The Welsh Marches is the name given to the beautiful and often remote country along the border of England and Wales. Much of it is wild, high moor-land; sparsely populated, even today; scarred everywhere by centuries of conflict. Almost every hill is crowned by an iron-age hill-fort - the British leader Caractacus was finally run to earth and defeated here by the Romans, before being taken in honourable captivity to Rome - and many towns and villages have the remains of a castle, built after the Norman conquest. Some of them are now little more than grass-covered mounds guarding remote, empty valleys; but some, like the great stone castle at Ludlow, were major centres of power and culture for centuries. Harps have long been a traditional element of local culture, and tuning pegs from at least two early harps have been dug up in the ruined castle at Montgomery.