Morganstown Motte

Morganstown Motte is a well-defined motte surrounded by a wide ditch with suggestions of a bailey extending to the north-east. It sits in land adjacent to a garden centre and a playing field containing the football ground of Radyr Rangers (according to Google Maps!) and is covered by trees. Access may be possible by arrangement with the garden centre, which occupies part of the area of the putative bailey.

The round motte is about 30 metres across at the base, and 13 metres across at the summit, with the ditch 7 metres wide, but largely filled in at only perhaps 50cm deep. The infill could be from an earlier bank which has now vanished, and this is likely the result of 19th century garden landscaping. Morganstown is undoubtedly a survivor of the early stages of the domination of Glamorgan, and is considered to have been one of an arc of such sites towards the periphery of territory falling subject to Robert fitzHamo at Cardiff Castle. It is strategically important at the edge of the Taff Gorge, and therefore makes military sense for this – but the only pottery found here is high-status from SW France, and dated to the 13th to 15th century.

It has been shown that after an initial settlement agreement between fitzHamo and the Welsh, the settlement north of the church of Radyr and the church itself were founded by the early 12th century, with the manor to the west. There is a suggestion that Radyr was held by the native Welsh lords independently of fitzHamo, meaning that the motte could not have been used for long. In 1242 Radyr was absorbed into the Lordship of Glamorgan, and leased to Cynwrig ap Hywel, and by 1307 consisted of 124 acres, plus communal grazing and woodland. It may be that the pottery dates from a recommissioning of the castle during the Glyndwr rebellion, but the truth is the evidence is too slight at present to be certain. When Radyr passed to the Matthews family in 1469, a new manor house was built west of the church, and there is no suggestion that the motte was still in use at that time.

RCAHMW Coflein database entry