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Pant-Glas Castle Mound is a medieval motte situated in Wales and protected as a scheduled monument by Cadw under reference CM121. The mound rises from bedrock of Ashgill Rocks, a sequence of mudstone, siltstone and sandstone laid down during the Ashgill period of the Ordovician. This solid foundation of sedimentary stone would have provided stable ground for the substantial earthwork defences typical of Norman castle construction in Wales during the medieval period.
The motte itself represents a common form of military architecture deployed across Wales and the Welsh Borders from the eleventh century onwards. Such mottes comprised a steep-sided mound of rammed earth and stone, often surrounded by a ditch, with a timber palisade and defensive structures crowning the summit. The strategic positioning of Pant-Glas would have commanded local routes and territory characteristic of castles established to consolidate Norman territorial control.
The survival of the earthwork in its present form reflects both the substantial labour invested in its original construction and the enduring strength of its underlying geology. The Ashgill bedrock's resistance to erosion has preserved the mound's profile across centuries, making it a significant physical record of medieval Welsh landscape occupation and defensive settlement.
Pant-Glas Castle Mound is a scheduled monument protected by Cadw under reference CM121. View the official record →
Pant-Glas Castle Mound is a medieval motte situated in Wales and protected as a scheduled monument by Cadw under reference CM121.
Pant-Glas Castle Mound dates from the medieval period, and is classified as a motte. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
Pant-Glas Castle Mound is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, legally protected by Cadw — the body responsible for designating and safeguarding heritage sites in Wales. The official designation reference is CM121.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Defended Enclosure 350m S of Clungwyn (2.7 km), Roman Amphitheatre (5.3 km), Merlins Hill Hillfort (5.5 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 13 strands of Pant-Glas Castle Mound's history, each drawn from the record and mapped to the exact spot:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Pant-Glas Castle Mound stands on Ashgill Rocks (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Ashgill. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone and sandstone.