Around 2,500 years ago, in prominent positions on the hilltops throughout the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley, communities built villages with defences around them. The people lived in timber roundhouses protected by ramparts made of earthen banks and ditches. They lived, loved and died, farmed, built, bartered, fought and held celebrations within the walls of these villages. Some were inhabited for hundreds of years before being abandoned in medieval times, like the site at Dinas Bran. Others were taken over by the landscape and have only recently been rediscovered.

But this spectacular range of Iron-Age hillforts form one of the most historically important landscapes in Wales, all are hauntingly beautiful and rich in ancient tradition.

Although little is known about how the hillforts were used, or what relation they were to each other, they have undergone a programme of research and understanding, to preserve and maintain their heritage, improve access and restore the moorland, and reconnect them with the hundreds and thousands of visitors who come to the AONB, some of whom may be unaware of the significance of their destination.