“Castell Dinas squats on a wind-torn ridge above the Rhiangoll pass. Black Mountains to the east. Brecon Beacons to the west. It is the highest castle in all of Wales, yet nobody lives there.”

Just stone ribs, a broken gate, and the sound of wind howling through what was once a prince’s stronghold. From the bottom, it looks like a place left behind on purpose. But the truth is it was fought over, rebuilt, and broken more than once. Not by accident. Not forgotten. But taken apart by time, fire, and revolt.

The Castle’s Story

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castell_Dinas_Br%C3%A2n

The first people to shape that ridge were Iron Age folk. They stacked earth and stone around 600 BC to build a fort, the kind meant to watch the land and keep other tribes back. Long before the Romans arrived. Before the Normans came riding up from England. Before the Welsh princes raised their standards.

The Normans came next. William FitzOsbern or maybe his son Roger de Breteuil slapped a motte-and-bailey on top of the old hillfort in the 1070s. It was rough country. The kind of place where soldiers needed to see every road and hear every horse in the valley. That first timber fort didn’t last long. Brecon Castle took centre stage after 1093, and Castell Dinas was left to decay. But not for good.

By the early 13th century it was back in the fight. Llywelyn the Great stormed the place in 1233, tore through it, left it in ruin. Someone rebuilt. Strengthened it. That’s when the stone parts appeared. New tower. Deeper ditch. Thicker walls. A final effort to make it more than just a lookout.

But that didn’t save it. Not from Llywelyn ap Gruffudd. In the winter of 1262, his men swept through Brecknock and took what the Marcher Lords had claimed. By then, Castell Dinas wasn’t a grand seat. It was a wartime foothold. A reminder that the Welsh weren’t finished.

By the early 1400s, when Owain Glyndŵr led his rebellion, the castle was broken for the last time. Locals are said to have destroyed what was left. Might’ve been revenge. Might’ve been firewood. Either way, it never came back.

Key Moments

The winter of 1233 came down hard on Castell Dinas. Llywelyn the Great’s campaign against the Anglo-Norman lords reached into this rough edge of Brycheiniog. Snow on the ridge. Wind cutting through the pass. The castle garrison would’ve seen smoke rising before they saw the riders. They didn’t hold. Llywelyn sacked the place. Fast and thorough. But it wasn’t the end. The Normans weren’t done, and the bones of the castle were strong enough to rebuild.

What followed was one last gasp at permanence. Stone was hauled up that bloody hill. A new gate tower. A deeper cut into the rock to form a proper ditch on the western flank. Defensive thinking. Serious effort. They thought maybe this time it would last. Maybe this time they’d hold the line.

Then came 1262. Another Llywelyn, this time the grandson. Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, later called “the Last.” He invaded Brecknock that winter. Cold and deliberate. Took castle after castle as Marcher strongholds buckled. Castell Dinas stood high and proud but couldn’t do a thing about the tide coming for it. By early 1263, the castle was in Welsh hands again. A symbol, if nothing else, that the struggle was far from over.

The final blow came almost 150 years later, during the reign of Henry IV. Owain Glyndŵr had risen in revolt, and the Marches burned again. Castell Dinas didn’t fall in battle that time. It fell to its neighbours. Folk from the valley, it’s said, tore it down themselves. Perhaps to keep it from being used by the English. Perhaps because they’d had enough of castles looming over them.

The ruin wasn’t slow. It was sharp. A deliberate end to a place that had seen too much war to be worth saving.

Legends and Lore

They call it Castell Dinas. But before stone towers and Marcher lords, it was simply a fort. A “dinas” on a hill where the wind speaks louder than any man. Folk say the place holds memory in the soil. Not just history. Something older.

Some whisper that Arthur himself knew this ground. Not the polished Arthur of courtly tales, but the wild war-chief who rode rough hills and fought Saxons in the rain. There’s no proof, of course. Only the echo of his name in too many places. But locals still speak of ancient kings, not just Norman lords. That matters.

There’s another tale, quieter but stranger. A buried hoard lies somewhere beneath the rock. Silver, maybe. Or weapons left behind by men who never meant to run. A farmer once claimed he dug up an iron spur near the ditch, still sharp. Another swore he found carved stone, shaped like a lion’s head. Neither showed proof. They never do.

Some say the wind itself behaves oddly on the ridge. Birds won’t fly across it. Dogs don’t climb. You can stand there and see the whole valley but feel alone, like someone else is watching from what’s left of the tower. Rubbish to some. Gospel to others. It depends how close you stand to the gate on a cold night.

And there’s one more tale—half-remembered and passed down by shepherds. During Glyndŵr’s rising, a group of his men tried to hide in the ruins. English scouts tracked them, lit a fire at the base, and smoked them out. But when they climbed up, the men were gone. Not fled. Gone. No tracks. No sign. Only ash and a single boot left near the ditch. The rest? Taken by the mountain, they said.

It’s a place where stories cling to stone. Not all of them told in daylight.

Architecture & Features

What’s left at Castell Dinas isn’t much, and yet it’s everything. It doesn’t pretend to be whole. The place shows its bones. A cracked wall here. A shallow ditch there. Ruins that haven’t been cleaned up for tourists. And that’s the truth of it. You climb that hill not to be impressed but to feel something old and half-forgotten pulling at your boots.

The north gate tower is the most visible shape. Built after the 1233 sacking. Square-based. Barely standing. Just enough to imagine the weight of it. The stone is grey and pitted. Some of it Norman, some of it maybe re-used Roman or older still. You can stand in what was once the passageway and feel how narrow it was. Just wide enough to squeeze in men with shields.

To the west, there’s a rock-cut ditch—unfinished, it seems. You can still see the mark where masons quit halfway. Maybe the money dried up. Maybe they were called off to another fight. Either way, it never got finished. But the shape of it tells you they meant business. Deep. Strategic. The kind of ditch that says they expected trouble to come uphill.

Further up the rise, you’ll find the foundation of the keep. Nothing stands tall. Only a wide spread of rubble that outlines what was once a rectangular hall, likely about 22 metres by 14. You can trace the footprint with your feet. Some of the blocks are too large to have been cut by accident. The keep wasn’t for show. It was a hall, a last defence, a place where someone might’ve sat beside a fire with sword drawn.

There was once a chemise wall wrapped round the keep—a second skin of stone. That too is mostly gone. Just stubs and a low curve hinting at what it used to be. It wasn’t decoration. It was meant to slow a breach. To hold men off long enough for the archers to do their work.

It’s not pretty. But it’s honest. Built for war. Torn down by those who knew its purpose too well.

Modern Access / Preservation

Nobody sells tickets to Castell Dinas. There’s no café, no glossy brochures, no fence to keep you from climbing over what’s left. You park near the Castle Inn at Pengenffordd, if you’re lucky to find a spot, and you walk. The path starts gentle, then punches up hard. Nearly 1,500 feet above sea level by the time you’re standing where the tower used to be. The wind doesn’t wait for you to catch your breath.

It’s rough walking. Bracken, loose stone, sheep droppings. The kind of place that doesn’t apologise for being half-forgotten. But the views pay for the climb. You see the Black Mountains roll out to the east. Talgarth below, like a child’s model town. Turn west and the Brecon Beacons rise like shoulders hunched against the sky.

There’s no signage up there. No interpretation boards or roped-off bits. Just a few waypoints lower down the trail and some foot-worn gaps in the turf where others have lingered. The castle isn’t “preserved” in any formal sense. It survives because nobody’s bothered to dig it up or pave it over.

Cadw isn’t involved, as far as records show. It doesn’t have the profile of Raglan or the investment of Caerphilly. But the land still gets watched. Local walkers keep it known. Hill runners pass through. School groups come now and then, led by teachers who want them to touch stone and feel how cold history can be.

The site appears on Ordnance Survey maps. It’s marked on walking trails. And the community hasn’t let it vanish. That counts more than any paint job. Castell Dinas hasn’t been rebuilt. It’s been remembered.

You’ll find no guardrails, but there’s a kind of freedom in that. A sense that the castle is still part of the landscape rather than fenced off from it. It decays, yes—but on its own terms.

Visiting Today

There’s a rhythm to the walk up to Castell Dinas. First you leave the road. Then the trees fall away. Then it’s just you and the hill. Most begin at the car park near the Castle Inn, off the A479 between Talgarth and Crickhowell. From there, the trail leads up through farmland and common ground, steepening as it climbs the ridge. The round trip is just over an hour if you’re fit. Longer if you stop to look, which you should.

The climb is uneven, and rain makes the grass slick. Good boots aren’t optional. The wind doesn’t wait for the summit either. It comes hard as soon as you clear the lower slope. Bring a coat. Check the forecast. The Black Mountains don’t care if you’re on a weekend stroll.

There’s no official opening time. No gate. No entry fee. Just the land and what remains. That’s part of the draw. You aren’t guided. You discover it in your own pace, in your own silence.

On a clear day, you can see for miles. Pen y Fan to the west. Waun Fach to the north. Red kites drifting high. In summer, the ridge turns green and loud with insects. In winter, it’s brown and silent. But always, the stones are there. Cold and grey and still resisting.

If you’ve come to picnic, eat before the wind takes your bread. If you’ve come for history, bring it with you. There’s no visitor centre. No plaques to read aloud. Only ruins. Only space. Only that ridge.

You’ll leave feeling like you found something hidden, even though it’s marked on every map. That’s Castell Dinas. A ruin that doesn’t explain itself. A place you climb to, not through.