Owain Glyndŵr Hotel, Corwen
This building played a part in Welsh cultural history in 1789, when it was the main venue for the first public eisteddfod. Until then, eisteddfodau had been held for poets and adjudicators, originally to ensure that only bards who met the required standard were accredited. Here in 1789 members of the public were admitted to watch the proceedings. In that sense, it was the forerunner of the current National Eisteddfod of Wales, which draws c.150,000 visitors each August and is broadcast to many other spectators.
The old postcard photo shows the square with the hotel on the right. The photo of hotel staff, courtesy of the National Library of Wales, was taken by John Thomas in 1871. It shows the entrance before the Italianate portico was added, including some well-worn stone steps.
The hotel’s frontage dates from the early 19th century, when trade at many inns was boosted by the improvement of the road from London to Holyhead. Behind the frontage are older sections of the building, which was known as the New Inn in the 18th century. When the travel writer George Borrow called in for a lunchtime drink in 1854, he remarked that the inn was “very appropriately called the Owen Glendower” because it was the principal inn in the principal town of Owain Glyndŵr’s former domain. A modern statue of Glyndŵr stands in the square opposite the hotel.
A later travel writer, Charles G Harper, noted in a book published in 1902 that the inn had long since lost “the fierce gigantic figure like that of some Saracenic Soldan” that had once been its sign, attracting the “attention of every 18th-century traveller”.
There are tales that the hotel is haunted by the spirit of a woman whose affair with a monk ended unhappily.
The hotel was for sale for years before a group was formed in 2021 to raise funds, in conjunction with Partneriaeth Corwen Partnership, to buy the building as a community-owned facility.
Postcode: LL21 0DL View Location Map
Website of the campaign to save the hotel