Welshpool Society meet tonight

The Welshpool Society will be meeting tonight (Thursday) at 7.30pm at The Methodist Church, Welshpool.

The speakers, John Davies and Karin Thompson, both professional historians, will talk about the Mottes of the Tanat and Cain Valleys whose origins have puzzled historians and others for generations.

Who built them, when and why? Three of them are in very odd locations being around 900 feet or more high in the Berwyn foothills.

The current theory is that they were built after 1166 when Mochnant was divided between two rival lords who hated and feared each other.

The speakers, in their illustrated talk, present a different origin which has aroused some controversy.

In so doing, it raises a challenge to the standard historiography of Welsh castle building in the first half of the 12th century.

Admission is £3.