A research recce!

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In writing my current book - The Warrior's Reluctant Wife, due out in August 2023 - I've been stuck, not so much in a saggy middle, but a tangled middle, spending the last two or three weeks getting more and more entangled.  This is my third novel for Harlequin Mills & Boon and, like my debut, is a marriage of convenience story, though set slightly earlier in 1157. 

The location is the lovely Dyfi Valley, more specifically the estuary and nature reserve of RSPB Ynys Hir. Here, in 1156, the Lord Rhys, prince of Deheubarth, constructed a motte and bailey castle to guard against attack from Gwynedd.  It was lost, briefly, when the Anglo Normans came back in 1158 and Ceredigion was fought over for the next decade. But Rhys triumphed and - forging a personal as well as political relationship with Henry II - ruled supreme in Deheubarth for the next thirty years until his death in 1197. He was buried in St David's Cathedral, where his tomb can still be seen.


The tree-covered mound of Castell Abereinion
 

The castle of Abereinion was strengthened by Rhys in the 1160s, and again by his son, Maelgwn in the 1190s, and it was possibly the site where Llywelyn Fawr held his council of the Welsh princes in 1216, where they pledged fealty to him as overlord. Today, the mound is overgrown but there is an exciting project currently being undertaken by the RSPB to clear to mound and put an information board put in place telling the fascinating story of this important frontier castle, and of the Lord Rhys.

 

The motte's northern defensive ditch

 

The aspect, for those who don't know the reserve, is absolutely stunning and one can well image why Rhys ap Gruffudd chose to build a castle there. It sits right on the headland, surrounded on three sides by water, with far-reaching views across the estuary to southern Meirionnydd and also northwards to the approach into what was then Powys Cyfeiliog.  

 

The partially cleared motte

 

 Anyway last week, in an effort to get untangled from my messy mid section, I took an afternoon out do to a recce of the site. I know the reserve well but hadn't looked at it with a writer's eye before. As the photos show, it is a beautiful and - nowadays at least - tranquil place. From the bird hide of Domen Las, where the northern palisade wall ran, I got a real sense of what my characters would have seen and felt looking out over the water towards Gwynedd from this very same spot, almost 900 years ago. 

 

Looking northeast to Gwynedd and Powys
 

And my recce had results! As well as a much needed long walk and equally much needed fresh air, I made myself sit down for a solid stint of untangling afterwards. It took the whole weekend, but I'm now out the other end on the home straight, and hopefully on track to meeting my deadline.
 


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