North Welsh Weekends

Moel Famau Country Park

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Attraction | "On a Clear Day You Can See for (70!) Miles..."

The Jubilee Tower Photo - Moel Famau Country Park, Flintshire, Wales

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The Clwydian range of hills forms an eastern spine to Wales, separating out the fertile Cheshire plains in England from the lush Vale of Clwyd. The coastal A55 skirts to the north of the upland area, the A5 runs through Llangollen to the south, and the A494 winds from Mold to Ruthin through the middle. It is off the latter route that you will find the Moel Famau Country Park.At 554m (1818 feet) Moel Famau (pronounced something akin to ‘Mor Vamma’ in Welsh) is the highest peak in the Clwydians and indeed the entire area. From where I live in Cheshire I can make out its silhouette on the horizon. It is now surrounded by a 2000 acre park that straddles the borders between Flintshire an...Read More

The Clwydian range of hills forms an eastern spine to Wales, separating out the fertile Cheshire plains in England from the lush Vale of Clwyd. The coastal A55 skirts to the north of the upland area, the A5 runs through Llangollen to the south, and the A494 winds from Mold to Ruthin through the middle. It is off the latter route that you will find the Moel Famau Country Park.

At 554m (1818 feet) Moel Famau (pronounced something akin to ‘Mor Vamma’ in Welsh) is the highest peak in the Clwydians and indeed the entire area. From where I live in Cheshire I can make out its silhouette on the horizon. It is now surrounded by a 2000 acre park that straddles the borders between Flintshire and Denbighshire. Well-marked and well-maintained walking paths cross the park and on a fine day a walk to the top of Moel Famau offers some quite incomparable views.

Although there is no visitors’ centre as such at Moel Famau, there is one just a touch nearer Mold at Loggerheads Country Park and Rebecca & I stopped off there first to pick up a map. We then continued on down winding single-lane country lanes to the Forestry Commission car park at Bwlch Penbarras, which has public toilets. A network of tracks ran uphill from here through the arboretum, the tree-clad hills closing in around us as we set off. It was a very hot day and we were glad of the shade as we climbed.

Above the tree line we hit the ridge that runs north-south. The length of it is marked by the sign posts of the Offa’s Dyke, a 177 mile trail that runs from the coast at Prestatyn down to Chepstow in the south. It roughly follows the route of the defences built by the Mercian king Offa to protect his lands from the Welsh tribesmen in the eighth century. This path runs right over the peak of Moel Famau. The peak itself was easily spotted due to a great stone construction at its highest point. This was the Jubilee Tower. In 1810 the local landowner sponsored the erection of an Egyptian-style tower at the summit of Moel Famau to celebrate the golden jubilee of King George III. The tower later burnt down and only its sturdy base is left, with wide stairways leading up. We climbed up the steep slopes to the Tower, and then up into it to admire the view.

And frankly the views were stupendous. To the east the ground sloped away down to the English border. To the west it dropped abruptly down to the Vale of Clwyd, a patchwork blanket of fields and woods. The market towns of Ruthin, Denbigh and St Asaph could be easily made out, as well as the coastal resorts of Prestatyn and Rhyl. In the far distance shadows climbed above the horizon – the spires of the Snowdonia National Park. With the help of plaques located at the tower we were able to discern the silhouettes of Tryfan and mighty Snowdon itself. Further south, standing isolated by itself, the bulk of Cader Idris was clearly visible. Looking north, though, the view was even more inspiring. We could see the whole of the Wirral peninsula which juts out between the mouths of the rivers Dee and Mersey. And then across the Mersey itself lay Liverpool. Its major landmarks could be discerned quite easily: the Pierhead and the Three Graces and then further back the city’s two cathedrals. The sweep of Crosby beach swung round out of sight to Liverpool’s left, and then beyond that even we could make out another fringe of shore in the far distance, the Lancashire coast leading up towards Blackpool. Some seventy miles in either direction: now that’s some view!

We carried on towards the old hill fort atop Moel Arthur. The slopes and scarps were a rag-rug of brown and green patches of heathery moorland through which sheep contentedly munched. Insect life buzzed throughout the foliage and we almost expected to see lizards sunning themselves on the chalky white dry stone walls. The atmosphere was surprisingly Mediterranean for the often-damp north of Wales. Hawks hovered overhead in the still air scanning the ground for prey. We even saw one meet its match in a trio of aggressive crows who mobbed it and successfully drove it away from their nests.

Moel Famau offers a good day out I found. Some exertion, some wildlife and some stunning views across both Wales and England. Read Less

Member Rating 3 out of 5 on August 26, 2011

Moel Famau Country Park
Bwlch Penbarras, Off The A494
Mold, Wales

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Llandudno Seaside Resort and Town

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Attraction | "Llandudno: the Queen of the Welsh Resorts"

Llandudno Photo - Llandudno Seaside Resort and Town, Llandudno, Wales

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The north coast of Wales is lined with resorts that lost their function with the advent of package holidays and budget airlines. A string of resorts – Prestatyn, Rhyl, Colwyn Bay – still struggle on, a down-at-heel wasteland of tacky souvenir stalls, fairground attractions, caravan parks and holiday ‘chalets’. The beaches are undeniably nice however and so for a few brief months over the unpredictable British summer they boom before collapsing back into a boarded up 1960s timewarp.The western-most town of this stretch, however, possesses something that none of the others do. The best word for it would be gentility. Here the streetscapes and vistas hark back not to the post-war perio...Read More

The north coast of Wales is lined with resorts that lost their function with the advent of package holidays and budget airlines. A string of resorts – Prestatyn, Rhyl, Colwyn Bay – still struggle on, a down-at-heel wasteland of tacky souvenir stalls, fairground attractions, caravan parks and holiday ‘chalets’. The beaches are undeniably nice however and so for a few brief months over the unpredictable British summer they boom before collapsing back into a boarded up 1960s timewarp.

The western-most town of this stretch, however, possesses something that none of the others do. The best word for it would be gentility. Here the streetscapes and vistas hark back not to the post-war period but further, to the Victorian era. Known as ‘the Queen of the Welsh Resorts’, Llandudno was built by the middle classes for the middle classes. The sweep of the shingly bay is backed by a uniform row of grand 19th century hotels painted in pastel colours. These are backed by a neat latticework of streets. The train station here, really is the end of the line – it is a spur off the main Manchester – Holyhead train line and is still served by regular trains from England (otherwise change at Llandudno Junction). Venue Cymru is the largest theatre in north Wales. A pier juts out into the Irish Sea with the requisite stock of snack bars, carnival rides and Victorian kiosks. The tip of the peninsula upon which the town sits is the bulbous knoll of the Great Orme. Trams rattle up to its top, where visitors can delve into copper mines that date back some 4,000 years. It preserves its Victorian air pretty successfully, even having an annual Victorian festival. If it is not one of Britain’s paramount seaside resorts as it was a hundred years ago (notably in Stanley Houghton’s 1910 play Hindle Wakes it is to Llandudno that mill-owner’s son Alan Jeffcote takes mill-girl Fanny Hawthorne for a dirty weekend) it still manages to trade on being the most refined one in the region.

Rebecca and I visited at entirely the wrong time of year for a beach holiday. We came in mid-December. The hospital where she worked was holding its Christmas party in town. This shows how Llandudno is trying to broaden its appeal. Tourists are not content with second-rate hotels these days; if they are going to splash out money they want all the amenities. And to pay for that Llandudno needs to be more than just a four-months-a-year resort. And to be fair these sort of all-inclusive packages work well; your venue is the hotel and you don’t really need all the flim-flam of a summer destination. This was just as well because the town was very quiet. Beneath the Christmas lights the streets were empty. The churning grey waves were too cold for paddling (believe me – I tried!). The stalls on the pier were shut up and locked tight. But inside the hotel at which we were staying – the four star St George’s Hotel – we could have been anywhere. The dining room where a number of different parties were taking place was warm and bright, the entertainment (a cheesy quiz and then a disco) was pitched right, the food was fine and the communal areas were grand and clean. The rooms were surprisingly good too. I suppose I was expecting something a little shabby. Far from it. The furniture looked brand new, the fittings were a warm oatmeal colour, the en suite bath room was almost spa quality with luxurious bathstuffs and the bed was comfy. TV, iron, and bottles of water came as standard. The window overlooked the promenade, though in the December darkness all that could be discerned were the wind-lashed palms along the promenade and the scouring sigh of the sea.
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Member Rating 3 out of 5 on August 26, 2011

Llandudno Seaside Resort and Town

Conwy County Borough, Wales

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Bodnant Garden

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Attraction | "A Mill, a Dell and a Bottle of Beer"

Dinkly Dell Photo - Bodnant Garden, Tal-y-Cafn, Wales

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North Wales’s most impressive gardens are located at Bodnant in the Vale of Conwy, seven miles south of Colwyn Bay just off the A470. The gardens were developed around Bodnant Hall (which is not open to the public) by the Lords Aberconway from the late 19th century onwards; they were gifted to the National Trust in 1949. They cover an area of 80 acres and range from formally manicured flowerbeds and garden terraces on the upper levels to more romantic wooded tangles as the visitor descends into ‘the Dell’, a steep valley around the bubbling river Hiraethlyn.Entry is £8.50 for adults, £4.25 for children (though this includes an optional 10% charitable donation; you can reduce the pri...Read More

North Wales’s most impressive gardens are located at Bodnant in the Vale of Conwy, seven miles south of Colwyn Bay just off the A470. The gardens were developed around Bodnant Hall (which is not open to the public) by the Lords Aberconway from the late 19th century onwards; they were gifted to the National Trust in 1949. They cover an area of 80 acres and range from formally manicured flowerbeds and garden terraces on the upper levels to more romantic wooded tangles as the visitor descends into ‘the Dell’, a steep valley around the bubbling river Hiraethlyn.

Entry is £8.50 for adults, £4.25 for children (though this includes an optional 10% charitable donation; you can reduce the price by asking not to pay this). Members of the National Trust or Royal Horticultural Society get free entry. Truth be told, unless you are a devotee of gardens this is pretty steep. I certainly don’t feel the need to revist Bodnant.

Upon entering the path splits in two. Left goes under the Gardens’ famous laburnum arch and straight on leads to a snooker-table flat section of lawn underneath the gaze of the aristocratic Hall. It doesn’t take much imagination to picture an Edwardian garden party taking place here, flannels and boaters, strawberries, champers and croquet. The gardens are stepped down the valleys in terraces to preserve views of the distant hills. The picture postcard image however is that of the characterful three-storey Pin Mill whose arches and whitewashed frontage are reflected in a long fish-stocked pond.

I preferred the more unkempt terrain further down the slope however. This is the ‘Dell’, the narrowest part of the valley, where mighty trees stand tower over rhododendrons and other shrubs. At the base of it all is the foamy Hiraethlyn, more a stream than a river, cascading over manmade waterfalls and under rustic bridges. This is a carefully managed vision of wilderness (the plants were carefully collected from across the globe by the Aberconways’ agents and nurtured to thrive in the often damp and chilly Welsh terrain), criss-crossed by paths, but it still struck me as more interesting purely because its artificialness was less obvious. It seems the Aberconways thought so too. Their family tomb, ‘the Poem’, is hidden down here, a locked sepulchre of variegated red marble and stained glass.

The main car park is located across the road from the gardens, which you reach by following a tunnel beneath the road. In doing so – and before you pay entry fee to the Gardens proper - you will pass the Pavilion Tea Room. I would actually argue that the tea room is more reason to visit than the gardens. We stopped off for a light lunch and were very impressed. It serves an array of local hot and cold dishes, cakes and beverages; as I try to eat local wherever I visit I felt honour-bound to accompany my sandwich with a bottle of beer from Conwy Brewery! We ate and drank and watched the peacocks strut round outside the windows. Read Less

Member Rating 2 out of 5 on August 26, 2011

Bodnant Garden
East Side Of Conwy Valley Off A470
Colwyn Bay, Conway LL28 5RE
01492 650460

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Conwy Castle

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Attraction | "Keeping the Welsh Down for 825 Years"

Conwy Castle Photo - Conwy Castle, Conwy, Wales

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King Edward I ruled England between 1272 and 1307. He was a warlike king. As a young man he had fought Simon de Montford’s rebellion against his father, Henry III, and he had journeyed to the Holy Land on Crusade. His battles didn’t end when he inherited the throne. From 1290 onwards took advantage of a power vacuum in Scotland to try and unite the English and Scottish crowns, or at the very least appoint a Scottish king of his own choosing; his opponents in this era were men like Robert the Bruce and William Wallace for this was the period depicted in the film Braveheart. But he had gained the taste for territorial expansion in the first half of his reign, in Wales.The borde...Read More

King Edward I ruled England between 1272 and 1307. He was a warlike king. As a young man he had fought Simon de Montford’s rebellion against his father, Henry III, and he had journeyed to the Holy Land on Crusade. His battles didn’t end when he inherited the throne. From 1290 onwards took advantage of a power vacuum in Scotland to try and unite the English and Scottish crowns, or at the very least appoint a Scottish king of his own choosing; his opponents in this era were men like Robert the Bruce and William Wallace for this was the period depicted in the film Braveheart. But he had gained the taste for territorial expansion in the first half of his reign, in Wales.

The border between England and Wales had historically been a fluid one. Powerful Marcher lords held the borderlands and beyond them the wild places were held by Welsh princes of various degrees of independence. The further one travelled from London, the more independence they had. The Principality of Gwynedd (the Welsh ‘dd’ being pronounced as an English ‘th’, as in Paltrow) in Wales’s north-western tip was as far from London as it was possible to go. When Prince Llewellyn ap Gruffyd and his brother Dafydd rose in rebellion Edward was determined to bring the entire area firmly to heel. It was a messy war and the English nobles, encouraged to fight by the prospect of gaining new Welsh estates, found it hard to pin the Welsh down. Llywelyn’s forces would retreat into the mountains and forests they knew well. So Edward decided to corral them there within a ring of steel. He embarked upon a major period of fortification, circling the coasts and valleys of north Wales with a string of mighty castles. Some he seized from the Welsh and restored. Some he built from scratch. He hired Europe’s premier castle architect, a mysterious man, possibly from Savoy, known only as Master James of St George. In twenty years eight fortresses were built, the cutting edge of late 13th century military technology. Several of them have now been recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd, including those at Harlech, Caernarfon, Beaumaris and Conwy.

At the mouth of the Conwy river (Edward liked to be able to resupply his troops by sea in the event of siege), Conwy Castle is a classic, rising up above the town beneath. It is a great shell of mossy stonework, and though the ceilings of the gothic-arched halls have long gone, the eight mighty towers stand still. The towers are a mix of round and hexagonal in cross section, they climb to different heights above the curtain wall (up to 70 feet tall), but they create a harmonious whole. Accessed even today by spiral staircases, their masonry punctured by arrow slits and topped by crow-crowded battlements and flagpoles whose slack ropes flog rhythmically against them in the still air, these great turrets are the very image of what a medieval castle should look like. Ask a child to draw a castle and they will draw something resembling Conwy.

Children are well provided for. There are plenty of staircases and battlement walkways (with all the necessary guardrails to make them safe) for them to expend their energy on. The gift shop sells toy swords, shields and helmets if they really want to be a knight; for the slightly older there is the Time Detective Trail which sees ‘clues’ hidden on the information panels dotted around the site. With a free red lens they can then unscramble to code and help to solve the ‘mystery’ of just who the traitor in the castle is.

Rebecca and I visited at the tail end of the season. In fact we visited on Halloween (though we weren’t deliberately trying to find ghosts rattling chains in the dungeons). The weather was fine though with an autumnal chill and there probably weren’t more than a dozen other people exploring the grounds. We gave it a thorough investigation, climbing every tower to get differing views down into the wards, across the hills and farms inland, and over the town and the harbour below it. As the late afternoon sun slipped gradually behind the hills and dusk fell over the fortress the dark overgrown stonework took on a more eerie aspect – helped, no doubt, by the baleful cawing of the crows.

Nor did Edward build only castles. The town of Conwy is ringed by three quarters of a mile of city walls, studded with some 22 towers. In fact the town was a ‘colony’ in the truest sense of the word – a job lot of English families were relocated to the wild coast of north Wales and plonked down here in an attempt to anglicise the frontier. They may have been safe within their encircling walls but one can only wonder how they felt about being resettled in hostile territory. Conwy was the ‘Green Zone’ of its day. The last laugh though must go to the Welsh some 825 years after Conwy Castle was constructed. Edward may have started the tradition of naming the heir to the English throne the ‘Prince of Wales’, but Wales now has its own parliament, the Welsh language is widely taught in schools, and the eldest son of the current Prince of Wales (Prince William in case you missed the reference) lives not far away in Anglesey where he serves as a search and rescue helicopter pilot. Even the town’s name has changed. When I was growing up it was known as ‘Conway’; the ‘a’ has been dropped and it has reverted to a Welsh spelling…

The town is a photogenic huddle of buildings that now spreads beyond the walls. The pleasantest spot for my money though is the harbour on the banks of the Conwy estuary. The waterway is dotted with fishing boats and small pleasure craft among the sand flats that get exposed at low tide. The cottages here once belonged to fishermen, their favoured catch being mussels – as shown by the eye-catching statue that stands near the lifeboat station. One of their number is open to the public as ‘the smallest house in Great Britain’. On a fine day I would encourage you to do what we did (at Rebecca’s urging): buy a portion of fish and chips, douse it in salt and vinegar, and sit on a bench overlooking the harbour to eat it out of the paper. The scent of the sea and the sight of boats straining against the tide provide the perfect accompaniment to scalding moist chunks of battered haddock.

Tickets to the castle are a pretty reasonable £4.80 for adults and £4.30 for children (though there is a £13.90 family pass that allows in two adults and all children under the age of 16). Read Less

Member Rating 4 out of 5 on August 26, 2011

Conwy Castle
Coast Road - A55
Conwy, Wales
44 1492 592358

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Mount Snowdon

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Attraction | "Where Seagulls Dare: One of Britain's Top Hikes"

Mountain Lakes Photo - Mount Snowdon, Llanberis, Wales

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On a nice day the summit of Mount Snowdon can be as congested as Oxford Street in London. Over 350,000 people visit it per year. This is despite the fact that, at 1,085m, it is one of the highest peaks in the United Kingdom. In fact it is the highest peak in the British Isles outside Scotland.Snowdon is actually only the 57th highest mountain in the British Isles; however to find anywhere taller you have a very long trip up to the Scottish Highlands. Part of its popularity then is that it is the highest mountain in the UK that people can easily get to. The Snowdonia National Park, which lies in the north-western tip of Wales, is convenient for the Welsh holiday resorts. It li...Read More

Member Rating 4 out of 5 on August 26, 2011

Mount Snowdon
Snowdonia National Park
Llanberis, Gwynedd

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Pontcysyllte Aqueduct

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Attraction | "The Stream in the Sky"

Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space Photo - Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, Llangollen, Wales

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The 206-year-old Pontcysyllte Aqueduct has the honour to being not only the longest but also the highest aqueduct in the UK. It belongs to the great 19th-century burst of investment in the national economy stimulated by the industrial revolution. Unlike classical aqueducts such as the Pont du Gard in France, Pontcysyllte’s role was not to transport water from one place to another, but rather for the water it contained to allow the transport of goods over that route instead. In the 18th century Britain gave the world the Industrial Revolution. I...Read More

The 206-year-old Pontcysyllte Aqueduct has the honour to being not only the longest but also the highest aqueduct in the UK. It belongs to the great 19th-century burst of investment in the national economy stimulated by the industrial revolution. Unlike classical aqueducts such as the Pont du Gard in France, Pontcysyllte’s role was not to transport water from one place to another, but rather for the water it contained to allow the transport of goods over that route instead.

In the 18th century Britain gave the world the Industrial Revolution. Industry and commerce boomed, driving the need for an efficient transportation network across the nation. The farsighted Duke of Bridgewater had commissioned an artificial waterway to link his coal mines at Worsley with the factories of Manchester; when opened in 1761 its success inspoired frenzied imitation. Individuals, private investors and commercial consortia rapidly made and lost fortunes as an entire network of canals was dredged throughout the land. Between 1790 and 1810 1,180 miles of new waterway was opened up across Britain. The construction of what was then known as the ‘Ellesmere Canal’ commenced in 1795, right at the peak of this trend. It was designed to link the River Mersey to the River Dee and then down to the River Severn at Shrewsbury. It was an ambitious scheme; the linking of the Mersey near Liverpool to the higher reaches of the Severn that stretched down to Bristol would have created a navigable inland route for goods straight through the English and Welsh borders. It never came to fruition. Only the central section, from just south of Wrexham to just north of Shrewsbury was completed. This was then extended east to link up with the Chester Canal near Nantwich and also west through Llangollen to meet the Dee at Horseshoe Falls.

It is the latter section around Llangollen as the canal pushes into Wales that has become most famous – indeed, the waterway is now known as the Llangollen Canal. It is popular amongst day-trippers as well as those who hire riverboats for longer journeys (such as, bizarrely enough, Harrison Ford and his girlfriend Calista Flockhart who amazed locals by having a narrowboat holiday in the region). Key to its popularity is the wonderful Pontcysyllte Aqueduct which carries the canal over the River Dee valley at a height of some 126 feet (38 metres). One of the era’s leading civil engineers, Thomas Telford, designed the plan whereby this new waterway would cross over the old. The aqueduct was to be over 1000 feet long to maintain the level gradient needed to hold water and be supported by nineteen towering spindly arches. The suspended waterway was a cast iron trough wide enough (just!) for one narrow boat at a time. A towpath accompanied it on one side to enable horses and walkers to tow the boats. In all it is just eleven feet wide.

If you just want to see the aqueduct and cross by foot the best centres are the villages on either side of the valley, Froncysyllte and Trevor. Both are pleasant little places with houses dating from the 19th and early 20th centuries. There are several car parks and a minimal tourist information centre in Trevor itself near the canal basin. When we visited on a pleasantly sunny day in July we came pre-armed with picnic basket and camera. We parked at Trevor, its moorings busy with gaily-painted barges. Here one could hire a boat oneself, or book a place on a scheduled canal trip. We carried on for the two minute walk alongside the canal until we reached the start of the aqueduct. It was only once we started to cross that we realised quite how dizzyingly high the aqueduct is. The Dee valley lay below us – not a grand canyon but rather a rustically wooded vale with a mere trickle of water meandering along its bottom. Its appearance cannot have changed much since Telford’s time. All the same, for those scared of heights the feeling is one of great vulnerability. The towpath has an open cast-iron railing protecting pedestrians from the 128 foot drop (the tow path is raised higher than the base of the canal trough). The other side of the aqueduct, across the waterway does not even have that! There is the smallest lip of the canal trough emerging above the water level (six inches if that), and then the void. For passengers on a canal boat the feeling must be of sailing through the sky, with nothing between them and a long fall.

Just over the far side of the aqueduct we discovered a pleasant stretch of the canal dotted with benches and with views across to picturesque period cottages. We decided this would be the best spot for our picnic, watching the boats chug past, saying hello to dog-walking families and enjoying the antics of ducks and swans. The scenic environs ticked all the right boxes for a summery day out. Even without getting out on the water itself the path alongside was well maintained, as it should be – just a month earlier UNESCO had named Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and some eleven miles of the Llangollen Canal on either side a World Heritage Site. It was nice to see it so popular and so loved and so much in use.

We finished off our day with a drive to the nearby town of Llangollen itself, where the canal meets the River Dee. We bought indulgent dairy ice creams from a store front and gazed down at the Dee from the town’s historic stone bridge. Puffs of steam from the heritage railway line that runs from Llangollen reminded me of a postscript to the story of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct: at the time of its construction no one knew that the death warrant of the canals had already been sealed. The Aqueduct was completed in 1805; one year earlier in south Wales the Cornishman Richard Trevithick had demonstrated the utility of his new invention: the steam-powered locomotive. Within 25 years the booming cities of Liverpool and Manchester had been connected by rail. The 19th century was to belong to the steam train.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, it’s pronounced ’pont-ker-suth-tee’…
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Member Rating 4 out of 5 on August 26, 2011

Pontcysyllte Aqueduct
Between Trevor And Froncysyllte
Llangollen, Wales

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