Calchfynydd was an obscure Britonnic

Britons (historical)

The Britons were the Celtic people culturally dominating Great Britain from the Iron Age through the Early Middle Ages. They spoke the Insular Celtic language known as British or Brythonic...

 kingdom

Monarchy

A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...

 or sub-kingdom of sub-Roman Britain

Sub-Roman Britain

Sub-Roman Britain is a term derived from an archaeological label for the material culture of Britain in Late Antiquity: the term "Sub-Roman" was invented to describe the potsherds in sites of the 5th century and the 6th century, initially with an implication of decay of locally-made wares from a...

. Its exact location is unknown and virtually nothing certain is known about it.

It is referred to directly in a single line of a poem in the Book of Taliesin

Book of Taliesin

The Book of Taliesin is one of the most famous of Middle Welsh manuscripts, dating from the first half of the 14th century though many of the fifty-six poems it preserves are taken to originate in the 10th century. The manuscript, known as Peniarth MS 2 and kept at the National Library of Wales,...

where it appears to be connected with the kingdom of Powys. However, the name also survives in the epithet

Epithet

An epithet or byname is a descriptive term accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, divinities, objects, and binomial nomenclature. It is also a descriptive title...

 of Cadrawd Calchfynydd

Cadrawd Calchfynydd

Cadrawd Calchfynydd was king of the obscure Brythonic kingdom of Calchfynydd in the 6th century.He was the son of King Cynwyd Cynwydion, possibly also of Calchfynydd. He probably succeeded his father around 545. If his kingdom were in Northern Britain, the Angles of Bernicia may have taken it over...

, apparently a 6th century ruler of the district. Welsh sources refer to Cadrawd as one of the Gwyr y Gogledd

Hen Ogledd

Yr Hen Ogledd is a Welsh term used by scholars to refer to those parts of what is now northern England and southern Scotland in the years between 500 and the Viking invasions of c. 800, with particular interest in the Brythonic-speaking peoples who lived there.The term is derived from heroic...

or 'Men of the North', suggesting the area was located somewhere in northern Britain

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

. William Forbes Skene

William Forbes Skene

William Forbes Skene , Scottish historian and antiquary, was the second son of Sir Walter Scott's friend, James Skene , of Rubislaw, near Aberdeen....

 suggested an identification with Kelso (formerly Calchow) in southern Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 and Rachel Bromwich

Rachel Bromwich

Rachel Bromwich was a British scholar. Her focus was on medieval Welsh literature, and was Emeritus Reader in Celtic Languages and Literature at the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at Cambridge until her death...

 agrees that a location somewhere in the Hen Ogledd

Hen Ogledd

Yr Hen Ogledd is a Welsh term used by scholars to refer to those parts of what is now northern England and southern Scotland in the years between 500 and the Viking invasions of c. 800, with particular interest in the Brythonic-speaking peoples who lived there.The term is derived from heroic...

 is most likely. Alistair Moffat in his history of Kelso supports this position, citing early references to "Chalchou," as well as the chalk area and Chalkheugh Terrace.

Presumed rulers in the line of Cadrawd

• Cynwyd Cynwydion
• Cadrawd Calchfynydd
  Cadrawd Calchfynydd
  Cadrawd Calchfynydd was king of the obscure Brythonic kingdom of Calchfynydd in the 6th century.He was the son of King Cynwyd Cynwydion, possibly also of Calchfynydd. He probably succeeded his father around 545. If his kingdom were in Northern Britain, the Angles of Bernicia may have taken it over...
  
  
• Yspwys Mwyntyrch
• Mynan