ABSTRACT

The picturesque ruin of Dryslwyn Castle, perched at the southern end of Dryslwyn hill overlooking the River Tywi has attracted antiquarians, visitors and artists from the 18th century to the present day. Briefly, excavation and historical research indicate that Dryslwyn Castle was founded in the late 1220s by Rhys Gryg to provide a protected home for his new son Maredudd. Dryslwyn Hill with its attendant ruined castle was transferred from the Cawdor estate into the care of the Secretary of State for Wales as an Ancient Monument in 1979. Construction and occupation activities, as recorded through the excavated contexts, were revealed in a series of Harris matrices. These were created for every area on the site. Masonry castles were an expression of political, military, social and economic power, in built form. They were often constructed initially as one means of exercising control over a localised area and employed later as part of a wider national social and legal control system.