Scotland_Dumbarton Castle

June 28, 2018 by Alexander Meldrum

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Early History of Dumbarton. Dumbarton from Scottish Gaelic Dùn Breatann or Dùn Breatainn, meaning 'fort of the Britons' is a town in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland. It Sits on the north bank of ...

Early History of Dumbarton. Dumbarton from Scottish Gaelic Dùn Breatann or Dùn Breatainn, meaning 'fort of the Britons' is a town in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland. It Sits on the north bank of the River Clyde where the River Leven flows into the Clyde estuary, Dumbarton Castle, sits on top of Dumbarton Rock, Which dominates the area, Dumbarton's history goes back at least as far as the Iron Age and probably much earlier, the site was a strategically important settlement as evidenced by archaeological finds. The people that came to reside there in the era of Roman Britain were known to have traded with the Romans - though these may or may not have been the Picts that dwelled in Dumbarton in the Bronze Age & early-mid Iron Age. Dumbarton was the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Alclud, It was the site of a strategically important Roman settlement known as Alcluith of a province named Valentia. However the first written record about a settlement there was marked in a letter Saint Patrick wrote to King Ceretic of Alt Clut in the late 5th century. The next record of a settlement in Dumbarton is a record in Irish chronicles of the death of Guret, rex Alo Cluathe ("king of Clyde Rock"), in AD 658. Dumbarton was the Cair Britton ("Fort of the Britons") listed by Nennius among the 28 cities of Sub-Roman Britain. The fortress of Dumbarton was the stronghold of the kingdom of Alclud and the centre of British power in northern Britain, From the fifth century until the ninth, the castle was the centre of the independent Brythonic Kingdom of Strathclyde. Alt Clut or Alcluith (Scottish Gaelic: Alt Chluaidh, "Rock of the Clyde"), the Brythonic name for Dumbarton Rock, became a metonym for the kingdom. The king of Dumbarton in about AD 570 was Riderch Hael, who features in Welsh and Latin works. During his reign, Merlin was said to have stayed at Alt Clut. The medieval Scalacronica of Sir Thomas Grey records the legend that "Arthur left Hoël of Brittany with his nephew sick at Alcluit in Scotland.

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