I crossed the Severn at the ferry of Ash, about ten miles above Bristol,
and got to Monmouth to dinner through a rugged, indifferent country. It
is a pitiful old town, and hath nothing remarkable in it; and from thence
through a fat fertile country I got to the city of Hereford at night.
Hereford is the dirtiest old city I have seen in England, yet pretty
large; the streets are irregular and the houses old, and its cathedral a
reverend old pile, but not beautiful; the niches of the walls of the
church are adorned with the figures of its bishops as big as the life, in
a cumbent posture, with the year of their interments newly painted over.
Some of them are in the twelve hundredth year of Christ. Here they drink
nothing but cider, which is very cheap and very good; and the very hedges
in the country are planted with apple-trees. About three miles from
Hereford in my road to Ludlow I saw a fine old seat called Hampton Court,
belonging to my Lord Coningsby. The plantations on rising grounds round
it give an august splendour to the house, which consists of an oval court
with suitable offices, not unlike an house belonging to the Duke of
Somerset near London; and from thence in a few hours I arrived at Ludlow,
the capital of South Wales, and where the Princes of Wales formerly, and
since them the Presidents of Wales, kept their courts.
Ludlow is one of the neatest, clean, pretty towns in England. The street
by which you enter the town is spacious, with handsome houses
sash-windowed on each side, which leads you by an ascent to the castle on
the left of the top of the hill, and the church on the right, from whence
there runs also another handsome street. The castle hath a very
commanding prospect of the adjacent country; the offices in the outer
court are falling down, and a great part of the court is turned into a
bowling-green; but the royal apartments in the castle, with some old
velvet furniture and a sword of state, are still left. There is also a
neat little chapel; but the vanity of the Welsh gentry when they were
made councillors has spoiled it by adorning it with their names and arms,
of which it is full.
A small expense would still make this castle a habitable and beautiful
place, lying high, and overlooking a fine country; there is also a fine
prospect from the churchyard, and the church is very neat. I saw
abundance of pretty ladies here, and well dressed, who came from the
adjacent counties, for the convenience and cheapness of boarding.
Provisions of all sorts are extremely plentiful and cheap here, and very
good company.
I stayed some days here, to make an excursion into South Wales and know a
little of the manners of the country, as I design to do at Chester for
North Wales. The gentry are very numerous, exceedingly civil to
strangers, if you don't come to purchase and make your abode amongst
them. They live much like Gascoynes--affecting their own language,
valuing themselves much on the antiquity of their families, and are proud
of making entertainments.
The Duke of Powis, of the name of Herbert, hath a noble seat near this
town, but I was not at it; the family followed King James's fortunes to
France, and I suppose the seat lies neglected. From Ludlow in a short
day's riding through a champaign country I arrived at the town of
Shrewsbury.
Shrewsbury stands upon an eminence, encircled by the Severn like a horse-
shoe; the streets are large, and the houses well built. My Lord Newport,
son to the Earl of Bradford, hath a handsome palace, with hanging gardens
down to the river; as also Mr. Kinnaston, and some other gentlemen. There
is a good town-house, and the most coffee-houses round it that ever I saw
in any town; but when you come into them, they are but ale-houses (only
they think that the name of coffee-house gives a better air). King
Charles would have made them a city, but they chose rather to remain a
corporation, as they are, for which they were called the "proud
Salopians." There is a great deal of good company in this town, for the
convenience of cheapness; and there are assemblies and balls for the
young ladies once a week. The Earl of Bradford and several others have
handsome seats near it; from hence I came to Wrexham, in Wales, a
beautiful market-town; the church is the beautifullest country church in
England, and surpasses some cathedrals. I counted fifty-two statues as
big as the life in the steeple or tower, which is built after the manner
of your Dutch steeples, and as high as any there. I was there on a
market-day, and was particularly pleased to see the Welsh ladies come to
market in their laced hats, their own hair hanging round their shoulders,
and blue and scarlet cloaks like our Amazons--some of them with a
greyhound in a string in their hands.
Whitchurch, near it, hath a fine church, built by the Earl of Bridgwater;
and so to Chester, an ancient and large city, with a commanding castle.
The city consists of four large streets, which make an exact cross, with
the town-house and Exchange in the middle; but you don't walk the streets
here, but in galleries up one pair of stairs, which keeps you from the
rain in winter, and sun in summer; and the houses and shops, with
gardens, go all off these galleries, which they call rows. The city is
walled round, and the wall so firmly paved that it gives you an agreeable
prospect of the country and river, as you walk upon it. The churches are
very neat, and the cathedral an august old pile; there is an ancient
monument of an Emperor of Germany, with assemblies every week. While I
continued at Chester, I made an excursion into North Wales, and went into
Denbigh, the capital of that country, where are the remains of a very
great and old castle, as is also at Flint, the capital of Flintshire.
These castles were the frontier garrisons of Wales before it came under
the subjection of England. The country is mountainous, and full of iron
and lead works; and here they begin to differ from the English both in
language and dress.
From Flint, along the seaside, in three hours I arrived at the famous
cold bath called St. Winifred's Well; and the town from thence called
Holywell is a pretty large well-built village, in the middle of a grove,
in a bottom between, two hills. The well is in the foot of one of the
hills, and spouts out about the bigness of a barrel at once, with such
force that it turns three or four mills before it falls into the sea. The
well where you bathe is floored with stone surrounded with pillars, on
which stands a neat little chapel dedicated to St. Winifred, but now
turned into a Protestant school. However, to supply the loss of this
chapel, the Roman Catholics have chapels erected almost in every inn for
the devotion of the pilgrims that flock hither from all the Popish parts
of England. The water, you may imagine, is very cold, coming from the
bowels of an iron mountain, and never having met with the influence of
the sun till it runs from the well.
The legend of St. Winifred is too long and ridiculous for a letter; I
leave you to Dr. Fleetwood (when Bishop of St. Asaph) for its
description. I will only tell you, in two words, that this St. Winifred
was a beautiful damsel that lived on the top of the hill; that a prince
of the country fell deeply in love with her; that coming one day when her
parents were abroad, and she resisting his passion, turned into rage, and
as she was flying from him cut off her head, which rolled down the hill
with her body, and at the place where it stopped gushed out this well of
water. But there was also a good hermit that lived at the bottom of the
hill, who immediately claps her head to her body, and by the force of the
water and his prayers she recovered, and lived to perform many miracles
for many years after. They give you her printed litanies at the well.
And I observed the Roman Catholics in their prayers, not with eyes lifted
up to heaven, but intent upon the water, as if it were the real blood of
St. Winifred that was to wash them clean from all their sins.
In every inn you meet with a priest, habited like country gentlemen, and
very good companions. At the "Cross Keys," where I lodged, there was one
that had been marked out to me, to whom I was particularly civil at
supper; but finding by my conversation I was none of them, he drank and
swore like a dragoon, on purpose, as I imagine, to disguise himself. From
Holywell in two hours I came to a handsome seat of Sir John Conway's at
Redland, and next day to Conway.
I do not know any place in Europe that would make a finer landscape in a
picture than Conway at a mile's distance. It lies on the side of a hill,
on the banks of an arm of the sea about the breadth of the Thames at
London, and within two little miles of the sea, over which we ferry to go
to the town.
The town is walled round, with thirty watch-towers at proper distances on
the walls; and the castle with its towers, being very white, makes an
august show at a distance, being surrounded with little hills on both
sides of the bay or river, covered with wood. But when you cross the
ferry and come into the town, there is nothing but poverty and misery.
The castle is a heap of rubbish uncovered, and these towers on the walls
only standing vestiges of what Wales was when they had a prince of their
own.
They speak all Welsh here, and if a stranger should lose his way in this
county of Carnarvon, it is ten to one if he meets with any one that has
English enough to set him right. The people are also naturally very
surly, and even if they understand English, if you ask them a question
their answer is, "Dame Salsenach," or "I cannot speak Saxon or English."
Their Bibles and prayer-books are all printed in Welsh in our character;
so that an Englishman can read their language, although he doth not
understand a word of it. It hath a great resemblance of the Bas-Bretons,
but they retain the letter and character as well as language, as the
Scots and Highlanders do.
They retain several Popish customs in North Wales, for on Sunday (after
morning service) the whole parish go to football till the afternoon
service begins, and then they go to the ale-house and play at all manner
of games (which ale-house is often kept by the parson, for their livings
are very small).
They have also offerings at funerals, which is one of the greatest
perquisites the parson hath. When the body is deposited in the church
during the service for the dead, every person invited to the burial lays
a piece of money upon the altar to defray the dead person's charges to
the other world, which, after the ceremony is over, the parson puts in
his pocket. From Conway, through the mountainous country of Carnarvon, I
passed the famous mountain of Penmaen-Mawr, so dreadfully related by
passengers travelling to Ireland. It is a road cut out of the side of
the rock, seven feet wide; the sea lies perpendicularly down, about forty
fathoms on one side, and the mountain is about the same height above it
on the other side. It looks dismal, but not at all dangerous, for there
is now a wall breast-high along the precipice. However, there is an ale-
house at the bottom of the hill on the other side, with this inscription,
"Now your fright is over, take a dram." From hence I proceeded to a
little town called Bangor, where there is a cathedral such as may be
expected in Wales; and from thence to Carnarvon, the capital of the
county. Here are the vestiges of a large old castle, where one of the
Henrys, King of England, was born; as was another at Monmouth, in South
Wales. For the Welsh were so hard to be reconciled to their union with
England at first, it was thought policy to send our queens to lie-in
there, to make our princes Welshmen born, and that way ingratiate the
inhabitants to their subjection to a prince born in their own country.
And for that reason our kings to this day wear a leek (the badge of
Wales) on St. David's Day, the patron of this country; as they do the
Order of the Thistle on St. Andrew's Day, the patron of Scotland.
Carnarvon is a pretty little town, situated in the bottom of a bay, and
might be a place of good trade, if the country afforded a consumption.
The sea flows quite round from Bangor to Carnarvon Bay, which separates
Anglesea from the rest of Wales, and makes it an island. Beaumaris, the
capital of the island, hath been a flourishing town; there are still two
very good streets, and the remains of a very large castle. The Lord
Bulkeley hath a noble ancient seat planted with trees on the side of the
hill above the town, from whence one hath a fine prospect of the bay and
adjacent country; the church is very handsome, and there are some fine
ancient monuments of that family and some Knights Templars in it. The
family of Bulkeley keep in their family a large silver goblet, with which
they entertain their friends, with an inscription round relating to the
royal family when in distress, which is often remembered by the
neighbouring gentry, whose affections run very much that way all over
Wales.
I went from hence to Glengauny, the ancient residence of Owen Tudor, but
now belongs to the Bulkeleys, and to be sold. It is a good old house,
and I believe never was larger. There is a vulgar error in this country
that Owen Tudor was married to a Queen of England, and that the house of
York took that surname from him; whereas the Queen of England that was
married to him was a daughter of the King of France and dowager of
England, and had no relation to the Crown; he had indeed two daughters by
her, that were married into English noble families--to one of which Henry
VII. was related. But Owen Tudor was neither of the blood of the Princes
of Wales himself, nor gave descent to that of the English. He was a
private gentleman, of about 3,000 pounds a year, who came to seek his
fortune at the English court, and the queen fell in love with him.
I was invited to a cock-match some miles from Glengauny, where were above
forty gentlemen, most of them of the names of Owen, Parry, and Griffith;
they fought near twenty battles, and every battle a cock was killed.
Their cocks are doubtless the finest in the world; and the gentlemen,
after they were a little heated with liquor, were as warm as their cocks.
A great deal of bustle and noise grew by degrees after dinner was over;
but their scolding was all in Welsh, and civilities in English. We had a
very great dinner; and the house (called The College) where we dined was
built very comically; it is four storeys high, built on the side of a
hill, and the stable is in the garret. There is a broad stone staircase
on the outside of the house, by which you enter into the several
apartments. The kitchen is at the bottom of the hill, a bedchamber above
that, the parlour (where we dined) is the third storey, and on the top of
the hill is the stable.
From hence I stepped over to Holyhead, where the packet-boats arrive from
Ireland. It is a straggling, confused heap of thatched houses built on
rocks; yet within doors there are in several of them very good
accommodation for passengers, both in lodging and diet.
The packet-boats from Dublin arrive thrice a week, and are larger than
those to Holland and France, fitted with all conveniences for passengers;
and indeed St. George's Channel requires large ships in winter, the wind
being generally very boisterous in these narrow seas.
On my return to Chester I passed over the mountain called Penmaen Ross,
where I saw plainly a part of Ireland, Scotland, England, and the Isle of
Man all at once.
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