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Dunraven

Cliff Fort

Folklore

According to Coflein, this fort perches 60m above the sea, with double banks and ditches protecting the land side. Traces of 21 possible roundhouses have been found inside. It was landscaped as part of the grounds of the mansion mentioned below.
.. occupying a romantic situation on a rocky promontory called Twryn y Witch (or the Witch's Nose).. [was] the Castle of Dundrivan (Castle of the Three Halls) where, according to tradition, Caradoc formerly kept his summer court.

If we may give credit to another story, a more recent possessor of Dunraven Castle [a 1700s mansion destroyed in the 1960s], Vaughan by name, was in the habit of alluring vessels to the coast by putting out false lights, that he might profit by the wrecks driven ashore, to which he was entitled as lord of the manor. In the very midst of his crimes, however, he lost his own three sons in one day, and, looking on this event as a judgement from heaven on his iniquities, he sold the estate to the family of Wyndham.

Some curious caverns are worn by the sea in the rock beneath the castle. Through one of them, called the Wind Hole, the sea is forced at times in lofty jets.
From p36 of
A Handbook for Travellers in South Wales and Its Borders, Including the River Wye, by John Murray (1860), online at Google Books.

The OS map shows (a platform of?) rocks on the beach called the 'Dancing Stones' but I can't find any mention of this interesting name.
Rhiannon Posted by Rhiannon
27th May 2007ce
Edited 27th May 2007ce

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