This is not only the most mountainous and picturesque of the six northern shires of Wales, but retains more distinct characteristics of a peculiar people, and greater primitiveness of customs and manners than any of the remaining counties. Here the Cambrian Alps are seen in all the dignity and sublimity attached to space restricted only by the grand natural boundaries of mountain, lake, wood, and river. The district included between the mountains and the sea, as well as the whole promontory of Lleyn, consists of fertile land, enjoys an agreeable and cheerful aspect, and is adorned with the seats of many wealthy landed proprietors. From the highest part of this inclining plain, a surface, possessing an endless variety of form, swells with inconceivable rapidity, nor ceases until it attains the vast height of three thousand seven hundred and fifty-nine feet above the sea in its ambitious throws. This point, called “Y Wyddffa,” the Conspicuous, is the summit of Snowdon, and the loftiest pinnacle in ancient Britain. Two neighbouring rivals, Carneddau David and Llewellyn, seem to dispute the lofty throne, and reach within a hundred feet of the ancient Cairn which crowns the hoary head of the great monarch of Snowdonia. The greatest length of Caernarvonshire, i.e. in a direction north and south, is forty-five miles, and its mean average breadth about twenty. It is watered by several rivers, whose rocky beds abound in noble cataracts, as well as in scenery of the most delicate and fascinating character. The Conway is probably the richest in each kind of subject; the Llugwy, Lledder, and Ogwen, preserve their bold romantic natures until their noisy spirits are “deep in the bosom of the ocean buried.” Perhaps the placid lakes, notwithstanding the noiseless tenor of their lives, may find more worshippers than even the Conway’s majestic tide. Llynnyau Gwynant and Crafuant are the most graceful, perfect compositions; Llynnyau Ogwen and Idwel the most sublime.
Caernarvon Castle; Snowdon; Bangor Cathedral. London. Published by T. T. & J. Tegg, Cheapside, Oct. 1st 1832
The mountainous unequal surface of this county has not militated against the introduction of new and admirable lines of road. It is probable that the facility of obtaining a very durable stone, at the cost of removal only, has encouraged the construction of the most beautiful and interesting public avenues in the kingdom. The Holyhead commissioners have carried the British Simplon through the flinty rocks of Ogwen and along the wind-swept valley of FrancÒn. The county engineers have diminished the terrors of Penmaen Mawr by descending from the beetling cliff to a judicious and secure path along the margin of the sea; and the new road through the pass of Llanberis has rendered these scenes of “pleasing horror” accessible to the most timid and nervous, who are frequently the best and truest appreciators of such mysterious and sublime formations.
CAERNARVON CASTLE.
Caernarvon is an ancient borough town, a favourite watering place, and enjoys the benefit of a considerable export trade in slates of the best quality, besides the supply of the interior with wines, coal, earthenware, &c. It is surrounded by walls, the space enclosed resembling the form of a harp, the royal castle being the head or termination of the upright arm, and a fine, broad, marine terrace outside it, now constitutes the chief promenade of inhabitants and visiters. The local position of Caernarvon is extremely beautiful,—the town walls, and long terrace are washed by the sea in front; the river Seiont flows round the castle walls, and meets the waters of the MÆnai beneath its lofty turrets, while Coed-Helen Mount impends over the town on the south, Twt-Hill on the North, and Moel Eilio and the Snowdonian range cross and terminate the distant view. There is a striking similitude between the natural position of Algiers and that of the town of Caernarvon, as seen from the water. Twt Hill corresponds with the Jewish cemetery; there is a mount also hanging over Algiers on the right, and the terrace of Caernarvon is an exact miniature of the famous thousand-gun battery of the Turkish city, though happily deficient in such a supply of dread artillery.
The name Caernarfon is compounded of the British terms Caer yn ar-ffon, or Mon, the citadel in Arfon, or in the district opposite to Mon (Anglesea). It was the ancient Segontium of the Romans, and was the only post of consequence in this part of Cambria over which the imperial eagle flapped his wings. Some fragments of a Roman wall are still distinguishable near the town, and outposts, roads, and encampments yet survive in the immediate vicinity.
Upon the final subjugation of the ancient Britons, in the year 1282, King Edward the First commenced the building of a noble castle at Caernarvon. This he designed for his royal palace; and mixing up some soothing artifices with the vigorous measures of a conquering prince, caused his faithful and much beloved queen to be brought hither, at an interesting moment of her life, where she gave birth to Edward, afterwards sirnamed Caernarvon. This was the second wily stratagem practised upon the obstinate Welshmen by King Edward. His first attempt to render their fetters less galling, was made by assimilating the form of the fortifications of Conway and Caernarvon, which were actually species of state prisons, to the likeness and disposition of the arms of a harp.
Caernarvon is the largest of Edward’s castles, and is probably still the most entire; the river Seiont and the MÆnai strait washed the walls on two sides, and a deep fosse, originally crossed by a drawbridge, completed the watery circuit. The entrance possesses an air of much grandeur. It is a lofty pointed arch, defended by noble flanking towers, and adorned with a colossal figure of the conqueror himself, standing in a canopied niche, in the act of unsheathing his sword. The interior, which is represented in the accompanying view, is much more ruined. The apartments for the accommodation of the garrison are quite buried in rubbish. Of the entrance gates, a fine ribbed archway, with the grooves of four successive portcullises, are still distinct; the mural gallery is complete nearly round the whole circuit of the castle, and the outer walls of the royal apartments, with the enriched mullions of the windows, yet unbroken. From the walls of the great western towers, light delicate turrets, of polygonal forms, appear to spring; one of these is accessible by stone stairs to the summit, which is adorned with the figure of an eagle, said to have been brought hither from Segontium by the Saxon king, but more probably a species of ornament suggested to the founder by the proximity of the Roman citadel, and intended to be complimentary to the inhabitants. From the observatory, on the top of the eagle tower, there is an extensive prospect over the Island of Anglesea, the Bay of Caernarvon, and the low lands along the base of the mountains, but it is wholly commanded by the hills on either side of the town.
The graceful archway, called Queen Eleanor’s gate, does not appear to have been a portal of entrance. From this a platform may have been lowered, on which the queen mother appeared holding forth her royal infant towards the assembled chieftains, and, after the performance of this great mockery, restored to its secure fastenings in the wall; but no satisfactory evidence appears of any entrance doors, except the chief one mentioned previously, and the water-gate at the western end of the castle. The Newborough, Bulkeley, and Mostyn families have successively been vested with the government of the town and constableship of the castle, cares now entrusted to the Marquis of Anglesea.
The town walls are still perfect, and interesting to the antiquary. A handsome assembly room has been fitted up within the towers of the principal gate, at the expense of Sir Watkyn W. Wynne, Bart. An elegant chapel of ease occupies the northern angle of the walls, and includes one of the large rounders; and a beautiful barbacan, in advance of the water-gate, is in the most entire preservation. Caernarvon is situated in the parish of Llanbeblig, and the parish church, an ancient edifice, dedicated to Saint Publicius, stands at the distance of about one mile from the castle.
SNOWDON, FROM CAPEL CURIG.
The Cairn, or Carnedd, on the summit of Snowdon is elevated three thousand seven hundred and fifty-nine feet above the level of the sea. This is the highest of the north Cambrian chain, and still supposed to be the loftiest hill in Great Britain. It raises its grand pinnacle above an extensive mountain range, constituting the ancient forest of Snowdonia, which was felled by the Saxon monarchs to build their navy. And, though not a tree or stem adorns its scathed brow, yet so lately as the reign of Henry the Eighth, the civil list contained this item, “Annual Fee of the Chief Forester of Snowdon, 11l. 8s.” a sum by no means inconsiderable at the period alluded to.
The great mountain region, of which Snowdon constitutes the leading feature, and to which it lends its Saxon epithet of Snowy, originates northward in the Penmaenmawr, and spreading over great part of Caernarvonshire, returns again and dips into the sea in the Reifels, three beautiful conical mountains overhanging the bay of Caernarvon. These hills bound a prospect from the centre of Anglesea, picturesque, sublime, and graceful, but, like many scenes in human life, upon a nearer approach, are comfortless, forlorn, and desolate. The ambition of most tourists is to attain the dizzy height of Snowdon, and, although the approaches are numerous, none are free from difficulty, and some even attended with danger. From the melancholy vale of Llanberis the height is greater in proportion as the surface of the vale is depressed. The access from Llyn Cwellyn is less difficult, but more tedious than others. The charms of Beddgelert compensate for the remoteness of the goal, while the elevation of Capel Curig is to be subtracted from the whole absolute height, leaving the inquisitive tourist a large balance of perpendicular ascent in his favour. Snowdon from Capel Curig presents a grand spectacle; the vale in the foreground watered by two fine pools, and on each side skreens are formed of huge dark mountains, enclosing a great vista, leading the eye directly up against the shattered front of Snowdon. As the point of view approaches, the aerial complexion of the great pinnacled mass is lost, and new features, new wonders, are successively displayed. Illusions here are ever varying. The transient circumstances of a thunder cloud,—the streaming of a sunbeam, casting partial gleams upon the precipices,—the dark shadows that follow and figure out unforeseen inequalities,—then sweeping over the mountain’s brow, involving all in momentary obscurity,—and, lastly, resigning all to the full possession of the solar beams, all contribute in a most happy manner to augment the astonishment and gratification of the spectator.
The view from the summit is inexpressibly grand, although much impeded by the elevation and proximity of other mountains, Carneddau David and Llewellyn particularly,—the former being three thousand four hundred and twenty-seven feet above the sea, the latter three thousand four hundred and sixty-nine. It however commands an extensive prospect towards South Wales and the sea, and displays a wonderful chart of all North Wales to the spectator. The view at first is incomplete and scarce intelligible, but gradually distinct and separate hills unfold themselves; the broken, abrupt, and intersecting outlines seem now and then to retire, as if by some supreme and invisible working, and permit an oblique glimpse into a deep vale below. Frequently a gigantic mass just shows itself by a distant partial gleam, and after awakening the highest expectation, leaves the fancy “to paint the forms of things unseen.” The shape or form of Snowdon is uncommon and picturesque. Its ground plan or base, if such terms be applicable or just, is cruciformed, each arm supporting a great mural precipice, along the ridges of which lie the perilous pathways to the highest point, and in the intervening angles sleep dark, cold pools. The summit ridge, when seen from a distance, appears of a triple-headed form, like the impression of a vast festoon of clouds just dropped upon it. The points or ridges are usually called Wyddffa, Crib y-Distyll and Crib-Coch, or the red ridge. The passage of the last is hazardous, from the shortness and slippery quality of the grass at those seasons of the year when the mountain may be approached. It is from this causeway that two stones thrown from the same spot, one to either side, and with a moderate force, will reach, it is said, an interval of three thousand feet asunder at the period of their rest from falling.
BANGOR CATHEDRAL.
The city of Bangor is one of the most prosperous and improving seaports on the Welsh coast. Its position, at the embouchure of the Cegin river and entrance of the MÆnai strait, has given it a natural commercial superiority, an advantage spiritedly and wisely improved by the principal proprietor in the vicinity. The city occupies a narrow piece of ground, bounded on the east by a precipitous hill, and on the west by the bishop’s lands and the MÆnai strait. Extension is inconvenient, from the necessity of lengthening the main avenue, already one mile long, whenever additional houses in a proper thoroughfare are required. Handsome assembly-rooms are constructed over the market hall: convenient lodging houses are erected in the lower part of the city, and many elegant villas in the immediate neighbourhood; besides which, the numerous visiters who frequent this agreeable spot, either for the benefit of sea bathing, the bracing influence of a mountain breeze, or the gratification of examining the noble design of the MÆnai Bridge, have further accommodation afforded them at the spacious and elegant inns provided for their reception. H. D. Pennant, Esq. the heir and representative of the noble house of Penrhyn, is the chief proprietor and munificent patron of this place. To him, and to his amiable predecessor, Lady Penrhyn, this neighbourhood is indebted for the stability of its trade, as well as for the rapidity of its growth. The slate quarries of Dolawen, whence the Bangor slates, as they are generally called, are brought, are about seven miles distant from the sea-side. Here from fifteen hundred to two thousand hands are constantly engaged in quarrying metal, and fashioning it into slates. In the process of manufacturing the aid of machinery is embraced, and the powerful press of Bramah is used for crushing and splitting the metal. When formed into the classes or sizes designated by the fanciful distinctions of Queens, Duchesses, Countesses, and Ladies, they are transported by a rail-road of seven miles in length, (one of the earliest introduced into Wales,) to the quay of Port Penrhyn, the termination and consummation of the great and enterprising scheme, accomplished at individual risk and expense, to promote the conveyance of the Bangor slates to all the markets of Europe and America. Whatever modern importance Bangor possesses is attributable to the successful conduct of these quarries, and its commercial value will always be found to rise and fall with the prosperity of this trade alone.
Immediately adjoining the north-eastern extremity of the principal street, the noble demesne of Mr. Pennant originates, and spreads over a wooded surface of considerable area. His castle occupies the site of a palace, erected in the year 720, by Roderic Moelwynog, the last British Prince of Wales, who flourished in the eighth century. The ancient palace was destroyed by Meredydd ap Owain in the year 728, and not rebuilt until some time in the reign of Henry the Sixth, when Gwillim ap Gryffydd raised a stately castle here. This last building endured for many years, and was ultimately subjected to renovation by the hand of a Wyatt; but even this judicious restoration was unable to render it suitable to the rapidly accumulating wealth which the hills of Dolawen poured out upon the board of their fortunate possessor. From a noble design of Mr. Hopper, in a bold and pure Saxon style, a castle has been erected on the ancient site. The style is uncommon, rarely introduced in domestic architecture, and applicable only where the scale is great and the means ample. In this instance the materials, a beautiful dark marble, contribute much to increase the dignity and grandeur of the design, upon which probably one hundred thousand pounds have already been expended. A fine specimen of the HirlÂs, or ancient British drinking horn, bearing the initials of Piers Gryfydd, graven upon the silver mounting, is preserved in the castle of Penrhyn. The castle of Bangor is not to be confounded with that of Penrhyn just described. It was founded some time in the reign of William Rufus, by Hugh, Earl of Chester, but, little of its history survives, and even the ground plan now is with difficulty traced.
The process of quarrying, dressing, and preparing slates for public market, and the fanciful titles by which the various sizes are now uniformly designated, are very happily, playfully, and truly described in the following irregular verses. They are the production of the late Mr. Leycester, who was for many years a judge on the North Wales circuit, while the old system of judicature was tolerated.
It has truly been said, as we all must deplore,
That Grenville and Pitt made peers by the score;
But now ’tis asserted, unless I have blundered,
There’s a man who makes peeresses here by the hundred;
He regards neither Grenville, nor Portland, nor Pitt,
But creates them at once without patent or writ.
By the stroke of the hammer, without the king’s aid,
A Lady, or Countess, or Duchess is made.
Yet high is the station from which they are sent,
And all their great titles are got by descent;
And when they are seen in a palace or shop,
Their rank they preserve, and are still at the top.
Yet no merit they claim from their birth or connexion,
But derive their chief worth from their native complexion.
And all the best judges prefer, it is said,
A Countess in blue to a Duchess in red.
This Countess or Lady, though crowds may be present,
Submits to be dress’d by the hands of a peasant;
And you’ll see, when her Grace is but once in his clutches,
With how little respect he will handle a Duchess.
Close united they seem, and yet all who have tried them,
Soon discover how easy it is to divide them.
No spirit have they, they are thin as a lath,
The Countess wants life and the Duchess is flat.
No passion or warmth to the Countess is known,
And her Grace is as cold and as hard as a stone;
And I fear you will find, if you watch them a little,
That the Countess is frail, and the Duchess is brittle;
Too high for a trade, without any joke,
Though they never are bankrupts, they often are broke.
And though not a soul either pilfers or cozens,
They are daily shipped off and transported by dozens.
In France, jacobinical France, we have seen
How thousands have bled by the fierce guillotine;
But what’s the French engine of death to compare
To the engine which Greenfield and Bramah prepare,
That democrat engine, by which we all know
Ten thousand great Duchesses fall at a blow.
And long may that engine its wonders display,
Long level with ease all the rocks in its way,
Till the vale of Nant Francon of slates is bereft,
Nor a Lady, nor Countess, nor Duchess be left.
The see of Bangor extends over all Anglesea, and parts of Caernarvonshire, Denbigh, and Montgomery. It was most probably founded, or at all events a monastic establishment was formed here, in the year 525, by St. Deiniol, who was at first abbot, and afterwards bishop. The name Bangor may signify “the White Choir,” or the “High Choir,” and is found applied to an ecclesiastic institution in Flintshire, as well as to a famous religious house in the County of Down, in the North of Ireland. The subject of this description was distinguished by the prefix “Fawr,” or great, to mark its superiority. The original church existed to the time of the Saxon intrusion, when it was wholly demolished by that fierce and relentless people. In the year 1212 it was restored in a style of much magnificence by John, King of England, but it was again much injured in 1247, during the contentions between Henry the Third of England and the Welsh nobles. The demon of destruction once more visited this sacred edifice in the year 1402, when it was wholly reduced to ashes by a violent conflagration. This occurred in the civil wars, kindled by the brave and artful chieftain, Owain Glandwr. For ninety years there was no resuscitation of the embers; no pious prelate wore the wealthy mitre of this see, who preferred the honour of the church to all earthly considerations, until the reign of Henry the Seventh, when the learned and amiable Bishop Deane commenced the reedification of the cathedral, by erecting the present beautiful choir at his own expense. From an inscription over the western entrance, it appears that the tower and nave were added by Bishop Skiffington, in 1532, whose heart was deposited in Bangor Cathedral, but his body removed to the Cistercian monastery of Beaulieu in Hampshire, of which he had previously been abbot. The conduct of Bishop Bulkeley has afforded matter of much disputation amongst ecclesiastical writers: it is asserted, on one side, that this prelate dishonoured the mitre, which should have graced his brow, by spoliating the see of its estates, and the cathedral of its plate and bells; others assure us, with great earnestness, that Bulkeley did not alienate or abstract the property of the see, but that, on the contrary, he was a benefactor of the church and diocese, and that this was a calumny raised against the church by Godwin, who thought proper to direct his venomous shaft against the establishment through the character of this respectable prelate.
Dr. Warren re-edified and improved the whole structure; and during the long incumbency of Dr. Majendie, still farther decorations were accomplished. The choir is handsome, though wanting height, and is lighted by a noble pointed window with stone mullions. The eastern transept serves as a parish church, in which Welsh service is performed; and the nave has lately been converted into a place of worship, for the celebration of the service in English, the choir being found inconveniently small during the summer season. Though several prelates were interred here, no monumental honours have been paid them. Morgan requires neither brass or marble to make his fame endure; he has erected a more eternal monument, and established a more immortal name by his learned and laborious translation of the Bible into his native tongue. An effigiated tomb, occupying an intermural canopy in the south transept, is, by some unaccountable tradition, said to belong to Owain Glandwr: if so, it can only be a cenotaph, as that chieftain was entombed at Monington, in Herefordshire, where he expired. The most likely appropriation of this ancient monument is to Owain Gwynedd, who was interred here with his brother Cadwalader, in the year 1169. The investigation of this little historic fact exposes to the light the unrelenting spirit of fanaticism and bigotry. Owain Gwynedd had displeased the hierarchy by marrying his own cousin-german, for which offence his very bones were pursued with the maledictions and hatred of Thomas À Becket, who ordered his remains to be disinterred and removed from the chancel into the cemetery of the cathedral. His servants appear to have possessed a more tender and christian feeling than the great pontiff himself, and in the execution of their pitiful task caused a subterranean passage to be made from the vault into the earth without, thereby evading in some degree the sacrilegious charge of exhumation. In the year 1831 a white marble tablet, bearing a latin inscription, written with much spirit and feeling, was erected here to the memory of Goronwy Owen, a Welsh bard, who flourished in the last century. He was born in the county of Anglesea in the year 1722, and the little story of his life is beautifully and briefly told in the concluding words of his epitaph.
“Nullus eum patronus exciperet, id quod sui negÂrunt,
Apud exteros quÆrens perfugium in Transatlanticis terris,
Obscurus vixit, ignotus obiit.”
Which may be translated,
At home he felt no patronising hand,
Then sought its warmth in Transatlantic land,
Where bowed with poverty, by years o’ergrown,
He sunk neglected, as he lived unknown.
DOLWYDELLAN CASTLE.
Few parts of ancient Britain, so consecrated by historic recollections, and endowed with so many natural graces, appear to be less known than the vale and castle of Dolwydellan. The former is nearly a Welsh cwm, or hollow, but more expansive than that term in general implies, bounded on all sides by hills of fanciful and picturesque forms, and sheltered on the west by the beautiful leaning pyramid of Moel Siabod, at whose base the little village reposes in tranquillity. Little rocky eminences, covered with copse-wood or stunted oak, decorate the enclosure of the vale, while a scene of simple greatness envelopes the whole.
In the centre of the valley, and on the summit of an isolated rock, on one side precipitous and inaccessible, and on the other easily defensible, stand the remains of the ancient British castle of Dolwydellan. It was a royal residence, and a place of defence, though now “its walls are desolate; the gray moss whitens the stones; the fox looks out from the window; and rank grass waves round its head.” The castle consisted of two square towers, each containing three stories, connected by a centre, and enveloped by a curtain wall, enclosing the whole superior surface of the rock. The style of building resembles that discoverable in Dolbadarn and the other British castles, the counter-arches being pointed, and of flat shingle. The verdant area encompassing the ruins is usually browsed by a few head of cattle, forming a happy combination, and resembling the compositions of Bergham and other great masters of like style, in whose pictures cattle and ruins are made to lend their graces to each other.
Dolwyddellan Castle; Conway Castle; Beddgellert. London. Published by T. T. & J. Tegg, Cheapside, Oct. 1st 1832
Jorwerth Drwyndwn, or Edward, sirnamed “Broken Nose,” son of Owen Gwynedd, by the Lady Gwladys, was lord of Dolwydellan Castle about the year 1169, and here Llewellyn ap Jorwerth, better known to the historian as Llewellyn the Great, was born. His father’s claims to the throne of Wales were disallowed in consequence of the deformity of his countenance, but the martial daring of the son obtained for him the possession of that diadem which the barbarity and folly of the times had withheld from the father. Llewellyn was acknowledged sovereign prince of Wales A.D. 1184; and after a brilliant, glorious, and eventful reign of fifty-six years, embittered only by domestic calamities, was released from the cares of this world, and interred with great ceremony in the abbey of Conway in the year 1240. Amongst the grants made during the usurpation of the Duke of Glo’ster, is found one of Dolwydellan Castle to Sir Ralph Berkinnet, of the county of Chester, knight, chamberlain of North Wales. In the third year of King Henry the Seventh, an act of resumption was passed, whereby all the grants of Richard the Third were recalled, except the lease of the (ffrydd) fryth of Dolwydellan. At this time lived Meredydd ap Jevan ap Robert, who had been enriched by a bequest of Crug in Caernarvonshire, from his foster father, and who had farther augmented his treasures by a marriage with the daughter of William Gryffydd ap Robin. This child of fortune, after a short residence on his newly acquired estate of Crug, removed into his native country of Cessailgyfarch, and there purchased the lease of the castle and frydd [34] of Dolwydellan from the executors of Sir Ralph Berkinnett, part of the castle being then in a habitable condition. After many years residence in the old castle, Meredydd erected a small, but exceedingly substantial house, in the close valley or cwm of Penanmen, the walls, staircase, and roof of which are at this day in good preservation, and afford a comfortable dwelling to the tenantry of his descendants.
The state of this country at his first entering upon possession was so lawless, that Meredydd, although guarded by “twenty tall archers,” dared not make known when he went to church or elsewhere, or go or return by the same way through the woods and defiles, lest he should be waylaid. To protect and strengthen himself he filled his tenements with “tall and able” men, and fixed others of similar prowess in arms on the king’s lands adjoining; one of these, William ap Robert, was placed at Pencraig Inco, for which he paid a relief to the king of ten shillings and fourpence, and his posterity, the Davises of CyffdÛ, are still in possession of this ancient estate.As a further security against interruption in attendance upon divine worship, he threw down the old church, then standing upon a little eminence called Bryn-y-beddau, about three hundred yards from the present church, and erected a new one in its stead. This site was chosen in order that the house of Penanmen and the church of Dolwydellan might both be brought within the ken of a sentinel, to be placed upon a rock called Craig y Big, overhanging the narrow entrance of Penanmen Cwm, who was to give the alarm, if either church or house should be assailed.
In this manner he continued to defend himself and organize the less powerful gentry and free-holders, until at last he counted around his banner seven score tall bowmen, accoutred with an armolette, a good steel cap, a short sword and dirk, together with their bows and arrows. Most of them also were furnished with horses and hunting spears, and were sufficiently matched against the robbers and outlaws of the district, who exceeded one hundred in number, all too well mounted and arrayed.
Besides the “good work,” as it was called, of extirpating banditti, Meredydd also served his royal master abroad, and was an officer of rank at the siege of Tournay. On his return to his native land, he purchased the seat of Gwydyr from Dafydd ap Howell Coytmor, and erected what is called the Lower House, but more properly that portion of it called the “Hall of Meredydd.” Placing a tenant in his strong house of Penanmen, and abandoning the old castle to the owls and wolves, he settled in his new house at Gwydyr, where he departed this life, in peace and honour, on the eighteenth day of March, 1525, aged fifty-five: his remains were deposited in the church of Dolwydellan, which he had caused to be erected at his own expense, and where a modest tablet of three lines epitomizes his history, in the pious form of inscriptions of that day.
The church built by Meredydd is of such substantial workmanship, that it will probably prove the most lasting, as well as pious, monument of his deeds. A little chapel or transept was subsequently added on the south side by Robert Wynne, uncle of Sir John, the author of the Memoirs.
The village consists of a few cottages, unconnected and poor looking: riches or civilization would not harmonize with the scenery of Dolwydellan, which is as though it existed in an age when the use of money and the various arts of life were still unknown or undiscovered.
Conway is an ancient fortified town, seated on the western bank of the noble river from which it takes its name, and formerly called Aber-Conway, i.e. the mouth or embouchure of the chief river. The position is happily chosen, both as a strong post of defence and a key to those parts of Denbigh and Caernarvon which lie remote from the sea. In the arrangement and decorations of the interior the town of Conway has little to attract a mere spectator, the streets being few, narrow, and irregular: but the historian and the antiquary will view with much interest the old Plas Mawr, erected in the year 1585, by Robert Wynne, of Gwydyr, Esq., uncle of Sir John Wynne the historian. Over the principal entrance, in Greek characters, are inscribed the words a?e?? ape??, i.e. bear and forbear; and above may be observed, in Roman capitals, J. H. S. X. P. S. supposed to be the initials of the words “Jesus Hominum Salvator et populi salus;” the interpretation of the three first letters is probably correct, but of the latter three extremely questionable. The old college, which stands in Castle Street, is adorned with armorial bearings of the Stanleys, and was possibly an alms-house or charitable institution of some sort, founded or endowed by that noble family. Of the old Cistercian Abbey, founded by Llewellyn ap Jorwerth in the year 1185, no traces are now visible; Edward the First transformed the building into a parish church, removed the monks to Maenan Abbey, on the Denbighshire side of the river, three miles distant from Llanrwst, and obliterated all traces of the monkish establishment as far as it was practicable.
The church is a low unarchitectural structure, built and repaired from time to time from the mouldering walls of the ancient abbey, without having borrowed one happy thought from the symmetry of its proportions. Here is a fine baptismal font, supported by a clustered pillar of gothic design; and a tablet to the memory of Nicholas Hookes, of Conway, Gent., who was the forty-first child of William and Alice Hookes, and himself the father of twenty-seven. He died on the 20th of March, 1637.
The town was incorporated and made a free borough by Edward the First, the charter constituting the mayor to be governor of the castle also. This politic prince erected the castles of Caernarvon, Beaumaris, and Conway, to awe the turbulent spirit of his dearly acquired subjects; and whatever merit may be due to the policy of the plan, sufficient admiration can hardly be awarded to the choice of position and beauty of design. If he had not been the prince who commanded those walls to be erected, he might well have wished to have been their architect. The picturesque features of these fine ruins are quite distinct; Caernarvon boasts magnitude, Conway a most romantic position, and the great hall of Beaumaris brings back the spectator immediately into the society of other days.
The embattled walls which surround the town are coeval with the castle, and drawn in the form of a British harp, like those encompassing Caernarvon. The design and style of the castle however are wholly different, and most happily suited to its bold position. The ground plan is nearly in form a parallelogram. Two sides of the castle rise from a steep rock, washed by the tide water of a little creek that runs up along the town walls, and by the flood of the Conway river. The exterior presents to view eight noble circular towers, from the walls of which issue slender machiolated turrets, giving a singular lightness to the whole design, and connected by massive embattled curtains. A long wall formerly extended from the southern angle of the castle into the river, terminated by a little water tower, used to obstruct the passage of enemies, and facilitate the landing of their friends. The principal entrance, which is tolerably perfect, was by a drawbridge thrown across a deep fosse, concealed within a barbacan. The interior is divided into two distinct parts, an outer and an inner court, the entrance to the latter impassable by more than one person at a time, and that by the permission of those within. Around the outer courtyard were the apartments of the garrison, the chapel, great hall, &c.: the inner area was encompassed by the apartments of the royal founder and his household. The walls of a small chamber, still entire, with an open ornamented casement, bear the name of the Queen’s Oriel, and appear, from a poem of the age in which it was erected, to have been the ladies’ dressing-room. At the south-western extremity, beyond the royal apartments, a broad terrace is raised above the river upon a ledge of solid rock; from this, as from the oriel, a view of the adjacent country is enjoyed, intersected by cultivated hills, between which and the castle the Conway is seen to roll his flood, passing beneath the broad waterway afforded by a beautiful suspension bridge, which, from the appropriateness of style, seems an appendage of the ancient pile. A curious proof is here afforded of the excellence of masonry in the early ages. Although the castle appears identified with the rock from which it springs, a separation has taken place in one instance; neither has this occurred from the disintegration of the walls, which hang out beyond the base of the broken tower, it is the rock itself that has crumbled away.
There are many historic events of deep interest connected with the story of this warrior pile. Like the artist of the brazen bull, Edward was the first who was necessitated to make trial of the sufficiency of his new state prison. Here he was besieged and nearly reduced by famine, and only rescued from such a critical situation by the providential arrival of a fleet with supplies. This was also the appointed rendezvous of forty thousand loyalists who attached themselves to the fortunes of King Richard the Second, and were destined to check the career of Bolingbroke. Here Percy and King Richard held an interview, from which it would appear that the unhappy prince mistrusted his faithful friends; for, secretly withdrawing from Conway, he put himself into the hands of Northumberland, at Flint, by whom he was betrayed into the power of his rival. Amongst its different vicissitudes Conway Castle was once converted into a public treasury, and discharged its trust with honour and good fortune. In the civil wars of King Charles’s time, being held by Dr. Williams, archbishop of York, for the king, the country gentlemen entrusted to his Grace’s keeping their title deeds, plate, and most valuable moveables. This trust he cheerfully undertook and made himself entirely responsible for their value by giving to each depositor a personal receipt. In the May of 1645, Prince Rupert was appointed governor of the castle, and by his order Sir John Owen was substituted for the archbishop in the guardianship of the valuables lodged within. Sir John constantly evading the archbishop’s applications on the subject of the deposit, the prelate, to avoid his own ruin, and seeing no prospect of a return to regal government, joined the Parliamentarians, assisted Mytton in the reduction of the castle, and having again got into possession of those treasures for which he had pledged himself, restored them uninjured to the respective owners. For these services parliament granted him a free pardon and a release from all his sequestrations. The singular beauty of this fortress appears to have obtained for it not only the admiration but the respect of the ruin-making conquerors of the seventeenth century; but being at last granted by Charles the Second to Lord Conway, while it was still roofed and perfect, that gothic personage dismantled the entire structure, and sold the lead, iron, timber, and all other disposable materials which could be easily separated.
The suspension bridge at Conway is thrown from the foot of the southern tower to a small island in the river, the suspension piers corresponding in design with the rounders of the castle occasion little interruption to the harmony of the whole, and reduce it to a mere question of taste, whether the bridge be not an appropriate accession to the scene, and the very drawbridge of the castle.
BEDDGELERT.
The village of Beddgelert, the Goodesberg of Cambria, is situated on a little plain reposing amidst wild and awful mountains, and adorned by the conflux of two bright streams, the Glaslyn and the Colwyn. The agreeable and fascinating character of the scene is more immediately and vividly impressed upon the traveller who approaches it from the Caernarvon hills. After traversing a wild heathy district, and coasting along the banks of many gloomy lakes, the little village of Beddgelert, in the centre of a verdant mead, with its cheerful accompaniments of inhabitation, breaks suddenly on the view amidst all the horrors of untamed nature. No situation could be more happily chosen for the inspiration of religious meditation, or more wisely selected for the maintenance of an institution of human beings, in a region so savage and unproductive as this must have been when the vale was occupied by a college of monks. The village consists of a few huts coarsely and substantially built, deriving all their charms from the beauty of their position, a handsome inn, embosomed high in tufted trees, and the old parish church. Moel Hebog, or the hill of the falcon, known in the world of elegant literature as “Lord Lyttleton’s Hill,” hangs over the valley on the opposite side to the village, and at its base was discovered, in the year 1784, a Roman shield of a circular shape, and formed of thin brass.The church, which is dedicated to St. Mary, was anciently conventual, and belonged to a priory of Augustines, conjectured to be also of the class called Gilbertines. The regulations of this last order permitted the residence of men and women beneath the same roof, their convents being separated by a wall; and this opinion receives some support from the circumstances of a tract of land adjoining the church being known to this day by the appellation of “The Nun’s Meadow,” in Welsh Dol y Lleian. Beddgelert is the oldest monastic establishment in North Wales, Bardsey excepted. Llewellyn the Great, who commenced his reign in 1184, appears to have bestowed upon it certain grants of land, and David ap Llewellyn granted others which were afterwards resumed, an investigation establishing the property of them to have been originally in Tudor ap Madoc, and not in the reigning prince. Besides many granges in Caernarvon and Anglesea, an allowance of fifty cows and twenty-two sheep, the Prior had a certain tithe or proportion of bees, or rather of their honey and wax. It is extremely probable that all the preceding were not intended for the sustenance of the few religious of this house, but for the maintenance and extension of a liberal hospitality to all persons travelling this way from North to South Wales, and England to Ireland. Mead was the favourite drink of those times, the nectar of that age, whence the veneration in which bees were held of so vain a character, that the priests fabled them to have been blessed by the Almighty at their departure from Paradise, and that therefore no mass ought to be celebrated but by the light of wax. This conceit is mentioned in the laws of Howel Dda. A farther and rather substantial testimony of the hospitality practised here in by-gone days, was afforded in the existence of a pewter drinking mug, capable of containing about two quarts, which remained until within a very few years in an old tenement called the Prior’s House. Any traveller who could grasp the Beddgelert pint with one hand, when filled with good ale (cwrw dda) and quaff it at a single draught, was entitled to the liquor gratis. The tenant was to charge the value to the lord of the manor, who deducted the amount from the ensuing rent. It was also for the further continuance of such an useful hospitality that Edward the First munificently repaired the damages which the convent had sustained by an accidental fire in 1283; and Bishop Anian granted indulgences to other benefactors. At the dissolution of monasteries the revenues of Beddgelert were estimated at seventy pounds, Edward Conway was its last Prior, and its lands in Caernarvonshire were granted to the Bodvells.
Here are interred two eminent bards, Rhys GÔch Eryri, who flourished about the year 1420, and Dafydd Nanmor, whose death is placed in 1460. The poet attributes the foundation of Beddgelert church to a later date, and to a different prince, and rests his proof upon the following tradition. Llewellyn the Great came to reside here, during the hunting season, accompanied by his princess and their children; and one day while the family were abroad a fierce wolf was seen to approach the palace. The prince, upon his return from the chase, was met at his entrance by his faithful dog Gelert all smeared with blood, though still using his accustomed indications of happiness upon seeing his master. Llewellyn alarmed ran with haste into the nursery, and there finding the cradle overturned and the floor stained with blood, concluded that Gelert had been the destroyer of his child, and drawing his sword instantly plunged it into the heart of his favourite dog. But upon restoring the cradle to its proper position the infant was discovered wrapped confusedly in the clothing, and a monstrous wolf lying dead by its side. Llewellyn, says tradition, immediately erected a church upon the spot, in thankfulness to God, and placed a tomb over the remains of poor Gelert, who lies buried in the centre of the valley, called from that day Beddgelert, or Gelert’s Grave. This interesting tale forms the subject of the following pleasing ballad, by the Hon. W. R. Spencer—
The spearman heard the bugle sound,
And cheerly smiled the morn,
And many a brach and many a hound
Attend Llewellyn’s horn.
And still he blew a louder blast,
And gave a louder cheer,
“Come, Gelert, why art thou the last
Llewellyn’s horn to hear?
“Oh where does faithful Gelert roam?
The flower of all his race:
So true, so brave, a lamb at home,
A lion in the chase.”
’Twas only at Llewellyn’s board
The faithful Gelert fed;
He watch’d, he served, he cheer’d his lord,
And sentinel’d his bed.
In sooth he was a peerless hound,
The gift of royal John; [46]
But now no Gelert could be found,
And all the chase rode on.
And now as over rocks and dells
The gallant chidings rise,
All Snowdon’s craggy chaos yells
With many mingled cries.
That day Llewellyn little loved
The chase of hart or hare,
And scant and small the booty proved,
For Gelert was not there.
Unpleased, Llewellyn homeward hied,
When near the royal seat,
His truant Gelert be espied,
Bounding his lord to greet.
But when he gain’d his castle door,
Aghast the chieftain stood;
The bound was smear’d with gouts of gore,
His lips and fangs ran blood.
Llewellyn gazed with wild surprise,
Unused such looks to meet,
His favourite check’d his joyful guise,
And crouch’d and lick’d his feet.
Onward in haste Llewellyn pass’d,
And on went Gelert too,
And still where’er his eyes he cast,
Fresh blood gouts shock’d his view.
O’erturn’d his infant’s bed he found,
The blood-stain’d covert rent;
And all around the walls and ground,
With recent blood besprent.
He call’d his child—no voice replied:
He search’d with terror wild;
Blood, blood, he found on every side,
But no where found the child!
“Hell-hound, by thee my child’s devour’d,”
The frantic father cried:
And to the hilt the vengeful sword,
He plunged in Gelert’s side.
His suppliant, as to earth he fell,
No pity could impart;
But still his Gelert’s dying yell
Pass’d heavy o’er his heart.
Aroused by Gelert’s dying yell,
Some slumberer waken’d nigh;
What words the parent’s joy can tell
To hear his infant cry?
Conceal’d between a mingled heap
His hurried search had miss’d:
All glowing from his rosy sleep,
His cherub boy he kiss’d!
Nor scratch had he, nor harm, nor dread,
But the same couch beneath
Lay a great wolf, all torn and dead,
Tremendous still in death!
Ah, what was then Llewellyn’s pain!
For now the truth was clear,
The gallant hound the wolf had slain,
To save Llewellyn’s heir.
Vain, vain, was all Llewellyn’s woe,
Best of thy kind, adieu!
The frantic deed which laid thee low,
This heart shall ever rue.
And now a gallant tomb they raise
With costly sculpture deck’d,
And marbles storied with his praise
Poor Gelert’s bones protect.
Here never could the spearman pass,
Or forester, unmoved,
Here oft the tear besprinkled grass,
Llewellyn’s sorrow proved.
And here he hung his horn and spear,
And oft as evening fell,
In fancy’s piercing sounds would hear
Poor Gelert’s dying yell!
And till great Snowdon’s rocks grow old,
And cease the storm to brave,
The consecrated spot shall hold
The name of Gelert’s grave.
Llyn Ogwen; Pont y-Pair; Llanberis lake. London. Published by T. T. & J. Tegg, Cheapside, Oct. 1st 1832
LLYN OGWEN.
Ogwen Lake is contained within a circumference of about three miles, presenting itself in rather an oval form. It is encircled by mountains, except at the eastern extremity, which fall abruptly into the water, and afford scenery in the highest degree romantic. On the left the broken shattered crags of Trifaen [48] hang over the margin of the lake, and throw the surface into an everlasting shadow. The distant forms of FrancÔn mountains are, if possible, still more grand and picturesque; but the side skreen of Braich-ddÛ slopes down more smoothly and gradually to the water’s surface. Perhaps there are too many broken summits hovering over Ogwen; probably the mind of true taste may think the simplicity and grandeur of the scene interrupted by their repetition, but this is too refined a criticism. Ogwen is generally acknowledged to present the finest lake scene in Caernarvonshire, the very Derwent of North Wales, and, like it, well described as “Beauty sleeping in the lap of Horror.” The waters of Llyn Ogwen abound in a species of red trout, easily taken with the fly, and not inferior in flavour to salmon. The surplus waters discharge themselves at the western end of the pool through a chasm in the rocks, and tumbling in three noble cataracts down a height of about one hundred feet, are concentrated into a bed in the green meadows of Nant Francon; flowing by Dolawen and Penrhyn Castle, they are lost at length in the MÆnai straits.
The noble line of road constructed through the Welsh mountains, under the surveillance of parliamentary commissioners, is carried along the very margin of Llyn Ogwen, amidst the great debris that continue annually falling from the rocky sides of Trifaen. In the winter of 1831 upwards of one thousand tons of rock fell from the dizzy heights of Benclog, a little below the Ogwen cataracts; part rolling straight across the road fell into the valley and river in the bottom, while another part having acquired a less momentum rested on the ledge the road supplied them. The intercourse of travellers was for some days impeded, although one hundred miners were engaged in clearing and restoring the surface of the road. A gentleman from the vale of Llanrwst had just passed along in his phaeton, on his way to Bangor, when the terrific sound of the dissolving mountain fell upon his astonished ear.
About one mile from Llyn Ogwen, in a deep hollow of the Glyder mountains, lies the dark pool, called Llyn Idwal. The gloomy horrors of the surrounding scene exceed even those of Ogwen; the encircling cliffs are overhanging, broken, and dark; in one part the whole mountain is rent asunder, and the chasm of “Twll ddÛ,” or the “black cleft,” gapes between the terrific masses. The solitude of Cwm Idwal proved favourable to the perpetration of a deed of blood, and it was here that young Idwal, the infant heir of Prince Owen Gwynedd, was treacherously assassinated by order of his foster-father Nefydd, to whose care his father had consigned him:—
And thou, O Idwal, of immortal fame,
Dying, to the vale hath left thy name.
PONT-Y-PAIR [50a].
This curious and picturesque bridge is thrown over the rapid river Llugwy, [50b] at the village of Bettws-y-Coed, [50c] in the county of Caernarvon. Though flung high above the surface of the water it consists of but little masonry, the natural rock supplying piers the most solid and enduring. One of the arches affords an open transit for the waters which flow from the noble fall and salmon leap above the bridge, and produce by their impetuous rotatory motion a deep reservoir or caldron below it, whence this graceful structure derives its appropriate name. Four of the arches are dry except in rainy seasons, when the torrent rises with such rapidity as would endanger a less substantial work, at which period these openings are found perfectly necessary.
The history of the origin of Pont-y-Pair possesses a singular though simple interest. Howel, a mason, from Penllyn, having occasion to attend the assizes then, A.D. 1468, held at Conway, found his passage over the Lleder, which flows through Dolwydellan, obstructed by the violence and greatness of the flood. This suggested to him the idea of removing to the spot and of erecting a bridge there, at his own expense, trusting to the generosity of travellers for compensation. The success of one project engendered a second, and Howel next resolved upon the erection of the beautiful bridge at Bettws-y Coed, called now the Pont-y-Pair; but he did not live to see its final completion.
To the right of the Pont-y-Pair is the “Carreg y gwalch,” or rock of the Falcon, a beautiful hill of singular and broken forms, clothed with wood for the most part, a few fine bold rocks occasionally elevating their fronts above the foliage, and producing a noble and great effect. In this rock is a deep recess, called Ogo ap Shenkin, or the Cave of Jenkin, in which that famous outlaw took shelter during the Lancastrian wars. A large rock now blocks up the entrance, like the grotto of Polyphemus, and there is a tradition that this was once rolled away by some inquisitive persons, who, advancing a few yards, discovered a huge oak chest clasped with iron, on the top of which stood a monstrous goat bowing his aged head, and following with his horns the direction of those who had the courage to approach. The chest of course continues in this dreary treasury, and the character of its guardian is hinted at by the discoverers, but never openly declared.
Dafydd ap Shenkin held the fastnesses of Nant-conway for fifteen years, during which period he was unrelentingly pursued by the captains of Edward the Fourth. From their persecution, when he could no longer keep the open country, he sought refuge in his mountain cave. Howel ap Jevan ap Rhys Gethyn, a contemporary of Jenkin, and the Robin Hood of those times and this country, was also Shenkin’s or Jenkin’s mortal foe. Being expelled from the castle of Dolwydellan, and from his strong hold at Penanmen, he was compelled to flee into Ireland, where he continued for a year or more, and then returning appeared with his followers all clad in green, spent the residue of his life as an outlaw, seeking a fortuitous existence amongst the mountains and forests of his native land. There is a township in the parish of Bettws-y-Coed still bearing the name of Hendre-Rhys-Gethyn; it is the estate of Dafydd D. Price, Esq., and was once probably part of the possessions of the brave but unfortunate Howel, the consistency of whose politics constituted his greatest offence.
The village of Bettws, an attractive and fascinating spot, is situated near the meeting of the Llugwy and Conway rivers. The few cottages composing it, though poor in detail, are rich in composition, no village in the principality presenting a more beautiful landscape than Bettws, viewed from the road to Coed Cynheliar. The village church stands in a little cemetery in the centre of the vale, resembling in some degree the church of Beddgelert. It is enclosed by a few stately forest trees, and forms a venerable and interesting object. Within is shown a fine effigiated tomb of Gryffydd ap Dafydd Goch, son of Dafydd Goch, who was a natural son of Dafydd, brother to the last reigning Prince of Wales. The figure is recumbent, clad in armour, and the outside border of the torus is inscribed with these words,
Hic jacet Grufud ap Davyd Coch, Agnus Dei misÊre mei.
Above the village, on the stream of the Llugwy, is the famous waterfall called Rhaidar y Wennol, or the cataract of the swallow. It consists of three noble falls, differing in character, though all conspicuous in picturesque interest; the highest consists of innumerable frothy streams, gliding with great velocity down a sloping rock but little broken; the second is a concentrated volume, rushing with impetuosity into a foaming caldron; and in the third the whole is dashed away in spray. A huge perpendicular rock rises abruptly from one side to a height of five hundred feet and upwards, while the opposite side is formed of broken banks and rocky patches, clothed with noble aged oaks. In the solemn depths of the lowest fall the spirit of the turbulent Sir John Wynne, of Gwydyr, which had haunted the glen for many years, is supposed to be laid at rest beneath the waters.
LLANBERIS LAKE.
These lakes, though not remarkable for extent of surface, are distinguished by the solemn grandeur of their rocks and mountains, that rise in very bold and awful characters. On the northern shore the mountain rises to a towering height, and with great abruptness. The hills on the opposite side are more rugged and sterile, but recede more gradually, while they aspire to an equal elevation. Between the lakes a bold promontory issues from the mountain and shoots into the water, adorned by the majesty of Dolbadarn’s ruined castle, whose ivy-mantled walls seem part of the very rock on which they stand. Beyond this a second expanse of waters is disclosed, enveloped in scenery yet more terrific and sublime than the former, the perspective being terminated by the dark blue heads of innumerable mountains, projections merely of great Snowdon and the Glydyr, where the mountains appear to meet and shut in the scene. Amidst scattered rocks, at the entrance of Bwlch y Gwyddol, and where fragments from the heights almost choke up the pass, stands the little church of Llanberis. If solitude and simplicity be inseparable characters of a religious edifice, then is Llanberis Church most entirely suited to its pious destination. Saint Peris, to whom the church is dedicated, lived in the thirteenth century, and this is supposed to have been his retreat. Here he founded a church, blessed a well, which now bears his name, and to which miraculous qualities were ascribed. The most singular circumstance however, connected with the later history of this holy well is, that here a monstrous trout has continued for upwards of twenty years, and become so familiar, that it will take a worm from the hand of a poor person, who appears to have adopted that privilege as her own. Peris was a legate from the church of Rome, and accompanied in his mission by Saint Padarn. Our saint chose the little meadows on the upper lake, in Nant y Monach, or the Monk’s Vale; and Padarn, his friend, settled on the lower lake, which is still called after his name.
Dolbadarn Castle consists at this day of a single round tower or keep; but traces of a greater occupation are sufficiently distinct around. Time has rolled its dark waves over the date of foundation and name of founder, and, one incident excepted, nothing but conjecture remains as to its history. Padarn Beisrydd, the son of Idwal, was the supposed builder of this fortress, the obvious utility of which was to guard the mountain pass behind it. The date of its erection, in that case, would be some time previous to the eleventh century; a conjecture supported by the style of architecture, which is clearly Welsh. Owen Goch was imprisoned here by his brother Llewellyn ap Gryffydd, last Prince of Wales, of the British line, for the term of twenty years, and his merits are celebrated in an ode composed by Howel-Voel, bewailing the captivity of the unhappy prince.
The following translation of the opening stanzas embraces the meaning, but does not pretend to imitate the bold spirit of Howel’s lamentation.
Ye powers, that rule both earth and sea,
Release from dark captivity,
Snatch from an inglorious grave
The lion-hearted, mild yet brave,
Owen,—a prince of matchless strength,
Whose bright lance dripped, for all its length,
With the best blood of the bravest men
That dared to foray his mountain glen.
’Twas his to succour,—relieve distress,
The proud to humble, the foe to oppress.
His charity measureless, his bounty great,
His gifts well suited such wide estate.
But now these vales seem dark and dreary,
No hall to shelter the weak, the weary,
Since Owen has changed his lordly bower
For the darksome dungeon of Padarn’s tower:
Its dark gray walls their prince now sever
From those who have lost their glory for ever.
Their pride, their honour, their fame is fled,
Their light is extinguished, their hopes are dead.
Oh! Owen, dauntless, valiant and bright,
Chieftain of Cambria,—warrior knight, &c. &c.
The seclusion of Llanberis has been broken by the formation of a new line of road along Llyn Padarn to the town of Caernarvon, and the charms of its solitude dissipated by the erection of two spacious inns in the immediate vicinity of the ancient castle.
To scenes like these, a tale of wonder is a welcome introduction; it awakes the mind, and adds new interest to every rock and precipice. The melancholy fate of little John Closs, who was overtaken by a mist, and perished in the snows upon Moel Eilio, calls forth a tear, but excites no wonder. The feats of Margaret uch Evan, though very singular, are as certainly well attested: she dwelt near the margin of the lower lake, and was the last specimen of the strength and spirit of the ancient Briton. Her biographer asserts that “she was the greatest hunter, fisher, shooter of her time: she kept a dozen of dogs, terriers, greyhounds, and spaniels, all excellent in their kind. She killed more foxes in one year than all the confederate hunts did in ten: rowed stoutly, and was queen of the lakes: fiddled excellently, and was acquainted with all the old British music: was also a good joiner: and at the age of seventy years, was so expert a wrestler, that few young men dared try a fall with her. She was a blacksmith, shoemaker, and manufacturer of harps. She shod her own horses, made her own shoes, and built her own boats while under contract to convey the copper ore down the lakes. Contemporary bards celebrated her praises in strains purely British. She gave her hand, at length, to the most effeminate of her suitors, as if determined to exert that physical superiority which nature had bestowed on her even in the married state. Foulk Jones, of Ty DÛ, was also a person of singular powers; the tales related of his prowess recall the poet’s character of Entellus.
—“he then confronts the bull,
And on his ample forehead, aiming fall,
The deadly stroke descending, pierced the skull.”
Æneid, v. 666.
The pass of Nant Peris is entered by a gap called Bwlch y Gwyddol; [58a] tremendous rocks impend on either side in masses of gray crag, the long shattered ridge of Snowdon on the one hand, and the broken forms of Glydyr fawr on the other. These rocks are overlooked again by still more awful mountains, that fall in abrupt lines and close up the vista, except where they are commanded by some peak of Snowdon or its opposing rival. Images of desolation and of stupendous greatness compose the scene. A solitary cottage disturbs the retirement; and sometimes the shepherd’s shrill call, in “the office of his mountain watch,” is heard repeated among the rocks of the “Blue Vale.” [58b] Some distance up the pass a huge stone, which does not appear to have been an appendage of the mountain, but rather an independent erection, lies across the centre of the defile. A hollow beneath it was once converted by a poor woman into a summer habitation, for the convenience of tending her little flock. It exceeds the dimensions of the Boother stone [59] in Westmoreland; and the spot on which it rests is called, from the story of the poor herdswoman, “Ynys Hettys,” or Betty’s Island. The scenery decreases in magnificence as the highest point or resting-place (Gorphwysffa) is attained, where new and different beauties burst upon the sight, in the view down the Bwlch Eisteddffau into the enchanting vale of Gwynant.
Accomplishing the passage of the “Blue Vale” was amongst the great boasts of Cambrian tourists: if the reward was great, so were the difficulties of the task.
“If the path be dangerous known,
The danger’s self is lure alone,”
might then have been the adopted motto of the inquisitive tourist, but now the wheels of a stage-coach, in mimickry of the revolutions of time and of events, roll rapidly over the Gorphwysffa itself, that spot where the way-worn traveller paused to take a congratulating retrospect of the difficulties he had passed.
DENBIGHSHIRE.
The largest, most wealthy, and populous shire in North Wales. Its form is irregular; the greatest length from north to south extends forty miles, and the mean breadth is calculated at twenty-three. The area occupies a surface exceeding four hundred thousand acres. It presents a front of a few miles length to the Irish sea. Parts of Flint, Cheshire, and Shropshire form the eastern boundary; Merioneth and Montgomeryshires the south; and it is joined on the west by the county of Caernarvon. The surface presents an endless variety, and may be illustrated by the idea of an island whose shores are peopled and cultivated, while the interior is comparatively in a state of natural wildness. The vales of Llanrwst, the Abergelle line of coast, the fertile vale of Clwyd, represent the fringe of cultivation which surrounds an elevated though improvable district of many thousand acres. With the exception of the Dee and Conway, which form natural county bounds on the east and west, the rivers of Denbigh are inconsiderable. The mean elevation of the interior district, extending from Bettws-Abergele to Derwen, and from Denbigh to the Gwytherin hills; is about eight hundred feet above sea level. Several small pools are found amongst the hills, possessing neither great extent nor much natural beauty; and, being collected in the highest regions, they are devoid of those accompaniments which give such picturesque effects to those lakes that are deposited in deep and hollow valleys. Cairn y Brain, between Llangollen and Llandegle, is the highest point in Denbighshire, reaching one thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight feet above the sea; and Llyn Conway is the largest assemblage of waters. The county of Denbigh, under the late Reform Bill, sends two members to parliament; the united boroughs of Denbigh, Rhuthyn, Holt, and Wrexham return one.
Denbigh; Aber waterfall; Llyn Gwynant. London. Published by T. T. & J. Tegg, Cheapside, Oct. 1st 1832
DENBIGH TOWN.
The borough town of Denbigh occupies the sides of a steep hill, rising abruptly from the level of the beautiful vale of Clwyd, and bearing on its towering crest the venerable ruins of an ancient castle, a proud memorial of the bravery of the inhabitants in those days, when love of anarchy was mistaken for independence, and loyalty and fidelity were terms of reproach. The principal street approaches the market-place from the foot of the hill, and contains several very elegant and handsome private residences. The Town Hall possesses no architectural beauties, its sole merit is utility. Many excellent private houses are scattered through the town, which terminates at the other side of the hill in a miserable approach called Henllan Street. Denbigh, in conjunction with Rhuthyn and Holt, has for many years returned a member to parliament, but Wrexham has been admitted to a participation in the privilege, by a clause in the new Reform Bill. The corporation derived its last charter from King Charles the Second, and consists of two aldermen, a recorder, two bailiffs, and two coroners. Whitchurch, where the old parish church of St. Marcellus is situated, lies in the open valley one mile from the town. It is no longer used as a place of worship, but resembles a chapel or oratory, in which the remains of chiefs and men of learning are deposited. Their blazoned arms and sumptuous tombs are rapidly yielding to the decay incident on damp and negligence. In the porch is a brass plate, engraven with figures of Richard Myddleton, governor of Denbigh Castle in the reigns of Edward the Sixth, Mary and Elizabeth, with the Lady Jane, his wife. Behind him are represented his nine sons and seven daughters in the attitude of prayer. Many of his sons rendered themselves conspicuous in public life, and even “did the state some service.” William Myddleton, his third son, was a post captain in the British navy, and behaved with great coolness and wisdom when sent to reconnoitre the Spanish fleet off the Azores in 1591. He was one of the first persons who smoked tobacco publicly in England, and was a poet of eminence in his day. Thomas, the fourth son, was Lord Mayor of London, and founder of the Chirk Castle family in this county. And, Sir Hugh Myddleton, the sixth son, was a person whose useful life would impart a lustre to the greatest family. This was the enterprising individual who “smote the rock” and brought the waters of the New River into London.A mural monument vainly attempts to perpetuate the fame of Humphrey Llwyd, the scholar and antiquary. This remarkable person is celebrated as a master of eloquence, an excellent rhetorician, and a sound philosopher. In the art of medicine and study of antiquities his knowledge appears to have been unconfined. Camden eulogises his memory. His friend, Ortelius, owes to him his map of England; and some of the most rare and valuable works in the British Museum were collected by Llwyd for his brother-in-law, Lord Lumley. He was born in the town of Denbigh in the year 1527, and died at the early age of forty-one. The altar tomb of Sir John Salisbury is a rich specimen of monumental architecture. In the cemetery surrounding the church is a slab to the memory of Twm y Nant, the Cambrian Shakspeare, who died in the year 1810, at the age of seventy-one years. (See account of Denbigh Castle, p. 72.)
ABER WATERFALL.
The little village of Aber is situated on the coast of Caernarvonshire, at the foot of a steep green hill, against which the tower of the little church appears relieved, and forms a useful landmark to travellers who venture to cross the Lavan sands and ferry from Beaumaris. In foggy weather they are directed in their dangerous journey by the tolling of the church bell. The church and inn constitute nearly the whole of the buildings, public and private, in this sequestered spot. At a little distance from the village, and in the bwlch or entrance of a grand defile, stands an artificial mount, anciently the site of a palace belonging to Llewellyn ap Gryffydd. William de Breos, a powerful lord in the reign of Henry the Third, happening to fall into the hands of Llewellyn, at the siege of Montgomery, was conducted by him to his castle at Aber, and detained there a state prisoner for a considerable time. After his liberation suspicions of jealousy began to haunt the prince’s mind, and with a baseness which nothing but that hateful passion could create, invited De Breos to return to Aber as a guest; and, under the guise of friendship, violated all laws of princely honour and hospitality by hanging up his guest at the palace gate. While the luckless lord was suspended from the tree, Llewellyn is said to have asked his princess, in a taunting manner, what would she give to see her lover; and leading her to the window, pointed out to her the lifeless body of De Breos. Tradition preserves this tale in a few bardic lines, thus translated:
Lovely princess, said Llewellyn,
What will you give to see your Gwillim?
Wales and England and Llewellyn
I’d freely give to see my Gwillim, &c.
In a field now called Caer y Gwillim DdÛ, or the field of Black William, a cave is shown in which De Breos is believed to have been interred. The life of the Princess Joan, both before and after this cruel tragedy, contradicts the unworthy suspicions of her lord.
Aber was also the favourite residence of Dafydd ap Llewellyn, who, sinking beneath a weight of afflictions, expired here in the year 1246, and was interred in the abbey of Conway. The royal palace occupied the site of an ancient fort, auxiliary to the castle of Caer-Hun, in protecting the pass of Bwlch y ddau ffaen.
A noble glen at right angles, nearly with the line of coast, opens towards the Rhaidar mawr, or Great Cataract of Aber. Precipitous hills close in on either side, and all egress seems denied in the remote distance. Down the front of Maes y Gaer, a height of one hundred feet and upwards, the waters are thrown with vast impetuosity, and dashed from the lower part of the fall with a wonderful horizontal projection. The suddenness of the break, over which the cascade tumbles, leads many an innocent victim to a painful termination of its existence, and the gloomy character of the picture is generally increased by the shattered remains of some poor animal numbered amongst the rocks at the foot of the great fall.
—“the roused up river pours along,
Resistless, roaring dreadful, down it comes
From the rude mountain and the mossy wild,
Tumbling through rocks abrupt, and sounding far.”
Thomson.
LLYN GWYNANT.
This is one of two fine lakes occupying the beautiful vale between Beddgelert and Dyffryn Mymbre, or Capel Curig. It washes the lowest visible part of Snowdon’s base, and is supplied by a noble cataract issuing from Ffynnon las, [66] one of the pools in the dark recesses of the great mountain. The hills around it, though picturesque and lofty, are not sufficiently broken for sublimity. On the southern extremity of the lake some fragments of a building are still discernible, confidently believed to be the ruins of a chapel erected by Madoc, the son of Owen Gwynedd, who dwelt here previous to his emigration to South America. The vale here contracts, and the grand mountain masses rapidly close in, forming the hollow of “Cwn Llan,” where Snowdon is observed to tower with greater majesty than in any other position. Beneath his darkening front, and encompassed by a noble amphitheatre of mountains, is Plas Gwynant, the truly romantic seat of Mr. Vaudrey. At this precise spot the beauty of the scenery increases wonderfully, and the spectator is lost in an endless variety of rock, and wood, and flood, and mountain. Llanberis Vale may be more sublime, no valley in Wales is equally beautiful. Nor is the accompaniment of lake wanting here. Lyn Dinas now opens to the view, with its dark brown surface and verdant banks. At its extremity rises a remarkable hill commanding the whole vale, whose rough, bold sides are in unison with the surrounding objects. Here are the ramparts of a fortress, which frowned, from its precipices, over the dark waters of the lake, and commanded the narrow avenues of the valley. This is the Dinas Emrys, where
Prophetic Merlyn sat, when to the British king
The changes long to come auspiciously he told.
Here Vortigern retired, disgusted with the treachery of his Saxon allies; and being frustrated in his first essays to raise a fortress, by some invisible hand, consulted all the wise men of the age, who assured him, that his palace would always want stability until sprinkled with the blood of one “without a father born.” In the town of Caermarthen the child Merlin was found, the circumstances of whose life corresponded with the advice of the elders. The harmless boy was ordered to be sacrificed, but his questions so confounded the base advisers of his death, that he obtained both life and liberty. The legend is thus embodied in poetic translation by Drayton:
“To that mighty king, which rashly undertook
A strong walled tower to rear, those earthly spirits that shook
The great foundation still, in dragon’s horrid shape,
That dreaming wizard told, making the mountain gape
With his most powerful charms, to view those caverns deep.
And from the top of Bridd, so high and wondrous steep,
Where Dinas Emrys stood, shew’d where the serpents fought,
The white that tore the red; from whence the prophet wrought
The Briton’s sad decay, then shortly to ensue.”
LLANGOLLEN. [68]
The character of Llangollen Vale is peculiar. The hills on either side are steep and lofty, and descend abruptly, though in verdant lawns, to the channel of the Dee. Although it may be considered to extend a length of ten or twelve miles, yet such is the extraordinary sinuosity of its form, that it hardly admits a prospect of half that extent or distance. The village has partaken largely of the benefits resulting from good public roads, and has progressed with much rapidity. It is more visited by tourists than any other part of the principality. The church, a handsome structure, is dedicated to Saint Collen, and from the cemetery is seen the much admired view of the old bridge across the Dee, with rich accompaniments of wood and rock, and the fine back-ground of Dinas Bran. About four miles from the village the vale expands, and discloses a scene of inexpressible beauty. Here the noble aqueduct of Pont-y-Cysyllte, on a scale so vast as to approach the character of a natural creation, is thrown from mountain to mountain. It extends a length of nine hundred and eighty feet, and is sustained by twenty piers one hundred and sixteen feet in height from the bed of the river Dee, the span of the intervening arches being forty-five feet. At each end are spacious embankments, now clothed with the richest foliage; and the old bridge across the river has not only lent its name to the great work, but has made a sacrifice of its beauty and publicity, being concealed and quite eclipsed by the towering structure above it. The object of its construction, as well as the meritorious exertions of its originators, are fully set forth in the following inscription graven on the central pier:
The Nobility and Gentry of the adjacent counties
having united their efforts with the great commercial
interests of this country, in creating an intercourse and
union between England and Wales, by a navigable
communication of the three rivers, Severn, Dee, and Mersey,
for the mutual benefit of agriculture and trade, caused
the first stone of this Aqueduct of Pont-y-cysyllty to
be laid on the 25th day of July, 1795; when Richard Myddleton,
of Chirk, Esq. M.P. one of the original patrons of the Ellesmere Canal,
was Lord of the Manor, and in the reign of our sovereign George III.
When the equity of the laws and security of property promoted the
general welfare of the nation; while the arts and sciences flourished
by his patronage, and the conduct of civil life was improved by his
example.
This inscription is doubtless true, and conveys a rational moral; but the writer forgot that artists and men of science deserve, as a reward for their great services, at least, the introduction of their names upon such commemorative tables. Mr. Telford furnished the design, and the contract for its erection was fulfilled by Wilson.
Llangollen vale & aqueduct; Plas Newydd; Denbigh Castle. London. Published by T. T. & J. Tegg, Cheapside, Oct. 1st 1832
PLAS-NEWYDD, LLANGOLLEN.
The history of the late occupants of this beautiful little cottage is at variance with the censure of the poet’s Angelina on the quality of friendship. Lady Eleanor Butler, daughter of the Earl of Ormond, was born in Dublin, and almost from her cradle had been an orphan. Wealthy, beautiful, and nobly sprung, her hand was sought by persons of rank and fortune equal to her own; but to all addresses of that description she expressed at once her disinclination. Although she openly avowed this taste for independence, no woman was ever more distinguished for mildness, modesty, and all those feminine graces which adorn and give interest to the sex. Miss Ponsonby, a member of the noble family of Besborough, had been an early associate of Lady Eleanor; and, possibly, it may have contributed in some degree to cement their growing friendship, the incidental circumstance of both having been born in the same city, upon the same day and year, and being both bereaved of their parents at precisely the same period. Minds of so much sensibility soon mistook their fancies for realities, and rapidly concluding that they were destined for a life of independence, at the early age of seventeen vowed eternal friendship and devotion to each other for the residue of their lives. At the age of twenty-one, when the arm of the law rescued them from the friendly detention of their relatives, they withdrew to the solitary little cottage of Plas-Newydd, never to return again to the gay, glittering world of fashion, or the country which gave them birth. Having enlarged and decorated their rural dwelling, laid out and planted their grounds, the selection of a library became an early care. Here much time was spent; and the glowing language of Miss Seward, a friend and frequent guest at Plas-Newydd, bears a high testimony to the philosophic quality of their minds. “All that is grateful, all that is attached, will be ever warm from my heart towards each honoured and accomplished friend, whose virtues and talents diffuse intellectual sunshine that adorns and cheers the loveliest of the Cambrian vales.”—Letter 38.
The habits and manners of the “Llangollen ladies” were frank and open, and their hospitality of the most liberal kind. They visited and received the neighbouring gentry until the “weight of years pressed heavy on them.” Madame de Genlis and the Mademoiselle D’Orleans, are to be numbered amongst their visiters; and it was here that intellectual being first heard the wild notes of our Æolian harp, of which she remarks, “it is natural for such an instrument to have originated in a country of storms and tempests, of which it softens the manners.”
Upwards of half a century these amiable companions graced the valley of Llangollen, extending a cheerful hospitality to their numerous guests, and exercising a benevolence the most unlimited towards the most friendless of their neighbours. At length they were called before the throne of brightness and purity, at the advanced ages of seventy-two and seventy-seven. Their remains are deposited in a vault in Llangollen cemetery, where the body of Mrs. Mary Carroll, their faithful servant, had been laid at rest before them.
DENBIGH CASTLE.
The castle of Denbigh (Dinbach, the little fort) occupies the crown of a rocky eminence on the south side of the noble vale of Clwyd, and commanding an extensive prospect over that rich and beautiful vein of country. This impregnable fortress, with one thousand pounds in lands, was granted by Edward the First to Davydd, the brother of Llewellyn, as a marriage portion with the Earl of Derby’s widow, whom he espoused at the king’s request. Davydd forfeited these grants by his rebellion, which enabled Edward to reward one of his English followers with this noble estate. The fortunate grantee was Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln and of Denbigh, who had married the daughter and sole heiress of Long-sword, Earl of Salisbury, by whom he had two sons, Edmund and John, who both died young, one of them by a fall into a very deep well within the castle of Denbigh; and a daughter named Alicia, espoused by Thomas Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster, who, in right of this lady, became Earl of Lincoln and of Sarum, Lord of Denbigh, Halton, Pomfret, and constable of Chester Castle. The melancholy death of his son Edmund so afflicted the earl, that Leland assures us it caused him to desert his proud castle without completing its great design. Upon the attainder of Thomas of Lancaster, son-in-law of Lacy, the lordship of Denbigh was conferred upon Hugh D’Espencer, a favourite of Edward the Second; but this unpopular person being also cut off by violence, Roger Mortimer obtained a grant of his estates, in fulfilment of a promise made to his mother by Edward the Third, before he ascended the throne, “that he would bestow one thousand pounds upon her son if ever he should succeed to the crown of England.” The proprietorship of this impregnable rock seems to have inspired its lords with ideas of independence, uniformly growing up into rebellion. Mortimer was infected with the same anti monarchical notions, and met with a similar fate. The succession of tragedies was at length arrested by a Sir William Montacute, afterwards Earl of Salisbury, who continued a grateful and zealous adherent of the crown. Salisbury dying without issue, and the attainder of Mortimer being reversed, Denbigh was restored, by marriage, to the house of York, and, consequently, to the crown once more.
Queen Elizabeth bestowed the lordship of Denbigh upon her favourite Leicester, who did not conciliate the affections of the Welsh people with the same zeal he did those of his royal mistress, and an insurrection of the tenantry was the consequence of his tyrannical government. In the year 1696 a similar unpopular grant was made of the lordships of Denbigh, Bromfield, and Yale to the Earl of Portland; but the resistance given to the investment of the grantee by the Welsh gentry was so decided, that parliament petitioned the crown to reverse the grant.
Edward the Fourth, while Duke of York, sustained a siege here from the army of Henry the Sixth, and ultimately effected his escape. Charles the First lodged in the castle for a short period after his retreat from Chester; and the Siambr y Brennin, or king’s apartments, though totally ruined, are still pointed out. The Welsh, however, have greater cause of self-gratulation, and may point to this monument of departed power with more pride, from the gallant defence which they made from its walls, under the conduct of the brave William Salisbury, against the parliamentary forces, than from any adventitious circumstance involved in its sad and eventful history.
The ruins are of great extent, and the grand portal is nearly entire; but from the mode of its erection, as well as the means of its destruction, they afford but little that is picturesque in their appearance. The ground plan was at first surrounded by double walls, parallel to each other, and distant only by six or eight feet, the intermural space was then filled up with rubble stone and hot mortar, which on cooling became a solid conglomerate. Upon the barbarous dismantling of the castle, after the Restoration, which was done by springing a mine of gunpowder beneath it, the walls separated and fell from the grouting, exposing a mass of shattered fragments, without the advantage of a single tree or any impending object to throw a relieving shadow over the melancholy heap.
Near to the grand entrance of the castle stand the side walls of an unfinished church, one hundred and seventy feet in length, and pierced by many spacious windows. These were raised by the Earl of Leicester, and destined for the celebration of the reformed service; but he did not like, or, as others say, did not live to visit his oppressed Welsh tenantry, and left this pious work unfinished. A subscription was some years afterwards set on foot, and ample funds obtained for roofing over the walls, but the Earl of Essex, on his way to Ireland, procured a loan of the sum collected, and no effort was ever after made to save the whole from falling to decay.
An interesting and national spectacle was exhibited on the bowling-green under the castle walls of Denbigh, in the autumn of 1828; it is called in Welsh an Eistedfodd, and means a meeting of the bards. This is an institution of ancient origin, and was formerly held under a precept or commission from the crown, directed to the principal inhabitants in the district where the meeting was intended to be held. The latest royal mandate for the holding of an Eistedfodd was issued by Queen Elizabeth, and directed to the ancestors of some of the most respectable families now resident in Flint and Denbigh shires. The bardic assemblage of 1828 was accompanied by circumstances of a very peculiar and gratifying character, and the remembrance of it will long be cherished by all Cambrians who witnessed it, with feelings of the deepest and warmest enthusiasm. The verdant platform of the bowling-green commands one of the richest and happiest prospects in nature; the eye sweeps down the green hills on the south, and passing over the noble and broad valley of the Clwyd, climbs rapidly the Clwydian hills, where it finds an index to a brighter prospect in the national monument on Moel Ffammau. Here a handsome obelisk on the highest of the hills commemorates the fiftieth year of the eventful reign of King George the Third. This accidental circumstance gave an additional interest to this bardic meeting, for, by a singular coincidence, Sir E. Mostyn, a descendant of Sir Piers, one of the persons named in the precept of Elizabeth, was president of the Eistedfodd. A noble individual, the representative of the brave William Salisbury, the defender of the castle, graced the assemblage by his presence. A dignitary of the church, who embodied those gallant actions in a valuable history, judged some of the bardic effusions, and a royal prince looked gratefully over the heads of an innocent and happy people towards the monument which their loyalty and affection had raised to his venerable father.
Valle Crucis Abbey; Ruthin Castle; Wynnstay. London. Published by T. T. & J. Tegg, Cheapside, Oct. 1st 1832
VALLE CRUCIS ABBEY.
The Vale of Crucis opens into the beautiful scenery of Llangollen, about two miles from the little village. Fancy cannot paint a scene more suited to the indulgence of solemn thought. It is the spot which a recluse, enamoured of the great scenes of nature, where the eye is continually presented with sublime ideas, where every object contributes to soothe, but not transport the mind, would select as an habitation of cheerful solitude. In the days of its greatness it must have been a place consecrated to retirement, but now how much is the solitude of the scene heightened by the accompaniment of a ruined abbey shrouded in forest trees that wave over its mouldering towers,—
Say, ivy’d Valle Crucis; time decay’d
Dim on the brink of Deva’s wandering floods,
Your ivy’d arch glittering through the tangled shade,
Your gray hills towering o’er your night of woods;
Deep in the vale recesses as you stand,
And, desolately great, the rising sigh command:
Say, lonely ruin’d pile, when former years
Saw your pale train at midnight altars bow,
Saw superstition frown upon the tears
That mourn’d the rash, irrevocable vow,
Were one young lip gay Eleanora’s [77] smile?
Did “Zara’s look serene one tedious hour beguile?”
The foundation of the Cistercian Abbey of Valle Crucis is attributed to Gryffydd ap Madoc Maelor, Lord of Bromfield and Yale, about the year 1200; considerable parts of both church and abbey still remain. The former was cruciformed, and exhibits several styles of architecture. The eastern end is the most ancient; it is adorned by three lancet slips, forming one grand window. The entrance was in the west beneath a broad and beautifully ornamented window, above which is a smaller one of a marigold form, decorated with tracery and fret work, and under it may be discovered the following inscription:
A.D.A.M. D.N.S.—fecit hoc opus, pace beat quiescat. Amen.
The abbey and cloisters are more imperfect, the latter evidently built in a rich and ornamental style of architecture, well calculated to shed a “dim religious light,” but now desecrated into a farm house and offices.
RHUTHIN CASTLE.
Rhuthyn, or (Rhudd-Din, the red fort), is placed upon a gentle eminence on the south side of the vale of Clwyd, backed by wooded hills, and is one of the best and most agreeable towns in North Wales. It has undergone much modern improvement, and is possessed of several ancient endowments and privileges. The great sessions for the county are held here in a very elegant modern hall, faced with cut stone, and accurately finished in the interior. The church is spacious and architectural, designed and finished in an excellent style. A range of alms houses surround the churchyard, and represent the ancient hospital; and adjacent to the mansion of the warden is the free school, richly endowed by Gabriel Goodman, D.D. whose monument is set up against the north wall of the church.
Some doubt appears to exist as to the foundation of a castle here anciently, the Welsh name “Castell gÔch yn gwernfor,” indicating a fortress of earlier date than any erected by the Saxons. The general belief, however, is, that Reginald de Grey, second son of Lord Grey de Wilton, had a grant of the lordship of Rhuthyn, then embracing nearly the whole vale of Clwyd, as a reward for his services in reducing the ancient Britons. This great captain built the noble castle and enclosed the town, and, to secure the quiet enjoyment of his grant, did homage to Edward the Second at Chester in the year 1301. A drawing preserved amongst the manuscripts in the British Museum exhibits the magnitude and stateliness of De Grey’s castle, and fully justifies the wordy description of the honest Churchyard:
“This castle stands on rocke much like red bricke,
The dykes are cut with toole through stonie cragge,
The towers are hye, the walles are large and thicke,
The worke itself would shake a subject’s bagge.”
Both castle and lordship continued in the posterity of De Grey until the reign of Henry the Seventh, when, by a special compact, George Grey, Earl of Kent, and Lord of Rhuthyn, assigned them to the crown. From this period until the reign of Elizabeth this stately fabric was suffered to decay, but was then new roofed and entirely restored by Ambrose, Earl of Warwick, on whom the queen bestowed it. From the Warwick family it passed to the Myddletons of Chirk Castle, by the marriage of Charlotte, daughter of Sir Thomas Myddleton, who had for her first husband an Earl of Warwick. The lordship has since continued in this family, and the rights are exercised by one of the coheiresses of the late Richard Myddleton, Esq.
A modern castle has arisen from the ruins, the ancient ground plan being pursued with the assistance of the drawing before alluded to. The restoration does not extend over the entire area, yet forms a truly lordly residence. A reference to the original plan indicated the existence of a well in the centre of the rocky citadel, where, after a careful examination, it was at length discovered, built around with stone, and having a depth of nearly one hundred feet.
The noble demesne of Wynnstay, the seat of Sir Watkyn Williams Wynne, Bart. is situated at the eastern extremity of the vale of Llangollen, in an open and level, though elevated district. The grounds owe much to the taste and magnificent ideas of its successive proprietors, and the embellishments, that have been added year after year present now a wonderful and beautiful association, their grandeur being accompanied, as the scenery of all private parks usually is, with an air of melancholy. The Hall is a spacious but not a regular building. It consists of an ancient mansion, to which a part only of a new and extensive design has been attached. The old house stands upon the site of a British palace, once the residence of Gryffydd ap Madoc Maelor, Lord of Bromfield and Yale, and founder of the abbey of Valle Crucis. The new house, part of a greater design, by Cockenell, was built by the first Sir Watkyn; it is a simple regular elevation, possessing the great merit of capaciousness, a quality indispensably requisite in the Hall of a family conspicuous through generations for the exercise of a liberal hospitality. The principal apartment or state drawing-room is seventy feet in length by thirty in breadth, lighted by six spacious windows, the piers being occupied by richly ornamented cabinets filled with curiosities of various descriptions. The ceiling, which is separated into sunk panels and beautifully finished with stucco and gilding, is sustained by pillars of porphyry corresponding with the elegant pilasters which adorn the side walls. In this splendid apartment are a few portraits by Sir Godfrey Kneller, Vandyck, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Dahl, with a bust of the Great Sir Watkyn, as he is sometimes styled, by Rysbach; and two admirable busts by Nollekens, one of the present baronet, the other of Lord Grenville. A few good landscapes are hung in the different apartments, a portrait of Wilson by himself is a masterly performance, and an original three-quarter portrait of Flora Macdonald is both interesting and clever. The library contains the remains of a choice collection of manuscripts, the rest having unhappily been destroyed by an accidental fire; those that were preserved are chiefly biographical. In the dining-room stands a large silver font about three feet in length, supported by a pillar of the same height. This tribute of public merit was presented to the present Sir Watkyn by the gentry of his native county, Denbigh.
The extent, elegance, and beauty of the demesne are more than proportionate to the arrangements of the mansion. A spacious park well stocked with red and fallow deer surrounds the house, it is adorned with noble forest trees, and varied by well disposed artificial pieces of water. The quarter of the demesne, called the “Bath Grounds,” is a most gratifying specimen of landscape gardening. These delightful pleasure grounds, laid out by Mr. Evans, consist of shrubberies, walks, and bowers, disposed with admirable taste. A noble sheet of water occupies the centre of the wood; it is formed by the expansion of a little brook, artfully conducted over a rocky precipice at the extremity, where it is thrown into a pleasing and picturesque cascade. The Bath, which lends a distinguishing name to this part of the demesne, is a limpid fountain confined by an enclosure of cut stone. A beautiful Grecian temple, adorned with a portico of four columns, supporting an entablature and pediment, stands close by it, and is beautifully reflected in its smooth waters at the approach of evening. Near the entrance to the Bath Grounds a fluted column of one hundred feet in height, surmounted by a funeral urn, presents an interesting memorial of maternal affection, and a beautiful specimen of columnar architecture: it was designed by Mr. Wyatt. The entablature is surrounded by a gallery approached by steps concealed within the shaft, and the plinth is adorned with wreaths of oak leaves descending from the beaks of eagles. On the cenotaph is graven this brief but feeling epitaph—
Filio optimo, Mater, eheu! superstes.
In a demesne of such extent, the creation and combination of so many persons, years, events, &c. many beautiful and romantic rides may naturally be supposed to have been formed. The new approach, opened by the present Sir Watkyn, and commencing at the iron bridge, leads to the Hall by an avenue of three miles in length, through an amazing variety of sylvan scenery. But this is not the great boast of Wynnstay; the consummation of all its wonders and its beauties is reserved for the vale of Nant y Belan. [83] Here nature has profusely displayed her charms. Two steep banks, richly clothed with woods that dip into the torrent’s bed and wave upon either side, form a long vista of inexpressible grandeur. The winding Dee here pours her rapid flood along with awful murmurings and at a fearful depth, then throwing herself headlong into a deep dark pool, seems to rest, as if exhausted with the violence of the efforts by which it was attained. This grand picture forms but the foreground of an extensive landscape, wherein the middle distance is occupied by the happy scenery of Llangollen, and the remotest filled by the British Alps. Upon the rock from whence this panorama is beheld, Sir Watkyn has erected a circular temple, to the memory of his brave associates, his army of ancient Britons, who fell in the unhappy Irish rebellion of 1798.
The whole of this spacious demesne is enclosed by a stone wall nine miles in extent, and the principal entrance is through a straight avenue, one mile in length, overshadowed by aged oaks. Wattstay was the original name of this estate, so called from its situation upon Watt’s Dyke, but exchanged for Wynnstay by Sir John, when it became his property by marriage with Jane, daughter and heiress of Eyton Evans of Wattstay, Esq.
Chirk Castle; Llanrwst Church; Flint Castle. London. Published by T. T. & J. Tegg, Cheapside, Oct. 1st 1832
Sir Watkyn is of the ancient Gwydyr stock, and traces his descent to Owen Gwynedd, Prince of Wales. The Wynnstay branch has been united with some of the noblest families of England; the present baronet is married to the Lady Harriet, daughter of the Earl of Powis, and sister of the Duchess of Northumberland.
The manufacturing village of Ruabon, or Rhiwabon, lies immediately outside the demesne wall, and is inhabited by persons connected with the iron foundries and coal pits of this mineral district. On a conspicuous height above it, commanding a view of the vale of Llangollen, stands a handsome square embattled tower of two stories, erected by the present owner of Wynnstay to commemorate the event of the field of Waterloo.
The posthumous honours paid to this ancient family have employed the chisels of the ablest sculptors, and adorn a temple which their munificence has erected. The first Sir John of Wynnstay, who was the grandson of Sir John of Gwydyr, is interred in Rhiwabon church, beneath, as Mr. York calls it, perhaps for the exercise of a pleasant alliteration, “a mass and massacre of marble.” The monument of Lady Harriet Somerset, first wife of Sir Watkyn, who died in 1769, is one of Nollekens’ happiest designs; and on one side of the altar is a noble monument, by Rysbach, of the first Sir Watkyn, who was killed by a fall from his horse, on the 26th of September, 1749. The image of this eminent person’s mind has been as feelingly pourtrayed by the classic Dr. King, as the graces of his person are truly expressed by the chisel of the artist.
An elegant baptismal font, of white marble, and resting on a tripod of distinguished grace, was presented to the church and parish, along with the excellent organ in the gallery, by the second Sir Watkyn, in the year 1772.
CHIRK CASTLE,
The seat of Mrs. Myddleton Biddulph, stands in a spacious and noble demesne, spreading over the sides and summit of a finely situated and isolated hill. It is an ancient building, uniting the castle with the mansion, in which strength and solidity have been consulted to the neglect or prejudice of grace and beauty. Its form is quadrangular, strengthened by a massive flanking tower at each corner, and a fifth projects from the principal front, through which a lofty archway passes, giving admission to a court within. The dimensions of the court yard are one hundred and sixty-five feet in length by one hundred in breadth, surrounded on all sides by various apartments, the windows of which, for the most part, open towards the enclosed area. A handsome arcade, which formerly occupied the basement on the east side, has been closed up and converted into habitable rooms. The dungeon said to be as deep towards Tartarus as the castle walls were reared towards Heaven, is still entire, still furnished with its dread machinery, and its floor is reached by a descent of two-and-forty steps. The great entrance of the castle was originally protected by handsome and lofty iron palisades, having statues of Hercules and Mars on either side; but the former have been removed, and set up at the western entrance to the park, and the statues are probably committed to the dungeon.
The principal apartments are both comfortable and elegant. The picture gallery, one hundred feet in length by twenty-two in breadth, is adorned with portraits of illustrious persons, and of different members of the Myddleton family; amongst them are those of the great Duke of Ormond and of his son the Earl of Ossory. This was the virtuous stoic who censured the corrupt age and court in which he moved by exclaiming on the early decease of his favourite son, “I would not exchange my dead son for any living one in Europe.” Besides portraits of Sir Thomas Myddleton, and his daughter the Countess of Warwick, there are some rare landscapes in the state rooms, painted by Wilson, and coloured on the spot from nature. They are chiefly views in Chirk-Castle Park, and are very reflections of the grayish tone of colouring so peculiar to Wales. Here is also a view of Pystil Rhaidar, in which the cataract appears falling into the sea, while a few ships are seen sailing past it. The cause of this singular misrepresentation is explained in this way: a foreign artist, not very familiar with the English language, was engaged to execute a painting of this noble waterfall; but, when his work was completed, one of the first persons to whom he exhibited it observed, that a few sheep at the foot of the fall would give animation to the whole. Willing to accept the advice, but mistaking the adviser, the artist immediately introduced a few ships (sheeps) with the natural and necessary accompaniment of the sea.
Castel Crogen, the original name of Chirk, was an ancient British fortress, and fell into the hands of Roger Mortimer, Justice of North Wales, in the following manner. John Earl of Warren and Roger Mortimer Earl of Wigmore, being appointed guardians over the sons of Gryffydd ap Madoc, a partisan of Henry the Third and Edward the First, put their wards to death and seized upon their estates, Mortimer taking Nanheuddwy and Chirk, the portion of the younger child, and Warren possessing himself of Bromfield, Yale, and Dinas Bran. A property held by so base a title required to be protected by powerful measures, and Mortimer thought it expedient to erect a strong castle at Chirk, on the site of the British fortress. The building was commenced in the year 1011, and completed in 1013. The crimes of Mortimer were punished by an ignominious death in the Tower of London, but Chirkland continuing in his family, was sold by his grandson, John, to Richard Fitz-Alan, Earl of Arundel, whose son was appointed governor of the castle with a continuation of the grant, whereby Chirkland was again annexed to Bromfield and Yale. Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, having espoused a sister of Lord Arundel, the estate passed over to him, but was transferred to the Earl of Abergavenny, who had married another of the sisters of Lord Arundel, upon the Duke of Norfolk’s disgrace and banishment in 1397. By the marriage of Edward Nevil with the granddaughter of the last proprietor it passed into his family, in the reign of Henry the Sixth. Sir William Stanley appears to have been the next proprietor, upon whose untimely death it escheated to the crown. Elizabeth bestowed it upon the Earl of Leicester, at whose death it passed into the possession of Lord Bletso, from whose son it was purchased by Sir Thomas Myddleton, Knt. in 1595, and is now possessed by his descendant, Mrs. Myddleton Biddulph.
Previous to the year 1506 the castle was regularly garrisoned: during the usurpation it was besieged, and three of the towers battered down by Cromwell’s artillery. Sir Thomas Myddleton, the owner, defended himself gallantly, and was reimbursed by Charles the Second for his losses, amounting to thirty thousand pounds, accompanied by an offer of elevation to a peerage, which honour he very modestly declined.
The view from the high grounds of the park is amazingly extensive, commanding a prospect over seventeen different counties. A part of the grounds, distinguished by the name of the “Black Park,” derives its epithet from the death of a keeper, who, coming to the assistance of a young woman who was attacked by a stag, was himself gored to death by the ferocious animal. The village of Chirk lies at the foot of the hill on which the castle stands. It consists of a few cottages built from agreeable rustic designs, and presents a neat and cheerful appearance. The church is handsome, spacious, and adorned with a noble tower. The interior is ornamented with monuments of the Chirk-Castle family; the best and most interesting of which is erected to the memory of the famous Sir Thomas Myddleton.
The little river Ceiriog, which separates England from Wales, flows through the valley of Chirk, and is crossed by a handsome aqueduct conveying the waters of the Ellesmere canal. This extremity of the aqueduct is met by a tunnel passing under the hill, and carrying the line of navigation towards the aqueduct at Llangollen. A singular mound may be observed on the brow of the hill hanging over the Ceiriog, and at a little distance from the church, it is obviously artificial, and is doubtless a sepulchral barrow, such as are frequently found in other parts of the principality.
LLANRWST CHURCH.
The town of Llanrwst is situated on the eastern bank of the river Conway, in the beautiful and luxuriant vale to which it lends its name. The river is broad, smooth, and shallow, except when swollen by the mountain floods, which rise and fall with wonderful rapidity. One of the most celebrated objects here is the famous shaking bridge, built from a design of Inigo Jones. It consists of three arches, the centre sixty feet span, and, if the crowns of the arches were not too high, would be a light, beautiful, and ingenious work. The ceremony of shaking is performed by two persons upon the crown of the centre arch, first rocking themselves sufficiently to acquire a gentle momentum, and then falling back against the great centre stone of the battlements; a person leaning against the opposite battlement will feel the tremulous motion communicated through the whole masonry of the bridge. The view of Llanrwst vale from the bridge, and from the road leading to it on the Denbighshire side of the river is of unexampled beauty. The Gwydyr woods clothe a precipitous mountain on the west, for a length of five miles, through which a bold crag here and there is seen protruding with a fine effect. The opposite side is also finely wooded, and variegated with mansions, parks, meadow, corn-land, and all that enriches a landscape. This perspective of the vale presents a composition embracing grandeur and magnificence in a high degree, combined with scenes of great pastoral beauty.
The town possesses no architectural or other peculiar attractions, and from the lowness of its situation does not participate in the exquisite scenery with which it is surrounded. Its recommendations are of a less romantic though not less useful character, consisting in the excellence of its fairs and markets, and its convenient position for the conduct of a profitable inland trade. The town and market-hall, the free school, and the almshouses [91] are its most ancient institutions of a public class. The church is picturesquely placed on the bank of the river; and the view of the valley, with the famous bridge in the foreground, enjoyed from the churchyard, is eminently beautiful. The church is dedicated to Saint Rystyd or Rwst, archbishop of London in the year 361, and one of those who were present at the council of Arles. The ground on which it is built was given by Rhun ap Nefydd, in expiation of the foul murder of Prince Idwal, who was slain in Cwm Idwal, by order of his foster-father Nefydd Haradd. The chief object of interest here is the Gwydyr chapel, adjoining the church, of which Inigo Jones was the architect, A.D. 1663, the expense being defrayed by Sir Richard Wynne. The design is much admired, and its restitution by Lord Willoughby D’Eresby, representative of the ancient house of Gwydyr, is characteristic of a happy exertion of munificence and taste. The carved roof is not part of Jones’s design, it was brought hither from the dissolved abbey of Maenan, three miles from Llanrwst. In this mausoleum of the Wynnes are some curious monuments, illustrative of history, and no mean specimens of the progress of the arts at the period of their execution. A white marble tablet contains a pedigree of the family from the time of Edward the First down to the year in which the chapel was erected. Underneath this pedigree is an exquisite portrait, engraved on brass, of Dame Sarah Wynne, daughter of Sir Thomas Myddleton, of Chirk Castle, executed in a masterly style by William Vaughan in the year 1671. On the south side are two pyramidal columns of variegated marble adorned with military insignia, one to the memory of Meredyth; the other of Sir John Wynne, and his consort the Lady Sidney, daughter of Sir William Gerard, chancellor of Ireland; and between the columnar monuments is a simple tablet to John ap Meredydd who died in 1559.
A fine effigiated tomb, sunk in the floor, represents Howel Coetmore ap Gryffydd Vychan ap Dafydd Gam, in complete armour, his feet resting on a lion couchant. He was grandson of Gryffydd, [93] who lies interred in the church of Bettws-y-coed, and proprietor of the Gwydyr estates, which were purchased from one of his descendants by the Wynnes.
Here also is preserved the stone coffin in which the remains of Llewellyn the Great were deposited in the abbey of Conway; upon the dissolution of religious houses in Wales it was removed here. A singular Latin inscription, of which the following is a translation, appears on a monument in the pew belonging to the Davises of CyffddÛ; it is dedicated to the memory of Gryffydd Lloyd of Bryniog, and is supposed to have been written by himself,
“Once the undeserving schoolmaster,
Then the more undeserving lecturer,
And last of all the most undeserving rector of this parish.
Do not think, speak, or write any thing evil of the dead.”
