Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ruthin before the present. An ancient MS. is said to give the more ancient Castle the name of Erw trwm Iwyth, i. e. the Acre with a heavy load on it, a name descriptive of the building it supported. It, probably, was a heavy-looking square or round tower, such as were the Castles in England and Wales, and Duns in Scotland, built by their ancient inhabitants. They were rather places of retreat in times of emergency, than permanent residences such as the Norman race erected. These more ancient towers, it is thought, sometimes appear in the Norman Castles, and when this is the case, they must have been adopted into his plan by the reported founder of the Castle in general. Such was the case, as is said on good authority, at Cricceith, Hawarden, and many other places. Such tower is generally included in what was called the Keep, which was the most impregnable part, and the residence of the Baron, from which circumstance it derived its name. The original name of Ruthin Castle granted to De Grey was Castell c6ch yn Gwern-for, so called from the red colour of its exterior masonry ; and it is observable that a portion of land contiguous is still called Gwern-f6r, implying a tradition that it was once covered by the sea. The name of Ruthin is, probably, Rhudden, Red Earth, which is quite descriptive of its soil, and not Rhudd- ddinas, as sometimes asserted. Llanrhudd, the name of the parish, is the church of this red tract of land. More properly it should be Llanrhudden. On investigating the present ruins, much of which have been lately brought to light at the expence of their present possessor, chapter{Section 4it is no difficult matter to conjecture what must have been the appearance of this Castle in the days of its grandeur. It consisted, as its present appearance shews, of...