Mynydd Esgairweddan is a hill near Pennal

Pennal

Pennal is a village on the A493 road in southern Gwynedd, Wales, on the north bank of the Afon Dyfi/River Dovey, near Machynlleth.It lies in the former county of Merionethshire/Sir Feirionnydd, and is within the Snowdonia National Park.-Roman Fort:...

 in southern Gwynedd

Gwynedd

Gwynedd is a county in north-west Wales, named after the old Kingdom of Gwynedd. Although the second biggest in terms of geographical area, it is also one of the most sparsely populated...

, Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 . Nearby is the tiny settlement of Esgairweddan. It is very close to the site of the old Roman

Roman Wales

The history of Wales in the Roman era began in AD 48 with a military invasion by the imperial governor of Roman Britain. The conquest would be completed by 78, and Roman rule would endure until the region was abandoned in 383 AD...

 fort of Cefn Caer (Pennal). The area was described in the Topographical Dictionary of Wales by Samuel Lewis (published 1833) as;

"A tract of hilly and rocky ground but little adapted for purposes of agriculture. The soil is thin and poor, but, in some of the lower grounds, not altogether unproductive; the declivities of the hills afford only a scanty pasturage for sheep and young cattle: peat, which forms the principal fuel of the inhabitants, is found in various parts."

History

The name Esgairweddan is most associated with the site of the ancestral demesne

Demesne

In the feudal system the demesne was all the land, not necessarily all contiguous to the manor house, which was retained by a lord of the manor for his own use and support, under his own management, as distinguished from land sub-enfeoffed by him to others as sub-tenants...

 of the Price of Esgairweddan family, the senior branch of the Royal House of Gwynedd

Kingdom of Gwynedd

Gwynedd was one petty kingdom of several Welsh successor states which emerged in 5th-century post-Roman Britain in the Early Middle Ages, and later evolved into a principality during the High Middle Ages. It was based on the former Brythonic tribal lands of the Ordovices, Gangani, and the...

 that survived the English conquest of Wales from 1282. Their ancestral home was known during the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

 as Plas yn y Rofft. It was probably located at the place now named Cwrt (meaning Court

Noble court

The court of a monarch, or at some periods an important nobleman, is a term for the extended household and all those who regularly attended on the ruler or central figure...

) close to Esgairweddan. The line of Price of Esgairweddan became extinct with Robert Price, Esq. (died 1702), who left two daughters; Mary and Anne (Anne died in 1750). The estates, at the demise of the former, passed to the Edwardses of Talgarth and formed part of the Pennal Towers Estate. Frances Edwards (c. 1790-1828) married Captain Charles Thomas Thruston (d. 1858) of Hoxne

Hoxne

Hoxne is an anciently established village in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk, England, about five miles east-southeast of Diss, Norfolk and one-half mile south of the River Waveney...

, Suffolk

Suffolk

Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...

. The last Thruston was killed in an uprising at Fort Luburan, Uganda

Uganda

Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...

 in 1897 and since 1927 the land has been owned by a charitable trust.

Archaeological findings in the area date back to the Late Neolithic

Neolithic

The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...

.