Cardigan

Cardigan stands on the River Teifi near its mouth in Cardigan Bay. Its castle guarded a crossing on a coast contested by Welsh princes and Norman lords. In 1176 Rhys ap Gruffudd, the Lord Rhys of Deheubarth, held a great gathering of poets and musicians at his castle. The contest is remembered as the first recorded eisteddfod, a celebrated expression of Welsh literary and musical culture.