village that is the cathedral city of St. David’s. The straggling,
ugly street gives little promise of reward for our pilgrimage. Then
suddenly we are at the edge of a hill, and we look down into the little
dell that holds, perhaps, as much beauty and history and legend as any
spot of its size in our country: the cathedral itself, very plain and
built of a strange purple stone; close beside it the ruins of St.
Mary’s College, founded by John of Gaunt and his wife; and beyond it
the far greater ruins of Bishop Gower’s very beautiful palace, with
its great rose-window and the arcaded parapet that characterises the
bishop’s buildings. And to the seeing eye this little hollow contains
far more than these mere stones: it is filled with countless memories
of saints, and those who were anything but saints; it is crossed by a
long procession of pilgrims; William I., who came to worship before St.
David’s shrine and in some sort apologise, as it were, for conquering
the country--an apology that was rather premature; Edward I. and his
faithful Eleanor, on the same errand, with more reason; William Rufus,
with little interest in saints or shrines; Henry II., “habited like a
pilgrim, and leaning on a staff,” and met at the gate by a long and
solemn procession. Of all these, Edward was the only one who worshipped
in this very building, for it is the fourth that has stood on this spot
and was raised just after Henry II.’s visit. Much restoration has given
it the look of a new building, as seen from the outside. Perhaps
this is why, as one passes through the doorway, one is inclined to hold
one’s breath from sheer surprise; for St. David’s Cathedral is “all
glorious within,” and there is nothing outside to prepare one for the
Norman arches with their varied and rich ornament, for the splendour
of the fifteenth-century roof, and of the rood-screen that Gower built
and is buried in. For nearly two hundred years the nave was covered
with whitewash, and indeed it has narrowly escaped worse things at the
hands of evil men, for Bishop Barlow, of whom we heard at Lamphey, and
heard nothing good, was minded to strip the roof of its lead, and was
only stopped in this enterprise by Henry VIII. It was this same bishop
who stripped the roof of Gower’s palace and so led to its decay; and
being, it seems, a veritable _esprit fort_, he not only was the first
Protestant bishop who took advantage of the permission to marry, but
he also took advantage of the dissolution of nunneries and married an
abbess. Their five daughters, it is said, all married bishops. Barlow
positively hated St. David’s. Why, he asked, should money be spent
on these ruinous buildings “to nourish clattering conventicles of
barbarous rural persons”? Why not move the see to Carmarthen, since
St. David’s was “in such a desolate angle, and in so rare a frequented
place, except of vagabond pilgrims”? The Saint himself was merely “an
antique gargle of idolatry.” In short, the lead of the roof was the
only valuable thing here.
[Illustration: ST. MARY’S COLLEGE, ST. DAVID’S.]
[Illustration: ST. DAVID’S CATHEDRAL, INTERIOR.]
Now Henry VIII., as we well know, had little enough respect for the
shrines of the saints or for the beauties of architecture, but he
had a great respect for the bones of his own grandfather--and these
lay here. So Barlow had to hold his hand; and we, as we stand in the
presbytery of the cathedral beside Edmund Tudor’s tomb, must remember
all we owe to it. Nor is his the only notable tomb in this place; for
here is the simple shrine before which so many kings, such countless
pilgrims, have knelt, and there is the recumbent figure that some say
is the Lord Rhys, the son of the brave Gwenllian, the greatest of the
princes of South Wales, of whom it was said that “his prowesse passed
his manners, his wytte passed his prowesse, his fayre speeche passed
his wytte, his good thewes passed his fayre speeche.” Of the grave of
Giraldus we must not be too sure, for though it is pointed out to us
there has been much discussion with regard to it. Yet somewhere in this
cathedral his dust lies we know.
Just beyond St. David’s is the sea. And here too we must go, and, if
possible, see the sun setting behind that western horizon where the
hills of Holy Ireland are said to be sometimes visible. St. Patrick
saw them, says the legend, as he sat on this shore, and vowed to
give his life to the conversion of that land. He kept his vow; but
William Rufus, who stood here with very different intentions, was less
successful. As he looked across the sea to Ireland, he said, “I will
summon hither all the ships of my realm, and with them make a bridge to
attack that country.” His words were reported to Murchard, Prince of
Leinster, who, says the story, paused awhile, and answered, “Did the
King add to this mighty threat, If God please?” and being informed that
he had made no mention of God in his speech, he replied, “I fear not
his coming.”
The legend that connects St. Patrick with this shore is extremely
circumstantial, but whether it has the least foundation in truth I do
not know. In the Rosy Valley, says the story, he built a college, where
he taught both boys and girls, and trained missionaries who afterwards
became Irish saints. One of the girls was Nôn, the mother of St. David,
and it was near Porth Clais that that saint was born. And when he was
old enough the boy too became a pupil of St. Patrick; and so, when
his college days at Llantwit were over, and he was made “Archbishop
of Legions,” because “his life was a perfect example of that goodness
which by his doctrine he taught,” he moved the see from Caerleon to
Menevia for love of his master St. Patrick. In this way was fulfilled
the prophesy of Merlin: “Menevia shall put on the pall of the City of
Legions”; and from that time forward Menevia has been called after its
first and most famous bishop, St. David.
From this strange, remote land of dreams and legends and memories of
early saints the transition to the world of modern progress is rather
sudden; for only fifteen miles lie between the shrine of St. David and
the new turbine steamers of Fishguard. We shall do well to choose the
upper road, which runs for the most part through a bare, inhospitable
land that is far more suggestive of the remoteness of the village-city
than the most dramatic mountain pass could be. Here and there we have
a fine glimpse of the coast, and there is a sudden softening in the
scenery as we draw near Goodwick. Here, at one side of the pretty bay
of Fishguard, are all the evidences of the new route to Ireland--the
station, the hotel, and the steamers at the quay, while across the bay,
beyond the long beach, the upper town of Fishguard appears above the
headland. Here, at Fishguard, the French landed in 1797. Then, as they
looked at those heights above the town, their hearts misgave them, for
the hills were ominously streaked and patched with scarlet. It became
plain to them that a very large force--a far larger force than they
were prepared to meet--was waiting to descend upon them. And so it
happened that their general, without loss of time, repaired to the
Royal Oak Inn, where he signed his capitulation to Lord Cawdor. I do
not know when, if ever, he found out that the masses of scarlet figures
on the hills were not soldiers, but the enterprising matrons and maids
of all the county round, who had come out in the red cloaks that were
then part of the national dress, to see what was going forward.
The lower town of Fishguard lies in a cleft between two steep hills,
and its pretty little harbour has all the picturesqueness that quays
and boats and rippling green water can give. The further hill of the
two, which we must climb, is of a most amazing gradient--computed in
contour-books as averaging 1 in 7, but certainly 1 in 5 in places.
From the high ground to which it leads us, lying between Fishguard and
Newport, there are glimpses from time to time of fine coast scenery,
and beyond Newport the road lies through very pretty country, under
the conspicuous peak of Carningly. In the churchyard at Nevern there
is a beautiful Celtic cross, the cross of St. Brynach, an Irish
contemporary of St. David. From this point the road gradually rises to
a considerable height, and then runs down a long hill to Cardigan.
Cardigan, once “the lock and key of all Wales,” gives us no hint of
its former greatness. It appears an uninteresting little town till one
realises that it is the Aberteifi whose castle was taken and retaken,
burnt, and shattered, and built again, through all the stormiest years
of Welsh history; captured by the men of the north from the men of
the south; defended by both against the Anglo-Normans; attacked by
the Flemings; at one time the court of Llewelyn, the greatest of the
northern princes; and at another the court of Lord Rhys, the greatest
of the southern princes. Here lived Griffith, the father of Rhys, “the
light and the strength and the gentleness of the men of the south,”
whose brave wife, Gwenllian, was killed by Maurice de Londres; and here
he and Gwenllian’s brother, the great Owen Gwynedd, avenged her, when
Cardigan bridge broke under the retreating Normans, and “the salt green
wave of Teivy was clogged” with the bodies of the slain. And here the
Lord Rhys held his famous revels, which included one of those mediæval
Tournaments of Song with which Wagner has made us so familiar. The
invitations were sent out in good time--a year and a day before the
event--and many hundreds of English and Normans were bidden from “all
Britain, Ireland, and the islands adjacent.” The historian goes on to
tell us how “Rhys caused all the bards or poets throughout all Wales
to come thither; and for a better diversion to the company he provided
chairs to be set in the hall, in which the bards being seated, they
were to answer each other in rhyme, and those that acquitted themselves
most handsomely and overcame the rest, were promised great rewards and
rich presents.” And the men of Gwynedd won the prize for poetry, but
the men of the south were victorious in music.
Such in the old days was Cardigan, where the tourist may pause for a
mid-day chop or buy a picture postcard.
Two miles above Cardigan, on a crag beside the Teify, are the ruined
towers of Cilgerran, which have been very little concerned with
history, though they have stood here since the days of Henry I. Their
striking position above the wooded banks of the river, however, will
repay us for a detour of a mile or two, and we can rejoin the main road
at the beautiful bridge of Llechryd. Here, where the prevailing note
of the landscape is peace, the gentle Teify, whose purling waters have
so often run red, was once actually dammed--as on another occasion at
Cardigan--by the bodies of the slain, when the princes of the south met
the invading princes of Powys and overthrew them.
From Llechryd we follow the Teify past Newcastle Emlyn; and thence, if
we like, we may cross the moors to Lampeter; or, better still, we may
go straight on through the Henllan woods to Llandyssil, a lovely little
place where fishermen delight to dwell, and where in consequence there
is a really charming little hotel. And if, as may well happen, there
is no room for us there, we can after all go on our way to Lampeter,
for there also there is quite a nice hotel, though of course it lacks
the charm of the country garden and the rushing Teify. The moorland
road between Llandyssil and Lampeter is in its way unique, for on both
sides of it the hills are covered with a thick, short growth of gorse,
a carpet of gold spread almost smoothly for miles.
At Lampeter there is nothing to detain us but the important business
of consulting maps. For here is the parting of the ways. If our object
is merely to reach the English border, our best way perhaps is to
aim at Builth. To do this we must strike across the hills through
lovely scenery; past Pumpsaint, where George Borrow awoke to hear
the murmuring of the Cothi; through Llandovery, where we have been
before on the way to Carmarthen; and thence over a really fine pass to
Llanwrtyd Wells. If, on the other hand, we are aiming at North Wales
our obvious course is to strike across to Aberaeron, and thence follow
the coast to Aberystwith and Barmouth. And if--and this is the course
I strongly recommend--we intend to complete the circle, and end our
little tour by running down the Wye Valley, then too we should make for
Aberystwith, and, turning thence eastward, join the infant Wye on the
slopes of Plynlimmon.
[Illustration: KILGERRAN CASTLE, NEAR CARDIGAN.]
[Illustration: THE WYE NEAR ITS SOURCE.]
THE VALLEY OF THE WYE
Those who have stout hearts and stout boots may, I believe, discover
the actual source of the Wye among the rushes of Plynlimmon. Five
miles of hard walking over rather dull downs will procure them the
satisfaction of seeing the first gleams of the thin silver thread that
is destined to grow into the most beautiful river of England. Most of
us, however, will be content to meet the Wye for the first time when
it is five miles old, so to speak, at the point where it touches the
high-road from Aberystwith to Newtown. Even here it is a tiny stream,
rushing lightheartedly down the hill over the rocks, unsobered as yet
by the dignified reflections of Hereford and Tintern and Chepstow
Castle.
These slopes of Plynlimmon are not particularly inspiring, except when
regarded as the cradle of the Wye, and of that greater river whose
tributary she is, the Severn. It is true that the standard of Wales,
with its red dragon, once floated victoriously on the side of this
hill, and the short grass has been dyed with the blood of the Flemings,
who mustered here to chastise that stout rebel, Owen Glyndwr, and were
thoroughly chastised by him instead. But in themselves the heights of
Plynlimmon are a little uninteresting. Short grass and rushes are all
that grow upon them, and though their rounded outlines have a dignity
of their own, the lack of colour makes them rather desolate. It is not
till the Wye has passed Llangurig that it begins to earn its fame.
Curiously enough, the Wye’s fame seems to depend mainly on its lower
reaches. Nine people out of ten regard it as rising, so to speak,
in Hereford; the Upper Wye is unknown to them and considered of no
account. Yet to those who know it the Upper Wye, with its rugged hills
and its wealth of colours, has a stronger charm even than the wooded
loveliness of Symond’s Yat or of Tintern.
At Llangurig--which is a wind-swept village with a nice little inn and
a reputation for good fishing--the river and the road that follows
it turn sharply to the right, and begin to descend by a very gentle
gradient towards Rhayader. The landscape changes gradually. The hills
lose their bleak desolation only to become cultivated and commonplace:
then the fields yield to moorlands and the rounded curves to bold and
jagged rocks; and at last, near the spot where the river Marteg adds
its waters to the Wye and the railway joins the road, the great hills
rise on each side so precipitously that the way lies almost through a
defile. The hilltops are bare and grey, but by the banks of the river
is a belt of trees; and as the valley widens the slopes are no longer
bare but are glorious in purple and gold, in heather and gorse. And
where the flaming sides of the Elan Valley converge with the valley of
the Wye stands the tiny town of Rhayader.
This is, I think, the gem of the Wye. It is well, therefore, if
possible, to stay here for a day or two; and fortunately there is a
nice little hotel to stay in. There are hills near and far, and on
every hill are all the colours of the rainbow, and with the passing of
every cloud the colours move and change. Close at hand are slopes of
bracken topped by rugged crags; far away the hills of the Elan Valley
are blue and amethyst. The river rushes through the town, giving to it
its name of Rhayader Gwy, the Falls of the Wye, though the falls are
not what they once were, I believe, before the bridge was built. Of
course there is a castle-mound, for no Welsh town of a respectable age
is complete without one. The castle itself has disappeared. The days
of its life, indeed, appear to have been few and evil. It was built by
“the Lord Rhys,” the mightiest of all the princes of the south, but so
strenuous was the life of his day that he was obliged to rebuild it a
few years later. Afterwards he was for a short time imprisoned by his
own sons, and it was while he was in this undignified position that his
castle of Rhayader was seized by his enemies. But these dim memories
have lately been eclipsed. Those who visit Rhayader to-day think little
of the valorous and potent prince of ancient Wales; they think almost
exclusively of the Birmingham Waterworks. We may forgive them for
this, for the Birmingham Waterworks are more romantic than one would
expect--romantic not merely as all great engineering works must be,
with the romance of enterprise and achievement, but also romantically
beautiful. One may drive for miles beside the lakes that wind into the
heart of the mountains, and would have so natural an air if it were not
for their mighty dams of Caban, and Pen-y-Garreg, and Craig Goch. It is
a drive worth taking, for the road is good, the mountains tower above
it with real grandeur, and the waters have pathos as well as beauty.
The legend of buried houses and churches is common to many lakes; but
in the case of the lakes of Cwm Elan it is no legend, but a fact,
that their waters flow over the ground where generations of men have
lived and worked, have ploughed their fields and said their prayers.
The affairs of most of them are forgotten as completely as their
houses are buried, but there is one memory here that no waters can
hide--whether of Cwm Elan or of the chilly Serpentine or of the blue
Mediterranean--the memory of Percy and Harriet Shelley. They lived here
once, young and happy, and would have thought it a wild prophecy indeed
if it had been foretold to them that not only they themselves, but even
their quiet homestead among the green fields, would be destroyed by
water.
From Rhayader to Newbridge the road still closely follows the river,
which, as we watch it mile by mile, gradually becomes wider and calmer.
For the first few miles the banks are wild enough, and very beautiful;
then suddenly the river is hidden from us by the deep shades and
countless stems of Doldowlod Woods, where James Watt once lived; and by
the time we dart out into the sunlight again we are nearing Newbridge.
On this road there is nothing to limit our speed except the law, for
from end to end of the Wye the surface is good, and there are no hills
that deserve the name. At Newbridge we leave the river for a few miles,
but join it again near Builth, and cross it to enter that town.
Builth is unattractive. It professes to be a Spa, but I never heard
of any one who drank the waters; and it is hardly likely to become
popular, since all the charms of Llanwrtyd Wells are but thirteen miles
away on the one side, and all the fashion of Llandrindod only seven
miles away on the other. Llanwrtyd is a delightful little place, with
a good hotel and lovely surroundings, unspoilt as yet by popularity;
while Llandrindod, as every one knows, is beloved by so many that it is
no longer very lovable. Builth has little to offer in rivalry of these,
and indeed makes small show of hospitality, maintaining in this matter
the character it earned long ago, when it refused to admit its fugitive
prince, the last Llewelyn. It is only a little way from here to the
dell whither he struggled through the snow from this his treacherous
town, only to find fresh treachery, and to die through its means. His
dust lies, they say, at the spot called Cefn-y-Bedd, or the Bank of the
Grave; and here in quite recent times a monument of stone has been set
up. It stands close to the wayside on the road from Builth to Llanwrtyd.
This, however, is not our road, which follows the Wye very closely for
a time; through Erwood, where from the top of a slight rise we have a
wide and beautiful view; past Llyswen and the “Three Cocks,” one of the
most famous of fishing inns, and through Glasbury to Hay. We are now in
a broad and fertile valley; the hills are wooded; the river is growing
slow and stately in its demeanour. The whole aspect of the country has
changed, for at Hay we shall leave all the wildness of Wales behind us,
and shall enter the quiet, homely county of Hereford.
“I cam _in crepusculo_ to the Hay,” says Leland, and he chose his time
wisely.
Hay, or La Haie, as it was originally called, was once the
meeting-ground of all those turbulent mediæval passions that flourished
so exceedingly on the border. For this reason it is full of ghosts.
From this, the Welsh side, it has rather an undistinguished air, but
when first seen by twilight from the English side, with the Black
Mountains lowering behind it, and the remains of its grim castle
dominating it, little Hay seizes the imagination. For those who
approach it thus _in crepusculo_, like Leland, the past for ever
lives in its commonplace streets more insistently than the present;
lives above all in its castle--“the which sumetime hath bene right
stately”--the castle with the long, picturesque flight of steps, and
the longer and still more picturesque history. Through that great
doorway many feet have passed that never came out, for those that
entered the castle of Hay did it at their peril. The greater part of
the building as it now stands is of Tudor date, but the entrance has
by some means survived since King John’s time, and this in spite of
difficulties: for the place was plundered during the Border Wars,
destroyed by the Welsh themselves in self-defence, rebuilt by Henry
III., captured by Llewelyn, retaken by Prince Edward, captured once
more by Llewelyn’s grandson, and finally suffered the general fate of
Welsh castles. “Now being almost totally decay’d,” says Camden, “it
complains of the outrages of that profligate Rebel, Owen Glyn Dowrdwy,
who in his March through these Countries consumed it with fire.”
This last disaster may account for the entirely modern appearance of
the houses; but there is nothing, no slate roof, no shop-window full
of cheap blouses, that can make one forget the haunting presence of
those that walk unseen in Hay--the undying ghosts of a hundred battles,
murders, and sudden deaths.
Soon after leaving Hay we pass the remains of Clifford Castle. Here was
born Jane de Clifford, destined to be so fair that men would call her
the Rose of the World; and here no doubt she played her childish games
on the banks of the Wye, with no disturbing visions of that harder game
which she was to play later on and finally to lose. The story of the
avenging poison-cup is untrue, we are told: it was in the nunnery of
Godstow that Fair Rosamund died, and was buried beneath the cruellest
epitaph, surely, that was ever graven on a tomb.
[Illustration: CONFLUENCE OF THE WYE AND THE MARTEG NEAR RHAYADER.]
[Illustration: HEREFORD.]
Two miles beyond Clifford is the toll-bridge of Whitney, and this we
cross with a pretty view of the river on each side of us. Our way
lies through Letton, past the turn to Monnington--which claims to
be the burial-place of Owen Glyndwr--and through Bridge Sollars
to Hereford. The landscape all the way is characteristic of the
country: a scene of quiet fields and gentle river, of thatched
cottages and gay gardens. It is not exciting, but it is extremely
pleasant. Characteristic as it is, however, it does not represent
Herefordshire at its best. The hills above Ledbury, the hop-gardens
round Leominster, the woods and the wide views near Richard’s Castle,
are all more distinctive and more beautiful than this part of the Wye
Valley. Indeed, if we were not at this moment pledged to follow the
Wye we should do well to drive from Hay to Hereford by way of the
Golden Valley, though the journey is considerably longer and the road
by no means so good. This valley was originally named by the British,
from the river that runs through it, the Valley of the Dore, or of
the Water, for _water_ is in Welsh _dwr_. The Normans, jumping to
conclusions, translated this into _Val d’Or_, and so it became the
Golden Valley; “which name,” says Camden, “It may well be thought to
deserve, for its golden, rich, and pleasant fertility.”