
What these locusts had left, the canker-worm at Yspytty Ifan was fast consuming, when Meredith ap Ifan removed his residence to the neighbourhood, saying he “should find elbow room in that vast country among the bondmen.” He picked out a hundred and forty of the strongest and bravest yeoman he could find, and armed them as bowmen, with sword, dagger, steel cap and armolet coat. Of these he placed one or two in each tenement of his, at convenient distances, for mutual assistance in case of alarm. They soon provided themselves with “chasing-slaves,” probably scouts on foot, to watch and harass their adversaries. By the aid of this active tenantry, thus judiciously posted, and devoted to his interests, Meredydd ap Ifan soon subdued the sanctuary of robbers at Yspytty, and gave rest to the troubled land.
It appears that there were above a hundred of these banditti at that place, well horsed and appointed. They had friends and accomplices to harbour them and their plunder in several of the adjoining counties. It is probable that, upon the expulsion of these villains, they, or some of them, fixed themselves at Dinas Mowddwy, which the depredations of a gang of robbers, called “gwylliaid cochion,” soon afterwards made as notorious as Yspytty had been. Their last act of violence was the murder of Baron Owen, when going to the assizes in 1555, which caused their speedy extirpation.
Excerpt from Archaeologia Cambrensis Volume 6 published in 1860 – The Journal of the Cambrian Archaeological Association.
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Further Reading and Useful Links
Ancient Spear found in Llanrwst – North Wales Weekly News Story