THE doors of the home of one of Wales’s greatest heroes will be thrown open to the public as Owain Glyndwr gets the Through The Keyhole treatment this weekend.

Modern technology will give visitors to the inaugural two-day Gwyl y Fflam – Festival of Flame – in Corwen the chance to tour the residence of Wales’s last true Prince of Wales.

The video experience will be one of the highlights of an action-packed festival which takes place on the weekend of Saturday and Sunday, September 14 and 15, on the former Pavilion site off London Road.

Glyndwr’s home at Sycharth, near Llansilin, a mile from the English border and close to Oswestry, has been recreated on a video tour by digital technology experts Vivid Virtual Reality.

VVR’s Toby Niesser, from Buckley and now living in Warrington, used source material from a poem by bard Iolo Goch and his own knowledge of medieval housing and buildings to recreate Glyndwr’s home digitally using a video gaming engine.

Toby, whose previous work includes video recreations of the castles at Criccieth and Beaumaris as well as the little-known Liverpool Castle, said: “I went along to Sycharth and had a look – it looks like a mound now but it was interesting to see and imagine what it must once have been like.

“I used Iolo Goch’s poem as a reference along with my knowledge of late medieval building techniques and how the homes of local lords like Glyndwr were constructed.

“They were comfortable and well-appointed but these were turbulent times and they also had to be easily defended against attack so there would have been wooden palisade walls and a ditch and towers as well.”

Visitors to the stand at the festival can view a screen as if wandering around Owain’s home which, along with his property at Glyndyfrdwy, was razed to the ground by the future King Henry V.

Gwyl y Fflam organiser Dylan Jones said: “Owain Glyndwr is part of our history and heritage in Corwen and we wanted to celebrate and commemorate his proclamation as Prince of Wales in 1400.

“We set about looking at what we could do with the support of the South Denbighshire Community Partnership and the event has grown and grown so that we have two fantastic days lined up.

“I think the recreation of the home of Owain Glyndwr will be particularly interesting for people but we will also have a huge amount going on over the two days.”