Historic Places along the Holyhead Road page 2

The first-named died, aged 90, in 1829; the other two years later. Anyone who was somebody in Society made a point of visiting these quaint creatures when travelling this way. Their dress was a mannish affectation of hunting costume, complete; save that they did indeed wear skirts.

A long gradual climb leads on past Berwyn to Glyndyfrdwy, the birthplace of Owen Glyndwr, that Welsh patriot and thorn in the side of the English during the early years of the fourteenth century. This is the place where he was born, but the actual house itself has long since disappeared. But we have no time for more than a passing reference to this great national hero.

Now onward to Corwen, a large village not improved by a railway junction. Here we exchange Denbighshire for Merioneth, and enter a wild and lonely and very desolate region, passing in the fifteen sombrely beautiful miles to Pentre Voelas the hamlets of Maerdy, Pont-y-Glyn, Tynant and the wind-swept village of Cerrig-y-Druidion. A seven miles easy descent ends at that celebrated place, Bettws-y-Coed. What once was a small village is now a very large one, in which almost every house that is not an hotel is a boarding-house or a restaurant. We observe this at once, on swinging round to the left into it, across the Waterloo Bridge built by Telford in 1815, across the rushing Con way. The old, original chapel of Bettws in the wood is yet in existence, although a modern and ornate church supplements it. The old Royal Oak inn, whose signpost David Cox painted in 1847, gave place long since to a modern hotel, and the sign representing the Royal Oak in which Charles the Second lay hidden is now within. A sum of £5,000 has been offered for it, and refused.

Beside the road out of Bettws are the Swallow Falls, for which even the old mail-coaches halted a few minutes, to give passengers a sight of them. The Llugwy, on which these falls are situated, continues for some miles along the wayside, becoming charmingly pretty at Cyfyng Falls. By Tan-y-Bwlch the highway enters the village of Capel Curig, where the scenery is grandly dominated by the Snowdon range, the height of Moel Siabod appearing from this viewpoint all the greater. Here the road itself reaches a height of 957 feet above sea-level.

Ascending from the panorama of mountains and lakes at Capel Curig, the road enters the majestic defile with the rugged three-headed Trifaen mountain on the left and the waters of Llyn Ogwen on the right and, crossing the bridge that spans Ogwen Falls, descends lengthily and easily to Bethesda, down the vale of Nant Ffrancon. Bethesda is a slate-quarrying village. On the right is the keep-tower of Penrhyn Castle, built by a former Lord Penrhyn in exact imitation of a Norman fortress. Passing Lonisaf toll-house, we enter the long, long street of Bangor, and at the end of it come up to that remarkable engineering work, the Menai Bridge, designed by Telford, spanning the Menai Strait, which divides Anglesey from the mainland. It is a suspension bridge, straddling a sea-passage of 579 feet. The cost was moderate: £120,000, including approaches. The bridge was opened January 30, 1826. It is a national property, for all offers of it to local authorities have been declined, the cost of upkeep being so great that even the heavy tolls in force leave a deficit. And now, at last, the bridge has come to the end of its life and is about to be reconstructed. Crossing it, we see, away to the left, Stephenson's Britannia iron tubular railway-bridge. Having crossed into Anglesey, we have come to Menai village, and to the village of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerchwyndrobwlltysiliogogogoch. This, to Englishmen, terrifying name is generally shortened locally to "Llanfair Pg," and as such it is indicated on signposts, whose arms could not be long enough.

It is twenty-three miles across Anglesey to Holy Island and the town and seaport of Holynead. On the left, as we go, is the Marquess of Anglesey's seat, Plas Newydd. A feature of the landscape is the lofty column to the first Marquess, who fought at Waterloo and lost a leg there. That hale old warrior, who became a field-marshal, lived until 1854. The small villages of Gaerwen, Mona, Gwalchmai and Llangristiolus lead on to Caer Ceiliog, where the old toll-house is set in a marshy landscape, with windmills, dominated by the lofty Holyhead Mountain. Tolls survived in Anglesey until November, 1895; special extensions being granted to the Trust, in view of the small traffic and the need for paying off the debt. A viaduct across the Stanley Sands brings the road into Holy Island, and so into Holyhead Town, which exists chiefly as the railway terminus and as a port of departure to and arrival from Ireland. The Welsh call it "Pen Caer Cybi" from Holy Mountain. Cubi Cybi, or Kea, as variously his name appears, was the son of a petty Cornish king and a Welshwoman. He flourished in the sixth century. Relinquishing worldly matters, he became a missionary. Holyhead Mountain ends seawards in a bold, abrupt cliff, 300 feet high. Separated from it is the South Stack, a rocky island, with its lighthouse. At this impressive spot, where thousands of sea birds wheel and scream, we have completed our journey, having reached the end of the Holyhead Road.