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.