The Chain Bridge and Valle Crucis Abbey
A round trip was on the agenda for today, encompassing several sites we had `bookmarked` in our minds before we set out. Our starting point was the town of Llangollen which was about 7 miles away. Llangollen is a very `pretty` town, for want of another word! Also famous for the International Musical Eisteddfod which is a music festival taking place every year during the second week of July. It is one of several large annual Eisteddfodau in Wales. Singers and dancers from around the world are invited to take part in over 20 competitions followed each evening by concerts on the main stage. Over five thousand singers, dancers and instrumentalists from around 50 countries perform to audiences of more than 50,000 over the 6 days of the event.
Llangollen takes its name from the Welsh llan meaning "a religious settlement" and Saint Collen, a 6th-century monk who founded a church beside the river. St Collen is said to have arrived in Llangollen by coracle. There are no other churches in Wales dedicated to St Collen, and he may have had connections with Colan in Cornwall and with Langolen in Brittany.
Leaving the car park, we headed along the river side toward the town.
Llangollen Bridge is known as one of the ‘Seven Wonders of Wales’ and was built by Bishop John Trevor c. 1345. Widened in the 16th and 20th centuries, it allowed the town to develop on both sides of the river Dee, which rises in Snowdonia and flows through Bala Lake to Chester.
Another `must see` - The Chain bridge in Berwyn.
The first chain bridge here was built by Exuperius Pickering in order to transport coal, lime, stone, etc from the Shropshire Union Canal, (Llangollen Canal) across the Dee to Telford's recently completed London to Holyhead road. The bridge allowed Pickering to bypass the Llangollen toll bridge further downstream, and transport coal from his mines near Acrefair up the canal and onward to Corwen. Permission to build it was granted in 1814 and it was completed by 1818, making it one of the first chain bridges in the world.
The second bridge was built by railway engineer and industrialist Henry Robertson in 1876 using the existing chains of the first bridge.
The chain bridge was rebuilt as a suspension footbridge reusing some of the existing chains. In 2015 its complete restoration (£465,000) after years of neglect was completed and it is now a major tourist attraction. So, having walked across it, here are my images!
The Chain bridge and Chainbridge Hotel.
The picturesque Berwyn railway station is a railway station on the former cross-country line between Ruabon and Barmouth. The station, which opened in May 1865, was a stop on the Great Western Railway(GWR) line between Llangollen and Corwen. It was closed by British Rail in January 1965.
In 1986 the station was reopened as part of the heritage Llangollen Railway. It is now reportedly among one of the best 10 stations to visit in Britain.
And just as we were taking our picture, we witnessed the arrival of this locomotive - unfortunately not steam!
And so onto Horseshoe falls. Here Telford tapped the River Dee for the water supply for the Llangollen and Shropshire Union Canal.
The picturesque church dates from the 7th Century. Additions have been made over the centuries, some taken from Valle Crucis Abbey which is not very far away, and was next on our list today.. Robert Browning worshiped here and there is a commemorative plaque in the church. The present building was erected around 1180 CE.
A general view of the interior
A closeup of the 14 C Eagle Lectern.
And then onto the Valle Crucis Abbey ruins. It never ceases to amaze me at the craftsmanship that many of these old ruins hold testament too. People don`t change: as then, so now, the bigger and grander, the better to impress (awe?) the local serfs, the better.
Showing the amazing amount of work that this building must have taken.
The Chapter House
Valle Crucis Abbey was founded in 1201 by Madog ap Gruffydd Maelor, on the site of a temporary wooden church and was the last Cistercian monastery to be built in Wales. Founded in the principality of Powys Fadog, Valle Crucis was the spiritual centre of the region, while Dinas Bran was the political stronghold. The abbey took its name from the nearby Pillar of Eliseg, which was erected four centuries earlier by Cyngen ap Cadell, King of Powysin memory of his great-grandfather, Elisedd ap Gwylog. (See below)
Madog was buried in the then-completed abbey upon his death in 1236. Not long after Madog's death, it is believed that a serious fire badly damaged the abbey, with archaeological evidence that the church and south range were affected.
The location on which Valle Crucis was raised was originally established as a colony of twelve monks from Strata Marcella, an earlier abbey located on the western bank of the River Severn near Welshpool. The original wooden structure was replaced with stone structures of roughly faced rubble. The completed abbey is believed to have housed up to about sixty brethren, 20 choir monks and 40 lay-members who would have carried out the day-to-day duties including agricultural work. The numbers within the church fluctuated throughout its history and the monks and the abbey itself came under threat from various political and religious events. The abbey is believed to have been involved in the Welsh Warsof Edward I of England during the 13th century, and was supposedly damaged in the uprising led by Owain Glyndŵr. Numbers also fell after the Black Death ravaged Britain.
In 1537, Valle Crucis was dissolved, as it was deemed not prosperous compared to the more wealthy English abbeys. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the site fell into disrepair, and the building was given to Sir William Puckering on a 21-year lease by Henry VIII. By the late 16th century the eastern range was converted into a manor house. Valle Crucis remained with the Wotton family, and was inherited by the 2nd Baron Wotton, but upon his death it was passed to Hestor Wotton, his third daughter. Hestor married Baptist Noel, 3rd Viscount Campden and the abbey entered the family's ownership, before being sold shortly afterwards when the estate was sequestered by Parliament in 1651. By the late 18th century the building that remained were re-roofed and the site was used as a farm, before excavations were undertaken in the later half of the 19th century.
Eliseg's Pillar is the remaining portion of a tall round-shafted cross of Mercian type, which gave its name to the valley and the neighboring abbey. All that survives today is part of the rounded lower shaft, on one side of which it is just possible to see weathered traces of early lettering. The roll mouldings at the top of the surviving section mark the point at which the squared and tapering upper portion of the cross would have originated; this may have continued to a height similar to that of the rounded shaft before being surmounted by a cross-head.
The cross was pulled down in the 17th century during the Civil War, and the rest had been removed before this column was re-erected by T. Lloyd of Trevor Hall, and event commemorated in the late inscription on the rear. The mound was excavated at this time, and a skeleton found in a long cist, but it is not clear from the description whether this burial was prehistoric or early medieval.
Fortunately, a detailed record of the original inscription was made in 1696 by the antiquarian Edward Lhuyd, before the lettering deteriorated to its present extent. Where his reading can still be checked, it appears to be reliable. Much of the wording was illegible, even in Lhuyd's time, but sufficient survived to allow an interpretation of the purpose and date of the monument.
The monument was probably erected in the early 9th century, celebrating the exploits of a king up to a century earlier. Eliseg's campaigns may have provoked the construction of Offa's Dyke by the English, as a defence against the Welsh, in the mid 8th century.
Our last point of interest for the day was to travel through Horseshoe Pass. This was the photo I took on a very misty day. The Horseshoe Pass (Welsh: Bwlch yr Oernant, "Pass of the Cold Stream") is a mountain pass in Denbighshire, north-east Wales. It separates Llantysilio Mountain to the west from the 565 metre (1,854 feet) mountain and Marilyn Cyrn-y-Brain to the east. The A542 road from Llandegla to Llangollen runs through the pass, reaching a maximum height of 417 metres (1,368 ft). The road travels in a horseshoe shape around the sides of a valley, giving the pass its English name.
This route dates from 1811, when a turnpike road was constructed across the area. As with the rest of the roads in the Clwydian Range, it is not uncommon for sheep to gather in the road, sometimes causing problems for drivers. The road is also frequently closed in winter due to snowfall or landslides - I can well imagine!
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