The valley of the /Lledr/ always presents itself to this present writer's recollection as he beheld it first, at the end of a dry summer, when the eye feasted without weariness on glowing colour, and when every bend of the river opened up some piece of country which was like one of Turner's glorious dreams. He saw it last on a day of drifting rain. And in wet or in dry seasons the Lledr valley permits of no comparison between itself and any other. It is incomparable in its various beauty; it is unique in its power of attraction, in its way of producing a satisfying sense of something wholly individual and complete. High up towards Blaenau Festiniog it has little beauty; but before the stream reaches Dolwyddelen Castle the real Lledr valley begins, and is thenceforward down to the junction with the Conway a perpetually changing scene of loveliness. Here again Moel Siabod, seen in a new aspect, but always striking in form and noble in proportions, seems to dominate the landscape. It may be seen from one impressive point with Dolwyddelen Castle in the middle distance. This ruin is the fragment of an ancient stronghold which derives all its present importance from the beauty of its situation. A single tower occupies the summit of a rocky knoll, and stands out clear against its misty mountain background. Yet the castle was fairly large in its day, occupying the whole surface of the hill. Here lived Iorwerth Drwyndwn, whose fortune in battle gained him his surname of "the Broken Nose"; and here, too, Llewelyn the Great is said to have been born. At a later day the castle became the residence of Howel Coetmor, a notorious outlaw and robber chief, who so harried his neighbours that they sat in church with weapons in their hands. A Roman road crossed the Lledr at the village of Dolwyddelen, which is about a mile from the castle, and there are still distinct Roman remains on the hill above the village. But let no one, on that account, meditate on the ruins of empires at the railway station which is called Roman Bridge, for the road crossed the river at quite another place, and the bridge is of an antiquity corresponding to that of the relic which was discovered by the credulous hero of Sir Walter Scott's romance.