around Llangollen

We woke to a sunny Thursday morning (22Sep) in Llangollen. On Wednesday evening we’d checked the map and decided to drive in a loop to the west of Llangollen so after a substantial breakfast we headed off for Snowdonia National Park.

Our planned route intercepted the coast at Barmouth, in Cardigan Bay. While the estuary here proved interesting some of the other sights were depressing.

These holiday cabins are factory-produced mobile homes clad in aluminium and are always painted the same colours. They can be seen all over Britain, usually packed with their kin into parks where the aim appears to be to use the maximum possible density to provide the required amount of profit. Seldom are there trees to provide visual relief -- the cabins are simply packed in, in rows. Just “little boxes made of ticky-tacky... and they all look just the same”, to quote a song I remember from my youth.

But on to more interesting things. Along this coast is the small town of Harlech, where there is a castle, now ruined but whose outer walls remain, famous in particular for withstanding a siege for many years in the fifteenth century. More info here.

The feats of the defenders of Harlech are remembered in the battle hymn ”Men of Harlech” the singing of which featured in the 1964 film “Zulu”. I well remember being shown this film in the first few days of Officer training in the Australian Army (in 1966) as an example of how training and battle discipline can be used to defeat apparently overwhelming odds. The scene in which the song occurs is viewable (and is one of my personal favourites) in a YouTube clip, well worth the five minutes or so it takes to run, in my opinion. Very stirring stuff, and based on actual events which took place at Rorke’s Drift, Natal, South Africa, in the nineteenth century. View it here.

There’s wonderful scenery in much of this part of Wales, which is largely rural. At one stage however, on the journey back to Llangollen, we came upon a village (Blaenau Ffestiniog) embedded in a slate mining operation. The high ground around and in the village was composed of piles of cut and discarded slate. Presumably the better quality slate has been used on roofs all over Wales and England.

By the time we rolled back in to Llangollen the sun was out again. This gave us a little more time to explore and take some pics and do nothing much for an hour or so.

And then Mary and I reckoned we deserved a beer or two so we sat in the sun outside the south-facing Bridge End Hotel (pictured in the image above) and did just that.

The fine weather continued into the evening so, after a quick nap we went out for a twilight stroll, dining at the Bridge End Hotel this time, before calling it a day.

Off to Chipping Campden (CC) on Friday, via Hereford Cathedral, where we hope to see the famous Mappa Mundi. Then, all being well, we take over our flat in CC which is ours for a week.