|
The anonymous nursery rhyme listing the so-called seven wonders of Wales was probably written by an English visitor to North Wales sometime in the late l8th or early l9th Century. Many would argue with his choice of so-called wonders, but as they are all found in the same general area, from our base in Chester we can visit them in turn in a day or two. Chester, nestled snugly on a great curve in the River Dee (Afon Dyfrdwy), was once named Deva, the ancient headquarters of the 20th Roman Legion in the 1st Century A.D. There are many Roman remains to be seen here, including part of the excavated amphitheatre, hypocaust, and baths. It is of more interest to us perhaps, that there are Chester laws still extant (dating from the late Middle Ages) that proscribe the actions of Welsh people within the city gates. Fortunately these laws, dealing mainly with the times that the Welsh are allowed into the city and what weapons they are limited to carry) are not currently enforced by the chief constable, a Welshman!! From the northwest corner of the high city walls (first begun by mercenaries in the pay of Rome), the hills of Wales can be seen in the distance, the most prominent being Moel Fammau, in the Clwydian Range. Our first destination is Pistyll Rhaeadr, however, located in the peaceful, green Berwyn Mountains (famous for their succulent Welsh lamb), southwest of the Vale of Clwyd. l. Pistyll Rhaeadr Translated as the spring of the waterfall, the impressive cascade, at 240 ft (74 metres) the highest in Wales, is also the most inaccessible of our seven wonders. From Chester, we take the A483 road to Oswestry (Croeswallt), a town east of Offa's Dyke (the 8th Century border between England and Wales, but one that stubbornly has held on to its Welsh identity right up to the present. To reach the secluded falls, after a pleasant drive through mostly uninhabited countryside, (on the journey,try counting the sheep, Wales has more than any other region of the British Isles), we reach the village of Llanrhaeadr ym Mochnant. (A translation is the Church of the waterfall in the village of the stream of the Pigs). This village was once the parish of vicar (and later Bishop) William Morgan (l545-l604) where he worked on his translation of the Holy Bible into Welsh that became one of the deciding factors in the survival of the language. A narrow single-lane road, hardly suitable for coaches, leads to the falls, about 4 miles distant. Traffic must drive very slowly for passing places are few and far between At the farmhouse at the base of the falls, It is a blessing to find no welcoming tea houses or tourist shops; thus the falls can be enjoyed in their natural splendor as they descend down the steep hillside in a series of leaps. The best time to visit, of course, is in spring, when the melting snows from Moel Sych (2,700 ft) and his companions feed the mountain streams. In the area you will also find 4-mile long Lake Vyrnwy, formed at the end of the last century to supply water to Liverpool and drowning the village of Llanddwyn in the process. The lake, nestled among thickly wooded hills, has a visitor center in a converted chapel. A motor road around the shores of the lake provides a pleasant, unhurried drive before we return to hour base in crowded Chester. A detour to Llangynog churchyard, on the road from Bala to Welshpool allows us to view three strange graves. It seems that a ropemaker, glassmaker and stone mason were on a pilgrimage to one of Wales's holy sites, when all three fell ill. They consequently made a pact that the survivors would provide a decent burial and a properly marked grave for the deceased. The rope maker died first, and he was duly buried, with a rope chiselled on the stone covering the grave. The glassmaker was next to die, and the mason carved leaded windows into the cover. The mason was now left all alone with no one to bury him or carve is tombstone. When he sensed death approaching, he lay down in his newly-dug grave and pulled the stone cover over him. His grave has a missing centre section-the piece that he pulled over his head!!. 2. Wrexham Steeple. It is a short distance by modern super highway from our headquarters in Chester to the Welsh market and industrial center of Wrexham, by far the largest town in North Wales. The steeple of the famous rhyme turns out to be not a steeple at all, but the l6th century tower of the Church of St.Giles. The impressive church may look familiar to many American visitors, for an exact replica is found on the grounds of Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut. Yale is the anglicized version of a prominent Welsh family from nearby Plas yn Ial, (near Bryn Eglwys) among whose members was Elihu Yale, one of the benefactors who helped found Yales University. The richly-decorated tower, with its four striking hexagonal turrets, was begun in l506. It is graced by many medieval carvings including those of an arrow and a deer, the attributes of St.Giles. The interior of the church also contains many late-medieval carvings and monuments. On a window you can find the words of the l8l9 hymn by Reginald Heber, "From Greenland's Icy Mountains." Just outside the church, west of the tower is the grave of Elihu Yale, with its long, fanciful epitaph containing the following lines:
In Africa travell'd, and in Asia wed, Where long he lov'd and thriv'd; At London dead. To commemorate the 250th anniversary of Yale's gift, his tomb was restored in l968 by the university bearing his name. To enter the churchyard, you pass through the magnificently-carved wrought-iron gates, completed in l72i by the Davies Brothers of nearby Bersham, who were also responsible for the even more elaborate gates of Chirk Castle, perhaps the finest example of wrought-iron work in Britain. The painstaking detail of the iron work makes us wonder why these gates at Chirk were not given an honored place as one of the wonders of Wales. Another impressive example of the skill of the Davies Brothers is found in the gates at Leeswood Hall, near Mold in Flintshire. Bersham is a small village that holds special importance for historians for it is one of the cradles of the Industrial Revolution as the place where iron making began in l670 and where John Wilkinson set up shop in l76l, making the area one of the most important iron manufacturing centers in the world. Chirk Castle is still inhabited by the Middleton family; it may have been begun around l290 by the architect responsible for so many masterpieces of castle-building in Wales, James of St.George. We now return to Chester before starting out on our journey to the next of the seven wonders: Snowdon's Mountain 3. Snowdon's Mountain. It is hard to imagine Mt. Snowdon today without its people; it is climbed by approximately half a million each year, on foot, in wheelchairs, on crutches, on horseback or piggy-back, and by cog railway. Perhaps we should change the words of the little rhyme to include Snowdon's mountain with its people,. for on no time of the day or season of the year are they absent from its slopes. Erosion is fast taking its toll of this, the most spectacular of our seven wonders. Mt. Snowdon gets its English name from the Saxon Snow Dun , the snow hill or fortress; it is but one mountain inside the largest of the three national parks of Wales (845 sq.miles). Within the park (Parc Genedlaethol Eryri) are several mountain ranges, with l5 peaks over 3,000 feet. For many US visitors, the park, whose Welsh name Eryri means home of eagles, resembles a miniature Western Colorado. because of its extremely steep and rugged slopes. Though tiny by world standards, the precipitous slopes found in many areas of the park helped train the British team that conquered Mt.Everest in l953 The highest point is Yr Wyddfa (3,560 ft), named after Rhita Gawr, a giant killed by Arthur said to be buried in a cairn (Gwyddfa Rhita) on top of the mountain. Into one of its lakes, Llyn Llydaw, the mighty Excalibur, (Caledfwlch) was thrown by Arthur, mortally wounded nearby. Other heights on the same mountain massif are Crib-y-Ddysgyl, Crib Goch, Lliwedd, and Yr Aran. In l896, the Snowdon Mountain Railway was completed from its starting point at Llanberis. some of its sturdy little steam engines date from that year. It replaced the local guides with their mountain ponies which for decades had been taking Victorian tourists to the summit to watch the sunrise. The engines run on a narrow gauge rack-and-pinion line, the only one in the British Isles for about five miles covering a maximum gradient of l in 5.5, completing the journey in about two and a half hours,with half an hour allowed for refreshments at the cafe just below the cairn on the summit. When the weather allows, for Snowdon is notorious for its sudden mists and complete lack of visibility, the views are as spectacular as any in the whole British Isles. The Railway got off to a bad start. On opening day, Easter Monday, l896, Engine No l (named the Ladas) fell into a ravine. The coaches did not fall, but two scared passengers jumped out, and one was killed. In the one hundred and one years since that time there has never been another accident connected with the railway; neither has the company used a No.l engine. The trains do not operate in high winds or severe weather during its season between Easter and the end of October. One of the most well-known climbers who've chanced the weather and their luck on Snowdon's mountain was 83 year old William Glandstone, the former Prime Minister who gave one of his speeches on freedom for small states from a large rock that was then named after him. Before Gladstone, of course, Wordsworth's Prelude had described the author's experiences climbing before sunrise. Despite the indignities heaped upon it by decades and multitudes of climbers, indifferent to its history, its legends, and its place as a refuge for Welsh armies defying the might of England, Yr Wyddfa's majesty, as well as its position as the highest peak in the British Isles outside Scotland, truly include it as one of the wonders of Wales. 4. Overton Yew Trees. For many centuries, the pleasant village of Overton was located in Maelor Saesneg (English Maelor), a part of Flintshire entirely surrounded by English territory. It is now in the county of Denbigh as part of Wrexham Maelor, the new parliamentary district. On the way to Overton, we should stop at Bangor-Is-Y-Coed (Bangor-on-Dee), whose l7th Century bridge is said to have been designed by Inigo Jones, and where one of the very earliest monasteries in Britain was founded in the 5th Century. After the defeat of the Welsh at the Battle of Chester in 6l6, the pagan king Aethelfrith ordered the slaughter of the monks, many of whom fled to Ynys Enlli (Bardsey Island), off the Llyn Peninsular. According to the English historian Bede, over l200 monks were killed and the monastery destroyed. St. Mary's Church, Overton, dates only to the l3th Century though there may have been a small Christian oratory on the site as early as the 7th Century.. One of the oldest fetures of the church is a Norman circle cross built into the western pillar of the Nave .On the pillar by the pulpit is an unusual brass processional cross that was brought back from Abyssinia by British soldiers in the nineteenth century. Rescued from a scrap pile, the inscribed cross may date to the 6th Century. Some of the twenty-one famous yew trees in the churchyard date back at least to the l2th Century when the first stone church was erected. Perhaps the yew tree, which begins again with new roots after the older tree has rotted away and therefore lasts for many centuries, had a pre-Christian tradition. It is certainly difficult to ascertain the`importance to Welsh history of the Overton yew trees and their inclusion in the nursery rhyme unless one considers the honored place of Welsh mercenary soldiers in the armies of England. Yew's elastic properties made it the ideal wood for the longbow, for over three centuries the main weapon of the army. Edward lst is said to have decreed that yews trees should be planted in all English churchyards to provide a plentiful supply of wood for the longbow. To effectively utilize its power, a large body of archers was recruited in Wales, a country with a long military tradition. In the l4th century, they were paid 6 pence a day, much more than they could ever have earned on the farm or in the mill. Even during the heady years of Prince Llewelyn ap Gruffudd's brief rule, as many as nine thousand Welsh archers were fighting for Edward lst in his l277 campaign to conquer Wales. After the Conquest, Wales had many more soldiers willing to fight for a cause other than that of their native country, and were heavily recruited. Welsh archers were prominent in the Battle of Falkirk l298, at Bannockburn in l3l4, and were especially noticeable in the great victory at Crecy in l346, where they were dressed in green and white, and where the tradition of wearing a leek may have originated. Perhaps their greatest day of glory came at Agincourt, in l4l5 when the skill of the Welsh archers helped the rag-bag army of Henry V to completely annihilate the flower of the French army. n l483, such was the demand for skilled archers to serve in the armies of the Crown, that Richard ll ordered a general planting of yews to provide the wood for their longbows. 5. St.Winifred's Wells It is but a short journey by road from Chester to Holywell, in Flintshire and the next wonder of Wales. On your way, you may wish to stop briefly at Flint, on the shores of the Dee, to visit Flint, the first of Edward lst's chain of castles by which he controlled his conquered principality. Holywell (Treffynnon) is the town of the Holy Well. (See the detailed description of the well in my Sacred Places). The well itself, originally formed from a mountain spring, is housed inside the shrine of St. Winifride, (Gwenffrwd or Gwenfrewi) regarded as the finest surviving example of a medieval holy well in Britain. The legend of St.Winifred is responsible for the erection of the present shrine on a site chosen originally chosen by St.Beuno for a chapel. When a local chieftain named Caradoc attempted to rape Beuno's niece Gwenffrwd, she ran to the chapel for sanctuary but though she failed to reach the doors, her refusal to submit to her pursuer caused him to cut off her head in his rage. The head rolled down the hillside, a spring miraculously appearing where it came to rest in a deep hollow. Beuno reattached Gwenffrwd's head, and she lived to become an abbess and later, a saint. Prince Caradoc, meanwhile, fell dead under the saint's curse. The well formed from the spring then became a place of pilgrimage visited by, among others, Richard lst, to pray for his Crusade; Henry V (both before and after his famous victory at Agincourt), who came on foot from Shrewsbury; and King James II, who came here to pray for a son (a prayer which was granted by the birth of the Old Pretender). About l490, Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry Vll, had a new two-storied chapel built over the star-shaped well, which is covered by an ornate vault and surrounded by a processional passage. A long bathing pool fed by the spring lies outside, in the courtyard. Just below the surface of the water you can see the stone of St.Beuno upon which he taught Winifred or upon which he bade farewell to her. In the garden below the well are a number of stones stained with Winifred's blood or covered with a fragrant red moss said to be iraculously renewed each year. St. Winifred's Well is the only shrine in Britain that has an unbroken tradition of pilgrimage since the early Medieval period. It was visited in l774, by the well-known literary critic Dr.Samuel Johnson on his journey around North Wales.The learned doctor remarked on the indecency of a woman bathing there, yet the popularity of the shrine continued to attract pilgrims. Over one thousand visiting during the first year of a new hospice opened in the l880's. During the last one hundred years, the shrine has received a new lease of life after centuries of Protestantism (and therefore neglect), mainly from visits by Irish immigrants to Liverpool (only an hour's road journey distant). For those inclined to believe in such, the waters at Holywell contain miraculous healing powers. For many centuries, these waters came from an unfailing spring, gushing mightily from the earth, producing three thousand gallons a minute at a constant temperature of 50 degrees. Because of extensive mining operations, however, on nearby Halkyn Mountain in the first quarter of this century, the author's great uncle, a Holywell surveyor and civil engineer (whose first name was Caradoc, incidentally), warned the Holywell Town Council that the waters feeding the spring were likely to be diverted and that the well would dry up. In l9l7, this is what consequently happened, so that today's pilgrims see a bubbling spring fed from the town's municipal water supply forced through an artfully concealed pipe at the base of the well. While in the vicinity of the well, you might want to visit the Greenfield Valley Heritage Trail, on the site of one of the first industrial valleys in Wales. The pathway leads down the hill to the ruins of Basingwerk Abbey, which dates from ll3l. Another item of interest in the neighborhood is Wat's Dyke, a line of tactical earthworks built under King Athelbald of Mercia from 7l6-l20 to block the Welshmen from Gwynedd upon his territories (and cattle!). The Dyke was a forerunner of the more famour Offa's Dyke which has marked the virtual eastern boundary of Wales since its construction fifty years later. At the Parish Church of St. Peter, situated just above the Chapel of St. Winifride, you can see the little bell that was carried about the town and rung to announce services in the church situated in a hollow from which the bells in the tower could not be heard in the town, high above. From Holywell, you can then take the "bottom" road, along the banks of the Dee to return to Chester 6: Llangollen Bridge. Just half an hour's journey by road from the flat plains surrounding Chester, the little town of Llangollen (the Church of St. Collen), is snugly nestled in the Dee Valley (Dyffryn Dyfrdwy) among high green hills. So near the border with England, the town has managed to retain much of its Welsh character, but for one week each July, the visitor might be excused for thinking he is in continental Europe. Our destination, l4th Century Llangollen Bridge is truly a wonder at this time, not to be missed; from one end to the other it will be crowded with dancers, singers, musicians and merrimakers from over fourteen different nations, resplendent in their national costumes. In a meadow, just down the street from the bridge (built in l347 by John Trevor, who later became Bishop of St. Asaph), a huge temporary pavilion houses the annual competitions for choirs, and soloists, folk singers, dancers and musicians. This is the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod, founded in l947 after the mindless destruction of World War II with its shocking waste of life and disruption of much that had been held dear for so long. Not long after the end of the War, a brilliant idea came to the mind of an official of the British Council, Welshman Harold Tudor of Coedpoeth (a few miles from Llangollen). Harold conceived the idea of an international folk festival, conducted very much along the lines of the Welsh National Eisteddfod, but open to competitors from all parts of the world. He enlisted the support of the music organizer of the National, W.S.Gwynn Williams, who immediately welcomed the idea, especially as it would allow the people of Wales to contribute in their own unique manner to the healing of the terrible scars left by the War. And so it came to be that the first festival took duly took place in the summer of l947 on the banks of the Dee, under the great hill crowned by the ancient Welsh castle of Dinas Bran. The actual site chosen for the new festival was in a broad grassy space between the banks of the River Dee and the Llangollen Canal. Fourteen different nationalities were represented, filling the streets of the drab, postwar town with color and spectacle but above all, with glorious sound. It has been held each year since, attracting many thousands of spectators and hundreds of competitors,whose colorful native costumes and delightful singing and dancing fill the streets for one whole week, transforming a little Welsh town into a miniature universe. In the pavilion, choirs from places as diverse as Ukraine, Morocco and Patagonia meet in friendly competition, getting together afterwards to celebrate their wins and losses. In recent years, the competitions have been augmented by "Choir of the Year" and "Singer of the Year" contests. The Choir of the world competitin is open to male, female, and mixed coirs. It attracts performers of a very high standard. One of the early competitors was the great tenor Luciano Pavarotti, who came with his father to sing in a choir from Italy in the early years of the festival and who returned to give a goodwill concert in l995. Llangollen Bridge may be listed as one of the seven wonders of Wales, but it is the International Eisteddfod that is the true wonder. On the way back to Chester, one should take minor detour to examine another wonder, this one a triumph of engineering skill rather than an expression of world friendship. In the early days of the industrial revolution when canals were being built to transport raw materials and newly manufactured goods to all parts of the kingdom, William Telford solved what seemed to be the insurmountable problem faced by the steep-sided Dee valley. His anawer was the justly famous Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. The name, unpronouncable to most English visitor, simply means "connecting bridge." Completed in l805, the l2l ft high aqueduct (the highest in Britain) is l007ft in length, carrying the Shropshire Union Canal in a cast-iron trough supported by l8 piers. From below, it is a bit of a shock to see barges merrily, and seeming surreptitiously, move magically across an expanse of sky high above the road to Chirk (where another Telford masterpiece, the Chirk Aqueduct, takes the canal across the River Ceiriog). 7. Gresford Bells It is but a scant few miles by road from Chester to the village of Gresford, the home of our seventh wonder, the bells of the Parish Church of All Saints. Not only are the peal of bells of note, but the Church itself is remarkable for its size, its beauty, its interior monuments, and its churchyard. Though the present edifice was built in the late l3th Century by a Welsh patron Trahaearn ap Ithel ap Eunydd and his five brothers. additions and improvements in the l4th and l5th centuries obscure much of the original church. The very size of All Saints meant that it was probably a place of pilgrimage for centuries, housing a relic or stature of a saint that has since disappeared. A niche in the Lady Chapel is thought to have held this artifact, probably a statue of the Virgin. The church was also richly endowed by Thomas Stanley, Earl of Derby, whose intervention at the Battle of Bosworth helped Henry Tudor overcome Richard lll in his successful quest for the throne of Britain. The peal of eight bells, listed among our seven wonders, is not that remarkable. The earliest record dates back only to l7l4. An apparatus was installed in the belfry in l877 so that all eight bells could be chimed by one person. The tenor bell is l.2 tonnes (compare with Britain's largest, the Great Paul in London at l6 tons, and the largest bell in a ringing peal, the Emmanual at Liverpool Cathedral at 4 tons). The bells are rung regularly for church services, and the old custom of ringing on November 5th is still continued, though it is unclear whether this is to commemorate the successful landing of William or Orange, or the Gunpowder Plot of Guy Fawkes. During WWll, the custom of tolling the passing bell was discontinued, as was the practice of signifying the curfew. During the War, the bells were to be rung only as an invasion warning. Inside the impressive church one of the most remarkable finds was discovered in l907 by workmen--the Gresford Stone. It is a Roman altar that was hidden for centuries, being used as a stone block in the rebuilding of the medieval church. The altar has four carved sides and a decorative depression at the top, used for the placement of offerings to the goddess Nemesis (or Atropos) depicted on one side. She is holding a pair of shears to cut short the thread of a person's life. The altar was probably part of a Romano-Celtic shrine dating back to l00 to 350 A.D. The wonders of the Church that is itself a wonder are many. A guide book or a personal, guided tour is necessary. In a basement or crypt, under lock and key, and carefully guarded is a lump of coal that was the very last piece hewn out of the Gresford Colliery before the great disaster. During the first half of the twentieth century, the work force at the United Wrexham and Westminster Colliery Company reached 2200 men. Alas in the frantic rush to exploit the newly-discovered deep coal seams of the area, a whole array of safety procedures and rescue systems was conveniently ignored by the pit owners and managers. A number of totally unqualifed junior officials were also put in charge of safety procedures at the Dennis section. Their interest lay in simply increasing coal output. Shot-firing rules were not observed, and no emergency drills were carried out. We can only imagine the scene that took place on the twenty-second of September, l934. The bells of Gresford solemny announced to the world that one of the greatest tragedies in the history of Welsh coal mining had taken place that morning when an explosion and fire ripped through the Dennis section of the mine. Apart from the lucky six men who escaped the blast, along with a few men at the pit bottom, all the men working that day were killed-- a total of 266 miners. Such was the force of the exposion and the immensity of the following fire, that the pit was sealed off and the dead miners entombed forever where they lay. Over l60 widows were left to provide for over 200 children. A court of enquiry was held from October l934 until July l936. The miners were represented by Sir Stafford Cripps, who charged the owners and mine officials with 43 offences of negligence. Despite the expertise of Sir Stafford, only six offenses were proved, with ludicrously minor fines imposed. The rest of the mine continued working and did not close until l973, only a few mountainous slag heaps remaining to show that the area was once a centre of the coal industry. In l982 a memorial to the dead miners was erected in the form of the wheel from the old pit head winding gear. On the 6Oth anniversary of the disaster, a memorial painting in Gresford Church was unveiled by the Archbishop of Wales that shows various scenes and people at the colliery the day of the explosion. The Church is surrounded by a grove of Yews, some of which equal in size and age those of Overton listed in our seven wonders. Twenty-five of thse were planted in l726, but one growing near the south gate is of much greater age. Though its age has been difficult to establish, it is thought to be l500 years old. It was already an ancient tree at the time of Richard ll's proclamation that ordered the general planting of yews. We have now viewed all seven wonders of Wales. It is now time to return to the hustle and bustle of Chester in order to contemplate all that we have seen and experienced. | |
History |
Monarchs |
Prime Ministers |
Travel |
London |
Wales
| |
| London Hotels at Discount | Main Line Philadelphia | Home & Garden |