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National Trust / Pics / Wales Hiking — No Comments
18
Apr 17

Wales Easter

As per usual, we went to Wales for Easter, looking forward to some hiking, sun, NT places and loads of ôen bachs. The weather was not great but not too terrible either, so we managed to do a few cool things:

Penrhyn Castle

Originally a medieval fortified manor house, founded by Ednyfed Fychan. In 1438, Ioan ap Gruffudd was granted a licence to crenellate and he founded the stone castle and added a tower house. Samuel Wyatt reconstructed the property in the 1780s.

Penrhyn Castle

We checked out all the fancy rooms and staircases, plus the Victorian kitchen in which they were baking nice Easter cookies.

Victorian kitchen

Truth!

Glyder Fawr
On Saturday the weather was ok, so we decided to go up our fave Glyder, which we guessed would not be too overcrowded on the heavy-traffic Easter weekend. We even managed to find parking (just about), but the Snowdon path from Pen-y-Pas was a tourist highway for sure, like if all the people on it would just reach out they could hold hands in a full chain from the road all the way to the top. Blergh.
Glyder, on the other hand, was only reasonably populated, had great views over to Tryfan, and my fave bleak rocky outcrops on the top. Success.

Bleak

Burial sites
Two of them. Not sure their names or history, Iest will fill this in.

Iest: Here I am, filling this in. I’m currently reading a very interesting book called ‘The story of Wales’ by Jon Gower, and although I’ve only just started it, I’ve found out that there were two very fascinating places just a stones throw away from where I grew up. The first is Bachwen, a burial chamber that’s located over in Clynnog Fawr – dating back to the Neolithic / Stone Age era. Beautifully located just by the sea, and with Yr Eifl just behind it.

The second, was just over on Anglesey – Bryn Celli Ddu, another Neolithic site but this time, a stone chambered tombs buried under a mound, which made for a rather impressive site! So great to learn about these two places, and I’m looking forward to what else I can learn from the book!

Bachwen

Bryn Celli Ddu

Llandwyn
My fave beach is awesome even in heavy clouds. Tho this time it was also a bit like a crab carnage site, with so many dead crabs everywhere. Probably a crab flu season or something.

Llandwyn

Tre’r Ceiri

A hillfort dating back to the Iron Age. The settlement is located 450 metres (1,480 ft) above sea level on the slopes of Yr Eifl, a mountain on the north coast of the Llŷn peninsula. Evidence suggests the settlement was first built around 200 BC, though most of the archaeological finds date from AD 150–400, showing the site continued as a settlement during the Roman occupation. Tre’r Ceiri is one of the most spectacular ancient monuments in Wales. The settlement is surrounded by stone walls that are largely intact, and which reach up to 4 metres in some places. Within the walls are ruins of about 150 stone houses, it may have housed up to 400 people.

Tre’r Ceiri

Tre’r Ceiri summit

Chirk castle
Finally, on our way home we managed to stop by at Wrexham’s finest, Chirk castle.

The castle was built in 1295 by Roger Mortimer de Chirk, uncle of Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March as part of King Edward I’s chain of fortresses across the north of Wales. It guards the entrance to the Ceiriog Valley. The castle was bought by Sir Thomas Myddelton in 1593 for £5,000. Following the Restoration, his son became Sir Thomas Myddelton, 1st Baronet of Chirke. During the 1930s the Castle was home to Thomas Scott-Ellis, 8th Baron Howard de Walden, a prominent patron of the arts and champion of Welsh culture. The Myddelton family resided at Chirk Castle until 2004.

Chirk Castle

Entrance Hall

The State Dining Room

Main living room

Banquet hall

Cŵl / Pics / Retro — No Comments
12
Jan 11

Llanfairfechan

Llanfairfechan

Population – 3,638

Post Office. – In village; branch office towards eastern end of Penmaenmawr ROad.

Tennis at Victoria Gardens, towards eastern end of the Promenade, and at the Receration Ground, near Moel Yacht Pond. Tennis tournaments are arranged weekly during the season.

In it’s brief but merry course to the sea the little Afon Llanfairfechan dashes first through rocky, fern-clad gorges; then through the gradually widening valley in which the orignial village of Llanfairfechan stands and finally, passing under the coast road, it rattles past the modern resort called into visitors who appreciated this airy, healthy site on the verge of the sea yet within a stone’s-throw of the mountains. This charming contiguity of intrests is well illustrated by the stream which bubbles beside the main street of the village, for although its source is some 2,000 feet above the spot where it runs into the sea, yet it’s length is scarcely three miles. The eastern side of its valley terminates abruptly in the pominent headland know as Penmaenmawr Mountain; it’s western side falls away gradually in green, wooded hills above which giants of Snowdonia raise their heads to the sky.

The hills sufficiently far inland for thei majestic proportions to be seen and admired without the observer being oppressed with their too immediate proximity. Yet they are near enough for the ascent to begin at the door of the village post-office, and from any of them views of great beauty and variety may be had.

As the site has a gentle slope towards the sea, no great amount of moisture can remain upon the surface. Consequently the air is dry and bracing, and through the shelter afforded by neighbouring hills the climate is genial, as is demonstrated by fuchsias, myrtles, and other tender plants and shrubs – including the pale butterwort, a plant very sensitive to cold-flourishing all the year in open air.

The Sea Front at Llanfairfechan is unpretentious, but the bathing is safe and good, and the wide expanse of firm sand revealed by low tide forms a wonderland for children. There is a Green on which various games may be played and at either end of the Parade are public Tennis Courts and Bowling Green. A feature of even greater interest to the juvenile navigators – and their male relatives – is the Model Yacht Pond. It is regularly used by members of Liverpool and Wirral Model Yacht Clubs, and regattas are orginized during the season.

A feature distinguishing Llanfairfechan sea-front from many another is the View:-not the customary wide expanse of sea, but a charming panorama extending from the Great Orme’s Head across to Puffin Island, with it’s striped lighthouse, and then along the variegated coast of Anglesey to the tall roofs of Bangor, Penrhyn Castle rearing its battlement tower above the trees to the south-west, and then the eye travels round by the hills above Aber to remote Foel Fras and so round to the familiar scree-strewn face of “our mountain”.

It seems like Llanfairfechan, back in the day was the place to be! There’s an epic entry for the village in the book, and this is just an extract. I never thought of Llanfiarfechan to be a good place to be when going hill-walking, but I suppose the book is right, as from Llan you’ve got the whole of the Carneddau coming into play, before en counting the Snowdon massif. Very interesting to read this on Llanfairfechan. (Our North Wales – Northern Section book by Ward Lock & Co’s is dated 1930-1931)