CAER GYBI
Anglesey, Wales.
On the low
cliff on the W side of Holyhead harbor are the walls
and round towers of a small fort of uncertain date. The
W side is 76 m long and the N and S sides 48 and 41 m,
respectively, to the points at which they disappear at the
edge of the cliff. Near the NW angle the walls survive to
a height of 4 m, revealing details of the rampart walk
(1 m wide) and parapet. Caer Gybi is generally interpreted as a fortified beaching-point with only three sides,
of a type known on the Rhine in the late 4th c. A.D.
Such a fort might provide protection to vessels trading
between Anglesey and the mainland at a period when
piracy was a serious problem. No Roman material has
been found at Caer Gybi, however, and the site may
be mediaeval.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
R.E.M. Wheeler,
Segontium and the
Roman Occupation of Wales (1924) 97-101 =
Y
Cyminrodor 33 (1923); W. E. Griffiths, “Excavations at
Caer Gybi, Holyhead, 1952,”
Archaeologia Cambrensis
103 (1954) 113-16; W. G. Putnam in V. E. Nash-Williams,
The Roman Frontier in Wales (2d ed. by M. G.
Jarrett 1969) 135-37
MPI.
M. G. JARRETT
