journey through mysterious wales, learn its history, places of battle, its holy sites, castles and ghosts

Mon (Anglesey) has a gentle landscape in contrast to the mountains of Eryri (Snowdonia), which blocks the eastern horizon. At the mouth of the river Ffraw, overlooking what was then a broad bay with safe anchorage on the south-western coast, was the ancient seat of the kingdom of Gwynedd. Today little remains to show the greatness of Aberffraw`s past. Even the bay is gone, filled in by sand in the great storms of the fourteenth century. In 1337, one hundred and ninety eight pieces of timber were dismantled from the Llys and shipped across to Caernarfon. From then on the buildings were left to crumble and decay until, by the eighteenth century, they were nothing more than a distant memory.

Aberffraw is believed to have been the main court of Gwynedd in the period before 1170. In that year the Norman�s captured Dublin, giving them a base on the Irish Sea and making Mon especially vulnerable to invasion. Aberffraw gradually became more of a symbol of the princes` authority and less a centre of their power. Llywelyn Fawr assumed the title Prince of Aberffraw and Lord of Snowdon linking the traditions of the past with the reality of the present. Although now largely obscured by the modern houses, there is evidence that the Roman�s had a presence at Aberffraw and the Llys sighting might reflect the desire to maintain a link to the authority of the past. The building were given added dignity in the thirteenth century by the addition of elaborately carved stonework and Aberffraw remained an important administrative centre amidst some of the most fertile land in Gwynedd. Oats were the main crop grown at the time, Followed by wheat, barley and peas. Cattle and sheep were kept on the grasslands and large numbers of horses and oxen were reared. Boats from the harbour would have regularly sailed round the coast to the port and market town of Llanfaes.

By the late thirteenth century Mon was difficult to defend from attack from the sea. In the war of 1277 Edward�s forces occupied it, depriving mainland Gwynedd of its harvest. Again in August 1282 King Edward from his base in Rhuddlan, sent a force under Luc de Tany to occupy Mon with instructions to construct a bridge of boats so that they could cross to the mainland. On 6 November, during the armistice, with the bridge assembled and winter approaching, de Tany and his men attempted to cross the Menai Straits. When they got some way into the mountain; a Welsh army surprised them. De Tany attempted a retreat but in the panic the bridge gave way and he and hundreds of his men drowned. The victory was short-lived. In a little over a month the Prince of Wales was dead and Aberffraw near the end of its several hundred year history as a centre of governance.

Three sites of importance to the princess of Gwynedd were the Llysoedd (courts Aberffraw, Aber, Trefriw. The princes moved frequently from place to place and had many courts and lesser lodgings at which they stayed. They also stayed on occasions in their castles and in some of the monasteries. They needed to move from place to place because in a time when leadership was very personal and communications difficult they had to keep in close touch with local leaders and ordinary folk to assess the situation in the various areas. The royal progress from one court to another also avoided exhausting local food and other supplies. Few remains of the courts survive, or have yet been found. But their general locality is known.

The village of Abergwyngregyn (Mouth of the River of White Shells) now seems an unlikely place for the location of the main court of the thirteenth century princes of Gwynedd, and from 1265 of a Prince of Wales, so acknowledged by the English crown But stand on the road near the flat topped mound near the centre of the village, and look around. To the north lies Afon Menai (the Menai Strait) with the ancient route way across the vast of Traeth Lafan (Lavan Sands), leading to Llanfaes and Mon Southwards lays the deep valley leading into the mountains and to the Aber falls. Towering above Aber on the eastern side is Maes y Gaer, an iron age hill fort, but doubtless a place of watch and refuge in times of danger in the thirteenth century. To the south west the mountains of Snowdonia tower over the village. From this position one can appreciate Aber`s claim to be the heart of thirteenth century Gwynedd

By the thirteenth century, Aber appears to have replaced Aberffraw as the favourite court, probably because of its greater security and easier access, and because the Princes increasingly looked east and south to the rest of Wales and to England. Ancient roads connecting Conwy and Caernarfon met the route to Mon here Aber also holds the highest recorded temperatures in the British Isles. The Princes and their relatives and the great men and women of Gwynedd probably spent more time here than any other court Its importance is confirmed by the fact that King John occupied Aber in his invasion of 1211, the first and only Anglo-Norman king to penetrate so far west until Edward I. At this time John sent his soldiers to burn Bangor, a few miles up the coast. Ironically Aber was the home of his son-in-law Llywelyn Fawr, who had married John�s daughter Joan in 1205 Joan was an important person in her own right. As the daughter of John and a half sister to King Henry III she often acted as ambassador from Gwynedd to the English court, her intervention possibly saving Llywelyn from destruction at the hands of John She suffered a period of disgrace in 1230 when William de Braose was found in her chamber. Joan was eventually forgiven by Llywelyn but William, though a powerful Marcher lord was hanged in front of 800 people Joan died at Aber on 2 February 1237 and was taken across the sands to be buried at Llanfaes. Her coffin of stone now lies in the porch of St Mary�s Church, Beaumaris

In 1240 the inheritance of Llywelyn Fawr passed on his death to their son Dafydd, He faced assaults not only from the Marcher and Welsh lords but also from Henry III who was happy to fish in these troubled waters Just when the issue was finely balanced, he too died at Aber on 25 February 1246 Following his conquest of Gwynedd, Edward I spent time at Aber in August 1284, savouring the possessions of his defeated enemies This favourite court of the princes gradually faded into a royal manor, then into ruins, and finally into a memory of local people In 1988 a visitor looking vainly for the site of the palace was moved to write a poem which ended� Leave with pools of memory To drown among at will. The years pass in eye of mind Peace here now, but lies Aber still�. The final sentence proved prophetic, Aber is no longer �still�, with two sites being considered as a possible location for the court, Until the issue is settled, visitors can study both sites, and decide for themselves which is more likely to be the �Aber of the Princes�

�Lying as it does in the cleft of the northern hill, with the great mountain mass of Penmaenmawr to the east, Moel Wnion to the west, and Foel-Fras to the south, the morning sun never enters Aber. But to look out at dawn to the north, over the narrow salt marshes of Lavan sands and the sea, that is wonderful. The deepening light, first tinted like the feathers of a dove, then flushing into a rose, then glowing like amber, comes sweeping westward from Conway over the sea, to strike in a glitter of foam on the distant coast of Anglesey across the strait from us, as if a golden tide had surged across the sea green tide and flooded the visible world with light�. Edith Pargeter The Brothers of Gwynedd

Oer calon dan fron o fraw - allwynin
Am frenin, dderwin ddor, Aberffraw.
Arglwydd, Neud maendo ymandaw - Cymry,
O`r llin a ddyly ddaly Aberffraw.

Cold is the heart in my breast for dread and sorrow after the king,the oaken gate of Aberffraw.
A lord, a prince of the Welsh like a stone roof, of the line that held Aberffraw by right
Gruffudd ab yr Ynad Goch, 1282