Llangollen--a little town that owes its charm entirely to its position.
Only a few miles away, in Shropshire, an ugly house is an exception: in
Wales it is unfortunately the rule. A town or village that is really
pretty in itself, apart from its surroundings, is almost unknown. But
so lovely is the position of Llangollen that in spite of its rather
squalid streets it is an entrancing place; so entrancing that Robert
Browning lived for some time at the Hand Hotel, and the two famous
“Ladies of Llangollen,” Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Ponsonby, chose
it out of all the world for their life-long home. Llangollen is still
dominated by “the Ladies,” almost as much as by Dinas Bran itself.
They adorn the windows of all its photograph shops; they shine in
crude colours from all its china mugs; and in its churchyard we learn
from an extremely ugly tombstone that one of them, in the opinion of
the other, had “manners worthy of her Illustrious Birth.” It must be
admitted that such is not the impression given by the impartial. It
became the fashion for travellers of mark to visit this quaint couple
in their house up there on the hill, and they themselves insisted on
its being also the fashion to give them presents--carvings, miniatures,
curiosities of all kinds. If we care to climb a steep hill we may
see the outside of Plas Newydd now, a black-and-white house, which
must have been really pretty in its original simplicity, but is now
overladen with a mass of carving. From the road we can see the porch
in which “the Ladies” once stood “fussing and tottering about in an
agony of expectation,” waiting for Sir Walter Scott, and looking, says
Lockhart, “like a couple of hazy or crazy old sailors.” “Who could
paint,” he goes on, “the prints, the dogs, the cats, the miniatures,
the cram of cabinets, clocks, glass-cases, books, bijouterie,
dragon-china, nodding mandarins, and whirligigs of every shape and
hue--the whole house outside and in _covered_ with carved oak ... and
the illustrated copies of Sir W.’s poems, and the joking, simpering
compliments about Waverley.” But whether their manners were worthy of
their Illustrious Birth or not, they were true friends to each other,
and the guardian angels, as Lockhart admits, of Llangollen. It is an
interesting fact (which should not be forgotten) that the church under
whose shadow they lie is dedicated to St. Collen ap Gwynnawg ap Clydawg
ap Cowrda ap Caradog Freichfras ap Llyr Merimap Eini Yrth ap Cunedda
Wledig.
Far more important than Plas Newydd or its memories of vanished
mandarins and whirligigs is the work of that prince of Powys, whose
name I mentioned in connection with Dinas Bran--Madoc ap Gryffyth
Maelor. In Pant-y-Groes, or the Valley of the Cross, stands Madoc’s
ruined abbey, the most perfect retreat, surely, that ever brought
comfort to the sad or sinful. It was of the Vale of Llangollen that
Ruskin characteristically wrote: “The whole valley, when once I got up
past the Works (whatever the accursed business of them) seemed to me
entirely lovely in its gentle wildness.” And it is this very quality
of gentle wildness that gives such charm to the little Glen of the
Cross, which joins the larger valley of the Dee just above Llangollen,
and is reached by way of the old stone bridge that was the first of its
kind in Wales.
When, in a few minutes, we see the gable of Valle Crucis Abbey below
us on the right, we leave our car by the roadside. We leave, indeed,
the whole world behind us as we pass through the heavy door by which
there was once no returning. The narrow wooded valley hems us in, the
trees are close round us, the waters of the fishpond, in their absolute
stillness, add to the sense of aloofness and peace. And under our very
feet, perhaps, is the dust of Iolo Goch, the famous bard who sang of
“Owain Glyndwr, the great, the good”; for Iolo’s unmarked grave is
here; and here, too, lies Madoc, who built this abbey in the last year
of the twelfth century; and Myfanwy, the beautiful princess, “fairer
than the cherry’s bloom”; and others who died long, long before them.
To antiquarians the tombs of Valle Crucis are full of interest, for
there are some that seem to prove, says the custodian--himself an
antiquarian--that this Cistercian house rose on the site of an older
Benedictine building. The Cistercians never used warlike symbols,
but always the sign of the Cross; yet here on two stones of very
early date--the sixth or seventh century--are carved the sword, the
spear, and the battleaxe. Fragments of stained glass, too, have been
unearthed, and coloured tiles, though the Cistercian Rule forbade the
use of colour in any form. This austere Order, however, while avoiding
the use of the sword as a symbol, was apparently not averse to using
it as a weapon on occasion, for it was by fighting the Benedictines in
a neighbouring field, according to the custodian’s theory, that they
became possessed of the site of their abbey. Truth to tell, the extreme
austerity of the Cistercians seems to have relaxed in later days, for
we hear after a time of four courses of meat in silver dishes at Valle
Crucis, and of an abbot with three of his fingers covered with rings.
But these are disturbing thoughts. Let us rather take away with us a
picture of the quiet fishpond, with its water-weeds and clumps of
yellow flags, and the gable of the church reflected in it line for
line, and on the bank a hooded figure, dressed in white, with a placid
face and a busy fishing-rod.
Quite near the abbey in a field is a far older relic, Eliseg’s Pillar,
the rough stone monument that gave its name to the Valley of the
Cross, though as a matter of fact it was probably never a cross. It
was once much higher than it is now, but in the days of the Civil War
the name of the valley was enough to make it _suspect_, and the pillar
was thrown down by the Puritans on the chance of its once having been
a cross. It has been much discussed and disagreed about, but at all
events its very great antiquity is a certainty, and the inscription
that is now illegible was luckily copied several centuries ago.
“Concenn,” it tells us, “the great grandson of Eliseg, erected this
stone to the memory of his great-grandfather, Eliseg. This is that
Eliseg who recovered his inheritance of Powis by his sword from the
power of the Angles.”
Returning to Llangollen we cross the Dee again and go on our way upon
the road to Holyhead, up the ridge of Rhysgog, past Berwyn Station, and
so out of the Vale of Llangollen into that of Edeyrnion. The Dee is
still below us on the right, with thickly wooded hills beyond it; and
on the left are rocky heights, sometimes bare and sometimes softened by
trees. We have a lovely run before us down the valley, but if we are
prudent we will _drive slowly in the neighbourhood of Corwen_.
But here, at the head of the valley, we are eight miles away from
Corwen, and have other things to think of--great things, indeed:
the last struggle for Welsh freedom, and the man who was the heart
and the head of it, that strange mixture of ruthless vengeance and
lovableness, Owen Glyndwr, who as a pattern squire, rather scholarly
and very hospitable, spent many quiet years, living sometimes here
at Glyndyfrdwy beside the Dee and sometimes at his other house at
Sycharth, and then suddenly, at the touch of injustice, unfurled the
red dragon of Uther and became the implacable devastator whose name
meets us in every ruin in Wales. Nothing remains now of his house, for
Prince Hal descended upon it one day, and, having left it level with
the ground, wrote to his “very dear and entirely beloved” Wardens of
the Marches to tell them all about it. After describing the burning of
Sycharth and of many houses round it he goes on: “Then we went straight
away to his other place of Glyndourdy, to seek for him there. There
we burnt a fine lodge in his park, and all the country round; and we
remained there all that night.” Above the spot where the fine lodge
stood is a curious tumulus crowned with firs, quite close to the road.
It is known as Owen’s Mount, not because he made it, for it is far
older than he, but because there is a story that he used it as a kind
of watch-tower. It was at Corwen, some say, that he first raised his
standard; but the other memories of him here are legendary and trivial.
From Corwen to wild Cerrig-y-Druidion--the Rock of the Druids--the road
rises steadily, and leads to nothing of note but the lovely little Pass
of Glyndyffws, a deep and narrow defile of sudden unexpected beauty
that connects two tracts of rather dull country. Here, where the Ceirw
flings itself into the ravine from a great height and foams among the
rocks far below us, Telford has thoughtfully supplied us with several
little recesses in the wall from which to enjoy the view. I have heard
that he cut his name in the stone of one of them, but I have never
been able to find it. Perhaps it was to his name that George Borrow
objected when he came here and laughed at “Mr. T.” for being eager for
immortality. There was no need for Telford to be over-anxious about his
immortality; nor yet, indeed, was there any for Borrow to flout him
because he was not a Welsh bard!
Tyn-y-nant, where “little Dick Vickers,” late of Shrewsbury Mail,
hanged himself rather exclusively, is a place of a dreary sort; and
so is Cerrig-y-Druidion; and so, most of all, is the straight road
from Cerrig to Cernioge, a piece of road that catches all the winds
of heaven, and always seems longer than it was last time. Open the
throttle here, and be thankful--if the weather be cold--that your good
engine is humming before you, and is making a better pace than the
eleven miles an hour of which the shivering travellers on this road
used to boast. Cernioge is to us merely an unkempt farmhouse, but to
them it meant a fire and hot drinks, for it was once a posting-house of
considerable renown.
At Cernioge begins the descent into the valley of the Conway; and it is
here that we first see, stretched out before us like the Promised Land,
the distant grandeur of Snowdonia, the wild, impenetrable fortress of
the Welsh and the trap of the invading English. When Pentre Voelas is
passed the beauty grows and grows, mile by mile, and we are gently
gliding down into the very heart of it; wild crags to the right of us,
and before and below us a sea of woodland, valley beyond valley and
hill beyond hill. There is one turn of the road where nearly every car
draws up. The valley of the Conway lies at our feet, with here and
there the river shining through the trees; the Lledr Valley stretches
away and merges into the distant moors; Moel Siabod’s peak rises at
the end of it; and over Siabod’s shoulder appears, on a clear day, a
wedge-shaped corner of Snowdon, faintly blue. I have seen this view at
many times of the year, and the best time of all is May.
For the woods that are at our feet, the woods that gave its name to
Bettws-y-Coed, the Chapel in the Wood, are at their best in May, when
every tree has its own individual shade of colour, the larch its tender
green, and the budding oak its pink and gold. But, indeed, Bettws is
always lovely. Nothing can spoil its innate simplicity; not even the
smart hats and parasols that look so incongruous in its little street
in July and August. It exists only for tourists; there are several good
hotels, and, roughly speaking, all the other houses are lodgings; yet
in spite of all, Bettws is a village still. Those who like to settle
down comfortably and motor round a centre, instead of touring from
place to place, will find this much the most central and convenient
spot from which to explore North Wales. And in any case, I think we
must stay here for a night or two. We must drive to Rhuddlan and
Conway and Dolwyddelan; we must stand on the Pont-y-Pair and watch the
tempestuous Llugwy; we must inspect David Cox’s famous signboard at the
Royal Oak; and in the evening, when the dusky yews are all in shadow,
we must sit in the churchyard beside the Conway, where the great artist
loved to paint. The church--the “Chapel in the Wood”--is uncouth and
bare, and not improved by modern windows; but it has stood here for
many centuries, and among its ugly pews we realise with a thrill that
the tomb at our feet holds the dust of a prince of Llewelyn’s house.
[Illustration: THE OLD CHAPEL, BETTWS-Y-COED.]
[Illustration: THE LLUGWY AT BETTWS-Y-COED.]
This is the country of Llewelyn the Great. On one side of us is the
valley that tradition names as his birthplace; on the other the valley
where he was buried. His grave we cannot see, for his burial-place at
Aberconwy was desecrated when Edward I. built his great castle; but on
the way from Bettws to Rhuddlan we may pause at the church of Llanrwst
and see there, on the floor of Inigo Jones’s chapel of the Wynnes, the
coffin of stone that once held the bones of the greatest of the
Welsh princes. There are a good many interesting things here--things
much older than the church itself; but not the least pleasing, I think,
is the Latin epitaph that the former rector composed, with a pretty
wit, for his own tomb. It has been thus translated:--
“Once the undeserving schoolmaster,
Then the more undeserving lecturer,
Last of all the most undeserving rector of this parish.
Do not think, speak, or write anything evil of the dead.”
If we are going to Rhuddlan it will not be necessary for us to cross
the shaking bridge, designed--perhaps--by Inigo Jones. I see no object
in a bridge shaking, myself, but there are always those at hand who for
a consideration will shake you the bridge if it gives you pleasure.
Our way, however, lies to the right, up a winding hill three miles in
length, with an average gradient of 1 in 12. It is a serious climb;
but the backward view of the mountain range beyond the Conway is
magnificent--a view of rather a rare quality, and not often seen by
those who depend upon horses’ legs or their own. The road that crosses
the top of the hills runs through scenery of rather a commonplace type;
then, as we drop down into Abergele the Morfa Rhuddlan lies before us
like a map--a dull map--with fashionable Rhyl in the distance; and from
Abergele to Rhuddlan the road is surely the straightest and flattest
that ever was seen.
The ivy-smothered towers of Rhuddlan Castle stand on the banks of the
Clwyd. That great statesman and soldier, Edward I., being weary of the
“Welsh Question,” determined to get the affair finished once for all;
so he rebuilt this castle, settled down here with his Court and family,
conquered the country, made its laws, and saw that they were carried
out. There is a remnant still standing of the house where he held his
parliament and “secured its independence to the Principality of Wales.”
These words, though not Edward’s, are quite in the spirit of his little
jokes. It was here that he played his historical practical joke upon
the Welsh nation, when he promised them a prince who was a native of
Wales and could not speak a word of English--and then showed them the
baby. There is nothing for us to see inside this castle, for Cromwell
altogether dismantled it, and its heavy green towers, though impressive
enough as being the grave of Welsh independence, are not nearly so
typical of the “ruthless king” as his great fortresses of Carnarvon and
Harlech and Conway.
Conway is only seventeen miles away, and we may see it on our return
journey to Bettws, by driving back to Abergele, where there is a nice
old posting-house, and thence passing on above Colwyn Bay. Five hundred
years ago another traveller came by this way from Conway: a poor,
duped, heart-sick king riding helplessly to imprisonment and mysterious
death. It was at Conway that Bolingbroke’s messenger Northumberland,
a man of a most treacherous heart, met Richard II. with solemn
vows of friendship; and along this coast that they rode together,
still smiling, the knave and the fool, to Rhuddlan and Flint, where
Bolingbroke’s army lay waiting on the sands o’ Dee. Those splendid
walls and towers of Conway that we see beyond the estuary, piled high
above the water-side, were Richard II.’s last refuge. From that day
forward every roof that sheltered him was a prison.
All through the history of Wales this estuary has played an important
part. Long, long before Edward’s magnificent towers rose over the
desecrated burial-place of the great Llewelyn there was a castle
guarding the river-mouth at Deganwy. We can see its fragments still
if we choose to drive round that way before crossing to Conway; but
there is only a remnant left, a few stones on a hillside facing the
sea--stones that tell of Maelgwyn of the sixth century, and of Norman
Robert, lord of Rhuddlan, who rebuilt Maelgwyn’s fortress and met his
death there, and of King John of England, who was starved out by the
Welsh. Robert of Rhuddlan’s death was picturesque, and, I imagine,
well deserved. This was the manner of it. He was still employed in
rebuilding the Welsh castle of Deganwy for the harrying of the people
to whom it really belonged, when one day he fell asleep--a rash thing
to do in those days and in that place. Then came Griffith, Prince of
Gwynedd, with his ships, and stole all Robert’s cattle, and was just
setting sail again when Robert awoke and saw what was going forward.
Down this steep bank below the castle he dashed to the shore, and
fought desperately, with only one follower to support him; but soon
died, of course, by the spears of the Welsh. Griffith nailed his head
to the mast and sailed away; then, when the Normans chased him, flung
it into the sea before their eyes.
As for King John, when he in his turn tried to strengthen the fortress
of Deganwy, he was glad enough to escape with his wicked head on his
shoulders. He had come into Wales “minded to destroy all that had life
within the country”; but he departed, we are told, in a great fury,
leaving a large proportion of his army behind him for Llewelyn to bury.
For the Welsh had cut off all the supplies of the English, “so that in
time they were glad to take up with horseflesh or anything, were it
never so mean, which might fill up their greedy and empty stomachs.”
So says Caradoc of Llancarvan. Other historians give us a letter
written on the spot by a certain knight, a man of parts, of whose life
and letters one would like to know more. He describes the royal army
as “watching, fasting, praying, and freezing. We watch,” he continues,
“for fear of the Welsh.... We fast for want of provisions.... We pray
that we may speedily return safe and scot-free home; and we freeze for
want of winter garments, having but a thin linen shirt to keep us from
the wind.” This vivid letter-writer goes on to tell us of the spoiling
of Aberconwy Abbey and the burning of all the valuable old Welsh
records there, and he shows a good deal of nice feeling in the matter.
It was on the ruins of Aberconwy that Edward’s glorious castle rose
later on to overawe the Welsh. This Castle of Conway is the most
beautiful of all Henry de Elfreton’s works, I think; more beautiful in
itself even than Harlech; and we can well believe, as we drive across
the bridge and under the great machicolated town gate, that in early
days it could only be taken by the help of guile or famine. Glyndwr’s
men won their way in by disguising one of their number as a carpenter,
and to dislodge them Hotspur, finding his engines useless, was obliged
to starve them out. During the Civil War the castle was held for the
King by the Archbishop of York, an extremely “muscular Christian,” who
on being superseded in his command felt the slight so deeply that he
joined Mytton the Roundhead, and himself led the assault! And these
great walls, fifteen feet in thickness, yielded at last. As one climbs
the long flight of steps to the entrance with all these things in one’s
mind there is something almost overwhelming in the grandeur of these
strong towers.
“A very neat castle,” says Camden.
When we have had our luncheon at the Castle Hotel we must cross
the road to Plas Mawr, the town house of the Wynnes of Gwydir, who
entertained Queen Elizabeth there more than once, and even decorated
her rooms with appropriate symbols, royal arms, and monograms. The
plaster mouldings in this house are its special feature: fireplaces,
ceilings, walls, all are ornamented with them, and in each room the
design is different. One cannot, however, enjoy the mouldings and the
oak furniture and the priests’ hiding-hole and the lantern window with
an undivided mind, for the Plas Mawr ghost--unconventional soul!--walks
by daylight.
[Illustration: CONWAY CASTLE.]
[Illustration: THE PASS OF NANT FFRANCON.]
We leave Conway by the road that follows the western bank of the river,
for by so doing we secure an impressive backward view of the old town
walls, which is ample compensation for the steep ascent that soon
carries us out of sight. Moreover this road, after a few more hills
and a few more miles of level going, with a view up the valley that
grows lovelier every moment, will lead us to Trefriew, a dear little
watering-place with a good hotel. The tiny church here has no outward
attractions; it has not even any appearance of age. Yet it has its own
romance; for it is said that when the English wife of Llewelyn the
Great--Joan, the daughter of King John--found the severe climb to the
old church of Llanrhychwyn too much for her, her thoughtful husband
built this one for her at the foot of the hill. Those who do not
share her feelings may still see, on the heights above the village, the
yet older church where Llewelyn worshipped before his wife objected
to the walk. And beyond it again, on the wild hill-top, is Llyn
Geirionydd, on whose shores lived Taliesin, the Bard of the Radiant
Brow, the most famous of all the Welsh bards.
Between Trefriew and Bettws there are but a few miles of level road and
very lovely scenery. Gwydir Castle, the old house of the Wynnes, stands
between us and the river, and may be seen when Lord Carrington is away.
It is full, I believe, of carvings and tapestry and relics of history.
Queen Elizabeth stayed here, and Leicester, and Charles I.
But here among these wild Welsh hills Elizabeth’s starched ruff and
Charles’s curls strike one as a little out of place. We may find
memories of Elizabeth--who seems to have slept in as many different
places as a motorist--in half the towns and big houses of England. This
is the country of the Kings of Gwynedd.
We saw the Lledr Valley stretched out before us as we came down the
hill from Pentre Voelas to Bettws. But that bird’s-eye view of it
gives one no idea at all of its extreme beauty; of the towering height
of its steep slopes, now bare and rocky, now richly wooded: of its
brilliant colouring and deep purple shadows. At the head of it, where
its beauty is partly spoiled by quarries and all their works, is
Dolwyddelan village; and beyond that again, standing alone among the
desolate hills, is the stern tower where Llewelyn the Great, the “eagle
of men,” is believed to have been born. It is only a square tower now,
and though it once had two towers it was never a place of any size;
for Dolwyddelan and Dolbadarn, the two mountain strongholds of the
princes of Gwynedd, did not rely upon their own strength, but on the
great bewildering hills that defended them on every side. Thus it was
that this small fortress was the last to yield to Edward I. And while
remembering Llewelyn here do not let us forget to dedicate one sigh to
his poor father, Iorwerth Drwyndwn--of the broken nose--who, when that
unfortunate feature kept him from his princedom, was given this country
and its tower by way of compensation.