The shattered ruin of motte-and-bailey Llandovery Castle looms ineffectually over the town centre. Built in 1100 and then rebuilt in stone in the 1160s, it changed hands many times between the Normans and the Welsh, and between one Welsh prince and another, taking a severe beating in the process. Owain Glyndŵr had a good go at it in 1403, and it was finally left to decay in 1490.
The castle is fronted by an eerie disembodied stainless-steel statue commemorating Llywelyn ap Gruffydd Fychan, who was gruesomely hung, drawn and quartered by Henry IV for refusing to lead him to Owain Glyndŵr's base.