constructed and the occupants ran out of water. Custody was firstly given to Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn but subsequently to Roger Mortimer along with the lands of Ceri and Cedewain. Following its fall, the castle design was modified by its new English overlords. The south gate was blocked, new buildings were set up in the courtyard, and a well was dug. Following the death of Roger Mortimer in 1282, the castle passed to his son Edmund Mortimer, then to his son, Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March, who lost the family estates in 1322 after an act of treason. An inventory taken at the time recites the rooms, which included an armoury in the round tower as well as domestic ranges with a pantry, buttery, kitchen, brewhouse, bakehouse, chapel, hall, a lady's chamber and two granges for the storage of grain. Later years Dolforwyn appears to have been occupied until the reign of Richard II (1377–99), but by 1381 it was already described as being in poor repair, and in 1398 it was described as being "ruinous and worth nothing." It appears that after this date the castle was almost lost from memory and attracted little interest. The ownership of the castle passed to the Earls of Powis and was subsequently bought by the grandfather of the antiquarian John Davies Knatchbull Lloyd, who gave the site to the Welsh Ancient Monuments Board (now Cadw) in 1955. Cadw arranged for excavation of the site between 1981 and 2002 and the monument is now open to the public. In June 2009 Cadw commenced a 6-month process of consolidation of the castle masonry. Literary associations According to local legends recorded by the antiquarian Thomas Pennant, the maiden Sabrina was drowned at Dolforwyn, and gave her name to the River Severn ( literally means "maiden's meadow", which may allude to this myth). John Milton's 1634 masque Comus expanded this legend, with Sabrina saved by water nymphs, and made into the goddess of the river Severn. Bernard Cornwell, as part of The Warlord Chronicles, uses Dolforwyn in his 1995 book The Winter King. Study The entire site of Dolforwyn Castle was archaeologically excavated between 1981 and 2002 as a joint project between the University of Leeds (1981–1985), University of York (1986–2002), and Cadw. Over the course of three decades, students and Cadw employees spent three or four weeks each summer examining specific parts of the castle.