The Owain Glyndŵr, Cardiff
The Owain Glyndŵr, St John’s Street
This pub is named after the leader of the most widespread revolt against established English authority in Wales. Son of the lord of Glyndyfrdwy (near Llangollen), Owain Glyndŵr was brought up as a young nobleman and fought with the English against the Scots and Dutch.
A dispute with a neighbour, Baron Reginald Grey, is said to have sparked his rebellion in 1400. Whatever the cause, it quickly gathered strength among Welsh people who were fed up of the privileges that were reserved for English people, including those who had settled in Wales.
One of his early supporters was a Cardiff friar called John Sperhauke, who proclaimed that Owain Glyndŵr was the true Prince of Wales – and was executed as a result.
Glyndŵr captured the walled towns and castles which the English had built in Wales, usually burning each town to the ground. Glyndŵr’s army captured Cardiff in 1404 and destroyed most of the buildings, sparing the friary where Sperhauke had lived. The Church of St John the Baptist – directly opposite the Owain Glyndŵr pub – was almost destroyed by the rebels, although one section of the original survives to this day.
The rebellion began to falter in 1405 and effectively ended four years later with the recapture of Harlech Castle, Glyndŵr’s stronghold. He was never captured.
A marble sculpture of Owain Glyndŵr stands in City Hall, Cardiff. It was unveiled in 1916. A bronze statue of him on horseback stands in the middle of Corwen, the nearest town to his childhood home.
Postcode: CF10 1GL