A non-descript car park off the old North Wales Coast Road on a dark and gloomy February day. Myself and my sisters Sharon and Fay, along with Buzz the Lurcher, starting the first stage of the ancient ‘Taith Pererin Gogledd Cymru’ on our journey through time and space to Bardsey Island. ‘Island of the Bards’ from the Norse, from the Vikings, and Ynys Enlli – Island in the Currents, from time immemorial. The ‘Island of 20,000 Saints’ was a sacred place before the arrival of Christianity.
A great many of the church sites on our pilgrimage predate the arrival of Rome. A time of simple faith. The Celtic ‘Age of Saints’ of the 5th and 6th Century. These are the Saints that left their names and legends across North Wales.
The Roman Catholic ‘Saint’ Augustine gilded his arrival with the brutal massacre of 1200 unarmed Celtic monks at the Battle of Chester at the start of the 7th century. He labelled the mortal sin divine retribution for the Celtic monks not joining him and the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church had started as it meant to go on.
Leaving the car park you immediately encounter Basingwerk Abbey and the adventure begins.
I had picked up our Pilgrim’s Passports a few days before, knowing the Abbey store would be closed as we started our journey. Its open every day in the Summer from 10 until 4pm but varies throughout the year. The ruins of the abbey are open all year and entry is free. The shop clerk had kindly stamped the passports as they would be closed on the day of our hike.
The Pilgrim’s Passport I had thought was a little ‘gimmicky’. However, collecting the stamps proved to be enjoyable. A unique keepsake, and surprisingly, a little bit more motivation, and it keeps you focused. It is precious. Sometimes the location of the stamp in the various churches is not immediately obvious. The time spent in the churches is very special, and their stamp in the booklet a connection.
The Flintshire Plain has been very busy for a long time. Chester was the main port for Ireland, until the Dee, running nearby, silted up at the end if should be of the medieval period, and Liverpool rose in prominence. Armies came and went.
There are many remnants of the industrial revolution as we start our walk, and. The ponds were created at the same time as the mill around 1787.
A big star of the star of the pilgrimage is of course one of the ‘Seven Wonders of Wales, the ‘Lourdes of Wales’ and a designated National Shrine, Saint Winefride’s Abbey. The legends of Saint Winefride and her uncle Saint Beuno (Bono in its anglicized form and not a member of U2) will swirl around you along a number of stages of the walk.
Depending on your planned destination for the first day, and therefore the time available it is fitting to spend an hour or so visiting the well. It is a pilgrimage after all. As with many Catholic shrines there is always a collection of walking sticks and crutches seemingly discarded. Those crafty Catholic monks don’t miss a trick. The inference is, of course, people arrived crippled and miraculously left with full movement of their legs. I am guessing the staff are kept so busy with so many miracles, they don’t have time to clear the walking sticks.
After leaving the holy well you cross the road and head up a lane. You are now beginning a long walk upwards, along paths through town estates and urban spaces, and then finally open fields to the top of Pen Y Ball. The Wirral, Liverpool, Blackpool Tower and Cumbria Fells beyond offer a magnificent view.
The Friary at Pantasaph is where we find our third stamp for our passport. It was not the easiest to find – underneath a signpost in the car park. The Friary complex itself can be easily seen from the A55. The Church is indeed striking when encountering it in person. The Church is very Roman Catholic, with all the trappings, ornate and opulent, and a little strange. My old high school used to start an annual 10-mile sponsored walk from here to the old Blessed Edward Jones High School (Blessed Teds), now called ‘Christ the Word. ‘Blessed Teds’ did not encapsulate the message they are trying to convey. We were actually collecting money so sick people of the parish could make the pilgrimage to Lourdes on a decked-out bus.
The change of the name of the school from Blessed Edward Jones to ‘Christ the Word’ was not the biggest disappointment for a poor Denbighshire martyr. Edward Jones was executed using the most awful method the medieval mind could come up with. Not a very nice mind as it turns out. Hung, drawn and quartered. Each execution was always a little different. The method is explained in Wikipedia. The place of execution for Edward Jones was opposite the grocer’s shop where he had been uncovered as a Catholic in Fleet Street. Jones was hung until nearly dead. Revived. Then ‘Drawn’. Traditionally starting with emasculation. A long word for a nasty act. In front of a jeering crowd, the genitals were cut off, and the penis and scrotum fed to feral dogs or thrown into the fire. Jones’s stomach was sliced open and his entrails were brought out so he could watch them burning in a heap on the fire in front of him. It was said to smell like sweet bacon or beef. Jones would be ‘revived’ at each gruesome stage to witness the next act. The finale for Jones would have been to watch his heart hacked from his chest and then cast onto the fire. Nothing if not thorough. Decapitated, the head joined a large number of others, who had suffered a similar fate, on spikes along London Bridge. Jones’s sister, Margaret Evans, rescued his head and took it back to Llanelidan in the Diocese of St. Asaph, for a more sympathetic burial. Incredibly the abuse was not over.
Let’s not forget the quartering. To slow down the decay the remains were parboiled. Salt would be added to the water to further prevent putrification, and then cumin to stop the pesky birds pecking at it. Not sure where Jones ended up, but a countryman, several hundred years before – a Prince of Wales – Dafydd ap Gruffydd, the first prominent person to be executed using this method. He had crossed paths with Edward Longshanks. Dafydd’s right arm (and a little bit of torso) went to York, the left arm to Bristol, right leg to Northampton and his left leg to Hereford.
One of the Pantasaph Friary’s most famous occupants of recent years was the ‘Singing monk Father Francis’. He raised more than a million pounds for local charities. Father Francis was a common site at the many holiday camps along the Noth Wales coast in the last quarter of the twentieth century. I remember he played at our school several times. Father Francis was a simple soul. He would perform weekly at the Ty Mawr Holiday Camp in Towyn, where I worked in the early 80s. My old boss used to tease him mercilessly saying he was stealing the charity money he collected to spend on loose women and whisky. A clear case of the pot calling the kettle black on every count. Eventually a new principal at the Friary, a ‘Guardian’ as the head of a Friary is known, observed his celebrity was not in keeping with his vow of ‘Conversatio Morum’. He was instructed to stop singing and then moved on in 1990. Nasty.
On with the walk.
Along a rainy road we pass near the village of Gorsedd. A fine pub of excellent reputation, The Druid is worth a stop.
Pretty bridleways, open fields, far reaching views and woodland paths. Without the NWPT you would never know the paths existed. Living in Prestatyn, the area we are walking through is skirted by the A55 and the coast road on the other. I knew so little of this land in between. Nor did my sisters. I found it invigorating that an area of the world I thought I knew so well, I still had so much to learn. So beautiful and unspoiled.
One of our passport stamps is located at Whitford Church, St. Mary’s and Saint Beuno’s, and a slight detour off our walk. We must have our stamps. The church was undergoing renovation but we still managed to get our precious mark. Growing up our naughty black labrador, Rufus, was forever having a journey to the Whitford kennels by the dog catcher. Perhaps actually with hindsight it was naughty owners. My dad used to come to Whitford paying the 50-pound fine to recover him. From this I had heard of Whitford but never been, despite its proximity to Prestatyn.
We arrived at Maen Achwyfan Cross. The stone looks a little lonely standing in a field. According to Wikipedia, the tallest wheel-cross in Great Britain. I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. The famous 18th century antiquarian and naturalist Thomas Pennant is buried near the organ at the church in Whitford. He tried to maintain ‘Maen Achwyfan’ translated as the very dramatic sounding ‘Stone of Lamentation’. However, I am sure I am underselling Saint Cwyfan, but the more mundane and accurate translation is ‘Stone of Saint Cwyfan’. There are many indications Maen Achwyfan and Saint Cwyfan is of the ‘Age of Saints’, as the wheel-cross predates the Viking Age. Wikipedia quotes Lewis Morris suggesting the stone commemorates ‘Saint Chwyfan, the eponymous saint at Llangwyfan, Anglesey’.
It may not be as well known as Llangwyfan, Anglesey, but there is a small ancient church off an obscure lane, at hamlet of Llangwyfan, Denbighshire on the outskirts of Llandyrnog. St. Cwyfan was a follower of St. Beuno according to the Church of Wales, which makes this translation ring true. Just 7 ½ miles south as the crow flies from where Maen Achwyfan stands. The Church of Wales states that there has been worship in Llangwyfan for thirteen centuries – the age of saints.
Along paths, roads and bridleways, we pass through Trelogan and on to the North Clwyd Animal Rescue. ‘Doris’s Bunker’ , a café, is open Tuesday through Sunday from 1030 am to 330 pm. Volunteers were out walking the dogs as we passed by. We almost got ‘turned around’ here as the signage was a little poor. It was muddy. Despite the rainy day we were relatively clean but that was about to change.
However, we found our way through the muddy fields and were greeted with a final big field to descend to the sleeping village of Llanasa. Glimpses of Gyrn Castle behind the trees.
Henblas looms to our right. Gyrn may have the grandeur, but Henblas the history.
Presently we can see a Jacobean mansion built by local leading lights the Morgans. Henblas – Old Mansion/Hall/ Palace. The location had one been the home of Gruffydd Fychan II.
‘Who-he?’ you say.
Direct descendent of Charlemagne. Related to every important Welsh family.
Married to Elen, the great, great, granddaughter of the Welsh nemesis, the ‘Hammer of the Scots’, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Aquitaine, King of England – Edward Longshanks.
But, of course, what makes Gruffydd resoundingly important to the people of Wales is that Gruffydd was the father of Owain Glyndwr, the last Prince of Wales. Owain will have walked in the field where you walk now.
Gruffydd died at Henblas in 1369. Owain was 15 at the time. Gruffudd was buried at the church where you will get your last stamp of the day. The Church of Saints Asaph and Cynderyn, Llanasa.
Look for a stained-glass window depicting fish swimming in the depths of the River Elwy. Look closer and you will see a gold ring in the salmon’s mouth.
This ring has an ancient history. It belonged to the Dark Age Warlord Maelgwn, the ‘dragon of the island’ and the King of Gwynedd. The ring was a gift from a sinner. Maelgwn murdered his uncle and took his nephew’s beautiful wife for his own. It was to her, Nest, he gave the ring. The legend will be told on the next stage of the walk at the Cathedral in St Asaph, on the banks of the Elwy.
Look for the stained-glass window at St. Asaph cathedral. Stained glass depicting the legend, links the Llanasa ‘Church of Ss Asaph and Cyndeyrn’ with the ‘Cathedral Church of Ss Asaph and Cynderyn’ in St. Asaph.
The walk has ended for us for today.
Not a stone’s throw away, a lovely pub, the Red Lion, is waiting to provide you with a bite to eat and a roaring fire.
Step inside and join me for a drink.
Written by Jimmy Platt, landlord of The Red Lion Inn, Llanasa.
Sources:
Wikipedia
Church of Wales Website
Father Francis Album Cover
Sepulchral Slab sketch – Llanasa Conservation Society website
Photographs by Jimmy Platt
