HOLYHEAD
The Menai Straits to Holyhead--Llangadwaladr--The story of
Cadwallon--Cadwaladr--Plague in 664--Ruskin on Holyhead--The
old caer--Chapel of the Irishman--Story of S. Cybi--The menhir
of Clorach--Cybi and Elian--Church of Caergybi--Chapel of
Llochwyd--Holy well--Chapel of S. Brigid--Breakwater--The
South Stack--Sea-birds--Their eggs--Cytiau’r Gwyddelod--Old
villages--Camp--Construction of the huts--A conservative people that
votes Liberal.
THE line from Bangor to Holyhead, after crossing the Menai Straits,
runs through country that does not impress the traveller with an
opinion that it is fertile or beautiful. The land is for the most part
flat, or slightly undulating; there are no trees, much waste land, no
mountains--only hills, and these away to the north. The surface of the
island is speckled with little white houses with whitewashed roofs, as
though a giant’s wedding had taken place there, and it was sprinkled
over with the rice cast at the bride.
[Illustration: SOUTH STACK LIGHT, HOLYHEAD]
The line traverses the Malldraeth Marsh, and beyond Bodorgan station
skirts Llyn Coron, a tarn with no picturesque surroundings, through
which trickles the River Ffraw, that flows to the Aber, where once
stood the residence, probably of timber, of the kings of Gwynedd.
Near the Llyn is Llangadwaladr, that takes its name from the last
British prince who bore the title of King of All Britain. He was the
son of Cadwallon ab Cadfan, and in the church is preserved the stone
that bears the sententious inscription to inform the world that King
Cadfan was “the wisest, the most renowned of all kings.”
The screen at Llaneilian has been already spoken of. It was delivered
over to a joiner, who restored it by daubing over the paintings that
decorated it, by hacking away the tracery that enriched it. Critics
treat history in much the same fashion. They efface all the warm
colouring that fancy has laid on, and eliminate all the detail which
adorns it, leaving us but the naked scaffolding of fact.
If we deal in this way with the story of Cadfan and his grandson
Cadwaladr, we arrive at very meagre and uninteresting outlines. We
will therefore take the story much as we find it. Ethelfrid was king
of Northumbria, and he sent away his wife, probably a British woman,
and she took refuge with King Cadfan in Môn. There, shortly after her
arrival at the court of Cadfan, the discarded queen became a mother,
and bore a son to whom she gave the name of Edwin. About the same time
the queen of Gwynedd bore one also, who was named Cadwallon.
The two boys were sent to be fostered in Brittany to King Solomon
(there happened to be no king there of that name till two centuries
later, but we will not be hypercritical).
In due course, when they were grown to man’s estate, the youths
returned to Mona, and remained either there or at Deganwy till Cadfan
died. Then Cadwallon assumed the crown of Gwynedd and the title of
King of All Britain. Edwin went to Northumbria, where he was chosen
king, and first of all the invading Angles and Saxons adopted a circlet
of gold as symbol of sovereignty. Now one day Cadwallon was with his
nephew Brian by the River Dulas when, overcome with the heat of the
day, he laid himself down to sleep, with his head on Brian’s lap.
As he slept, Brian’s mind turned to the wrongs and sorrows that his
countrymen had endured at the hands of the Teutonic invaders, and his
tears ran down, and fell on Cadwallon’s face. The king was disturbed
in his sleep by the falling drops, and, half asleep and half awake, he
said, “It rains! It rains!”
Then he opened his eyes and saw that the sky above was blue as a
corn-flower, and he remarked, “It is strange. There has been a shower,
and the sun is shining. But where is the rainbow?”
Then Brian said, “Uncle, on the head of Edwin.” Cadwallon looked in his
nephew’s face and saw that his eye-lashes were heavy with tears, and he
asked the reason.
Thereupon Brian told him all that was in his heart, and Cadwallon rose
up and vowed that he would make a desperate effort to recover the land
for the British people.
So he made war on Edwin, but met with defeat after defeat, and was
finally obliged to escape into Ireland.
There he resolved on seeking the assistance of the Armoricans, so he
took ship and sailed for Brittany, but encountered a storm and was
wrecked on an island, probably Ouessant, and all on board were lost
save only Cadwallon and Brian.
Through distress at the death of his followers, and dearth of food, the
king fell into a fit of profound dejection.
Brian was troubled for his uncle, whose heart seemed to be broken. He
went about the island seeking for food, but could find naught. The
sea-fowl had been disturbed by the gale, and the season was not that
for eggs. He endeavoured to collect shell-fish, but the waters still
boiled and tumbled on the rocks, and he could obtain none. Then he
cut a slice from his own thigh, lighted a fire, roasted the flesh,
and brought it to the king, and said that it was venison. Cadwallon,
believing this, ate, and his spirit revived within him, and he
determined on making an effort to reach the mainland. The wind fell,
and he and Brian were able to get their battered ship afloat, and in it
they were wafted over to the coast of Brittany. They went before King
Solomon, who received them kindly and promised his aid.
So it was resolved that Cadwallon should return to Wales with a
thousand men of Armorica, and that Brian should make his way in
disguise to the court of Edwin and spy out how matters stood there.
Brian landed at Southampton, and assuming the rags of a beggar, but
armed with a spiked staff, made his way to York, where was King Edwin.
Brian, in a mendicant’s garb, went to the palace and stood outside
among the beggars who waited daily for alms. As he thus stood his
sister came forth. She had been taken captive, and had been placed
in the household of the queen. She bore a pitcher, and was on her
way to the well to fetch water when Brian addressed her in a whining
tone. Nevertheless, she at once recognised him, and they carried on
a conversation together with caution, lest he should be discovered.
What he particularly desired was that a certain counsellor of Edwin
should be pointed out to him by whose advice the king was principally
governed, and whom the Britons regarded as a specially dangerous
adversary.
Brian’s sister did so as the man issued from the door with alms for
the beggars. Thereupon Brian pressed through the crowd, and, raising
his staff, struck him in the breast and transfixed him there. Then he
stepped back and disappeared among the beggars.
Brian now fled to Exeter, where he roused the Western Britons, and they
held the city.
Meanwhile Cadwallon had arrived, and through Brian entered into a
league with Penda, king of the Mercians, against Edwin. Both forces
marched into Northumbria, and a battle was fought at a place called
Heathfield, and Edwin was slain and his Northern Angles routed.
Then, for a while, Cadwallon reigned over all the British peoples in
Wales, Strathclyde, and Devon and Cornwall.
He was succeeded by his son Cadwaladr, whose mother was a sister of
Penda the Mercian. He was a good and peace-loving prince, not made of
the same stuff as his father, and although he gained some victories his
reign was marked by loss of ground on all sides.
He wore the crown for twelve years. In 664 a terrible plague broke out
which spread desolation over Britain and Ireland, and in the latter
swept away two-thirds of the inhabitants. Cadwaladr was one of the
victims, and was buried in the church that bears his name by Llyn
Coron. The church has an east window to the chancel of a flamboyant
character, with some old stained glass in it representing the
Crucifixion and saints.
The line to Holyhead passes a cluster of lakes of not much beauty--that
of Llyn Penllyn has a little island in it--then it crosses a causeway
into Holy Isle, and draws up at the terminus of Holyhead, under Pen
Caergybi, the highest elevation in Anglesey.
Ruskin says:--
“Just on the other side of the Mersey you have your Snowdon and your
Menai Straits, and that mighty granite rock beyond the moors of
Anglesey, splendid in its heathery crest, and foot planted in the deep
sea, once thought of as sacred--a divine promontory, looking westward,
the Holy Head or Headland, still not without awe when its red light
glares first through the gloom.”
The cliff scenery here is of the finest quality, and Holyhead well
merits a prolonged visit, what with the stimulating air rushing through
one’s lungs charged with sparkles, the look-out on the green sea
flecked with foam and skimmed by gulls as flakes of froth that have
been detached from the waves and become alive, the plunging water on
the beach, the purple folds of the hills, and the abrupt cliffs, their
feet ever bitten into and worried by the angry waves.
The town is as busy as Beaumaris is inert. It lives on the Irish trade,
whereas Beaumaris picks up subsistence during a few short months only
from bathers.
The one object of antiquarian interest in the town is the church,
planted in the midst of an old _caer_, or fortress, the walls of which
still stand in places 16 feet high, and are over 6 feet thick. The
enclosure is quadrangular, and measures 220 feet by 130 feet. To what
period the walls belong is hard to determine. They are constructed of
unshaped blocks of granite rounded by the action of wind and rain,
and are set in mortar made of sea-shells. In places they are arranged
herring-bone fashion. The construction is too uncouth to be Roman, and
the round towers at the angles are not Irish. It is certainly prior
to the English conquest. A Norman builder would have disdained to put
forth such work, and it is probably a unique specimen of a _caer_ of
late British erection. The two entrances are much more modern. This
fortress was held by the Gwyddyl against Caswallon Long-hand. Then the
walls were of stones set up without mortar, and probably faced with
huge granite slabs. Caswallon forced his way in, and slew the Irish
king Serigi with his own hand, where now stands Llan-y-Gwyddel in the
churchyard.
The chapel had a chancel, which has been pulled down, and it was
converted into a grammar school in 1748, but is now disused. After the
expulsion of the Irish the enclosure became a royal _caer_, and was
occasionally occupied by Maelgwn Gwynedd, who made it over to S. Cybi.
[Illustration: S. CYBI. STATUE, SOUTH DOORWAY, CAERGYBI]
The story of the saint is as follows. Cybi was the son of Solomon,
king of Cornwall, and Gwen, the aunt of S. David. He was born between
the Lynher and Tamar at Callington, and was sent to school when aged
seven. Till he was twenty-seven years old Cybi remained in Cornwall,
and then he started on his travels on the Continent. There he made
the acquaintance of S. Elian the Pilgrim, and a friendship was formed
that was to last through life, though little did both suppose at the
time that they would be neighbours in their old age. From his travels
Cybi returned to Cornwall, where he became involved in a political
disturbance.
His father had died whilst he was away, and his uncle Cataw, or
Cado, had assumed the rule, but he was succeeded by the turbulent
Constantine. The arrival in Cornwall of Cybi gave occasion to an
insurrection, and an attempt was made to displace Constantine, and
elevate Cybi to the throne. It failed, and Cybi was obliged to fly for
his life. He took with him a party of attached disciples and his uncle
Cyngar. After a brief stay in Glamorgan he crossed into Ireland, and
visited S. Enda in Aran, and remained with him for four years.
Cyngar was so decrepit with age that he could eat no solid food, and
Cybi bought a cow with its calf to supply the old uncle with milk. This
led to ructions. The calf strayed into the meadow of a monk of the name
of Fintan, who impounded it. The consequence was angry altercation and
so much unpleasantness that Cybi had to leave. He crossed to Ireland,
took boat in Dublin Bay, and landed in Lleyn, the rocky promontory of
Carnarvon, where his wicker-work coracle got on a reef that tore the
leather covering. However, all reached the shore in safety, and Cybi
founded a church where is now Llangybi, near Pwllheli.
Maelgwn, king of Gwynedd, was hunting in Lleyn one day, when a goat he
was following fled for refuge to Cybi’s cell, and this led to the king
meeting the saint. He was so impressed with his goodness and dignity
that he made him a present of the _caer_ at Holyhead, and to this day
the Welsh name for the town is Caergybi.
Shortly after this “Magna et verbosa epistola venit e Capreis,” the
violent tirade of Gildas was launched at the heads of the British
princes. Now one of the companions of Cybi was Caffo, a brother of
Gildas. Maelgwn insisted on his dismissal, and Cybi reluctantly obeyed.
Caffo left and got as far as Rhosyr, now Newborough, in Anglesey, when
some shepherds of Maelgwn’s queen, incensed at the indignity put on
their master, fell on him and killed him. The church of Llangaffo marks
the site of the murder. This took place about 545, and Maelgwn died of
the yellow plague in 547. Cybi survived him to about 554.
There is a menhir at Clorach, near Llanerchymedd, with a curious hunch
on it, popularly called “Tyfrydog’s Thief.” The story goes that a thief
got into the church of Llandyfrydog and stole the Bible, put his spoil
on his back, and ran away, but was turned to stone with the Bible he
had carried off.
Not far from this prehistoric monument were two wells called after
S. Cybi and S. Seiriol. Here they were wont to meet at midday, Cybi
walking from the west and Seiriol from the east.
Cybi would start in early morning along the old Roman road, and he
had the sun in his face all the way, and in like manner Seiriol had
it behind him. They met at noon, and lunched together and drank from
their respective wells. Then Cybi turned west to retrace his steps, so
also did Seiriol; and consequently Cybi had the evening sun blazing on
his face for his homeward walk, and Seiriol was still in dusk, with his
shadow running before him. The result was that Cybi was tanned, whereas
Seiriol remained fair, and the former on this account obtained the name
of Cybi the Tawny and his comrade from Penmon that of Seiriol the Fair.
Matthew Arnold wrote a poem on the meeting at Clorach, but not knowing
the place, and not knowing the directions taken, missed the point of
the story.
The church of Caergybi is fine. The chancel is Early English, with
a Decorated east window. There was intended to have been a central
tower, and the church was a cross church originally. The tower was
never completed. The porch and side aisle are rich Perpendicular,
and there is some quaint carving outside the south transept; and the
south doorway within the porch is peculiarly rich, though the figure
sculpture is poor. Over the door in a niche is the Trinity, popularly
mistaken for a representation of Maelgwn Gwynedd. A south chapel,
in excellent taste, from the designs of Mr. Harold Hughes, has been
erected, with niches containing statuettes of Cybi and Seiriol. It
contains a recumbent figure of the Hon. William Owen Stanley, good, but
wrongly placed.
The nave has internally on each side an arcade of three Tudor arches.
On the north, the piers are octagonal; on the south, clustered of
four shafts, with general capitals. The arrangement of the transepts
is clumsy, like other Welsh examples, running from north to south,
uninterrupted by arches, and giving the effect of one church set at
right angles to another.
Capel y Llochwyd is on the mountain. Bishop Stanley, in 1830, thus
describes it:--
“A singular fissure, cleaved in a direct line from the summit to the
base, forms, or rather did form, a passage of communication of no
small celebrity in ancient days, and retaining its odour of sanctity
till very recent date. It is known by the name of Ogof Lochwyd,
_ogof_ signifying a cave. A spring of crystal water filtering through
the deep strata formed a deep well at the bottom of this chasm.
Situated just at the higher opening of the gorge was a chapel for
the accommodation of pilgrims called Capel y Llochwyd, of which a
considerable remnant in ruins at the head of this gorge still remains.
Till within sixty years the lonely chapel with its well were from
time unknown the resort of lads and lassies of the island, who, at a
certain annual festival called Suliau y Creiriau, the Sundays of the
Relics, and held during three successive Sundays in July, assembled in
troops to ascertain the contingencies awaiting them. Each diviner into
futurity descended the chasm to the well, and there, if after having
taken a mouthful of holy water and grasped two handfuls of sand from
the charmed font, he or she could accomplish the re-ascent with them
safely, each would obtain the wish of their heart before the close
of the year. About sixty years ago (1770) the chapel was reduced to
ruins, and the well was concealed by filling it with rubbish; but till
twenty years ago the walls, to the height of seven or eight feet,
remained sufficiently entire to convey a tolerable idea of the perfect
building, which is represented to have been a substantial though
rude and primitive edifice, composed of unhewn stones cemented with
mortar, the windows and doorways excepted, which were well wrought by
the chisel with considerable labour from some obdurated material, the
whole apparently consisting of one oblong chamber not exceeding a few
yards in length.
“Of the well, however, not a trace was left, though its existence was
proved beyond a shadow of doubt a few years ago by a party who landed
and at length succeeded in detecting the spot, from whence, after
removing a quantity of sand and loose stone, again gushed the fountain
of water in its pristine vigour and doubtless inherent virtues.”
There was at one time a chapel of S. Ffraid or Brigid on an islet where
according to legend she disembarked from Ireland. This was not the
Brigid of Kildare, but a namesake. The story goes that being unable to
find a boat to serve her purpose, she cut a sod of turf, threw it into
the sea, stepped on it, and was carried across. The turf lodged on this
hump of rock, and became fast there. But the wintry waves have eaten
away the isle, chewed up the turf, and torn down the chapel walls.
The breakwater of Holyhead is a stupendous achievement. It is about a
mile and a half long, and has a lighthouse at the extremity. On the
Skerries also, some seven miles north, is another lighthouse, and the
Government had to buy it from the owner, a Mr. Jones, for the sum of
£444,984.
The old Government pier had already cost a million and a half of money,
but it was abandoned when the London and North Western Railway Company
undertook the construction of the new pier. The new harbour has a water
area of twenty-four acres.
[Illustration: SOUTH STACK BRIDGE]
Every visitor to Holyhead makes a point of going to the South Stack,
just under four miles from the town. Cliffe thus describes it:--
“At first you feel disappointed, and it is not until you descend that
you become impressed with the grandeur of the scenery. At the foot of
the formidable stairs, 380 in number, you arrive at the entrance of
a light suspension bridge. For some years after the lighthouse was
erected (1809) the only means of access across the chasm was by a
rope and basket; then a bridge of ropes was made, but the risk was so
great that a chain bridge became necessary. After crossing the bridge
you can descend to look at a vast fissure in the islet, and wonder,
if the day be stormy, how the boats fared that conveyed the materials
for the lighthouse to that rugged and perilous spot, where the surge
of the sea is awe-inspiring. The sea in south-westerly gales often
dashes over the dwellings of the lightkeepers, when the scene is truly
sublime.”
The coast is alive with sea-birds, kittiwakes, razorbills, guillemots,
solan geese, puffin, shag, cormorant, and tern; and collections of
these birds’ eggs can be obtained at a very small cost in the town.
An ingenious provision of Nature saves the eggs from being carried by
the raging winds from the ledges of rock on which they are laid, when
the mother-bird is not sitting. If, for instance, a guillemot’s egg
be looked at, it will be seen that it is so balanced that the wind,
catching it, spins it round on its centre of gravity, and does not
obtain sufficient resistance to carry it away bodily, and precipitate
it into the sea.
There are objects of considerable archæological interest in Holy
Island, and these are the Cytiau’r Gwyddelod, or habitations of the
Irish. There are several collections, and some were explored by the
Hon. W. O. Stanley in 1871.
They are strewn over the side of Holyhead mountain, but there are
others by Porth Dafarch and Mynydd Celyn.
The sites of ancient habitations have been selected for shelter from
the prevailing winds, and the huts are usually grouped together forming
villages of from twelve to fifty huts. They are always protected from
hostile attack by rude walls of dry masonry or by precipitous rocks.
They are circular, and have slabs of granite set on end to face them
within and without. The entrances are to the south. The roofs were
constructed of poles resting on the low walls, brought together in
the middle, and thatched or covered with turf. The walls of the huts
enclose a space of from fifteen to twenty feet in diameter, and the
doorway is formed of two upright stones of about four feet high, upon
which formerly rested a stone lintel.
Some of these huts were dwelling-houses, others served merely as
kitchens, and some were sweating or bathing chambers, by the production
of steam by throwing water over heated stones.
Mr. Stanley found bronze weapons, jet necklaces, ornamented
spindle-whorls, stone lamps, and moulds for bronze buttons. The
abundance of articles discovered in these dwellings is very unusual and
seems to point to their having been left in a hurry.
There is a strong camp, Caer-y-Twr, on Holyhead mountain, facing east,
and about two-thirds of the way up to the summit from the town. It is
surrounded by a rude wall of dry masonry, following the ridge of the
rock, which in places is almost perpendicular. The entrance is steep
and seems to have been defended by hornwork.
There is a narrow cleft in the face of the mountain to the west, above
débris of rock that has fallen in some convulsion of nature, leaving a
perpendicular face of rock two hundred feet in height. This gap forms a
passage through which only one person could pass at a time, and a steep
path winds to it between rock faces. It may have served as a postern to
the camp.
The construction of huts in the fashion described was derived by the
Irish from the original population of the isle, the people who erected
the rude stone monuments.
A traveller in Gilead and Moab will find precisely similar collections
of hovels, similarly surrounded with walls of unhewn blocks, and
associated, as in Ireland, with cromlechs and cairns and menhirs, the
relics of the same prehistoric race which through long centuries, and
after long journeys to new lands, continued to build houses, erect
camps, and set up monuments to their dead in Ireland, Wales, Scotland,
Cornwall, and Northern Africa precisely as they did in Central Asia and
in Palestine. A mysterious people that never advanced in the art of
building, but clung tenaciously, as the bee, the bird, the spider, and
the ant, to traditional usage in the structure of their dwellings, and
which clung with like tenacity to the cult of ancestors. It came out of
Asia with polished stone weapons, and only slowly accepted, as foreign
importations, axes and swords and personal ornaments, made of bronze.
Certainly these were the most conservative people that ever overran
Europe; and possibly that clinging to old institutions, that aversion
to change, which brought ruin on the Welsh cause, may have been due to
the large admixture of Iberian blood in the Cymric veins.
Take the Welshman of the present day. In his politics he is a Liberal,
but in his bent of mind, in his mode of life, in his social relations,
he is the most conservative of men.
This tenacity to what is old and customary is a valuable asset; it
counterbalances the volatile and experimental tendency to adopt every
novelty, and wreck every institution to supplant it with what is new
and untried, but which is loud in promise.
It may be, it probably is the case, that there is much of this
immobility in the English race. It is because of this that the American
and German are beating us in manufacture and commerce, and if we are
ever routed in the field, it will be due to the clot of it that has
settled in our War Office not having been expelled.