Llys Hynafol Cochwillan near Talybont (Bangor) is breathtakingly beautiful, and is as impressive today as when it was built back in the 1400s. You can watch people walk in and count the seconds until see them mouth the word ‘wow’ as their eyes rise to the hammerbeam roof that is reminiscent of the Westminster Hall.

If it has the ‘wow factor’ for us today, and we are used to seeing high buildings and complex engineering, then imagine how visitors in the fifteenth century would have reacted when they saw it bedecked in tapestries and rich paintwork. There would have been no doubting the power of the local sheriff when his home was second only to the houses of God. In fact the same craftsmen that produced such fancy oak roof structures would also have worked on the churches and cathedrals of their day.