Whitsuntide 2025
Myself and my sister Sharon
An easy start to the third day; walking down the high street of the second smallest City in the UK.
I would suggest downloading (as if you have not already) the Ordinance Survey App. The standard of signage and state of the stiles markedly deteriorates as we enter Conwy on day 3. I am not sure where the responsibility lies but surely farmers must realize there will be significantly less disruption if the route signage is in place rather than hikers wandering around aimlessly, searching to find the route because of missing markers.
You head down from the ‘Cathedral Church of Saints Asaph and Cyndeyrn’. The city in Welsh is named Llanelwy, or church by the River Elwy in Welsh. Initially I thought the town had been named for two different people – one in English and one in Welsh (Asaph and Elwy) but apparently this is not the case. In Wikipedia it states Elwy exists and AI confuses the matter with a vague hypothesis and doesn’t seem to realize Kentigern and Cyndeyrn are one and the same.
You cross the River Elwy and bear left. The ford was the main crossing point for millennia for people traveling to Eire via Holyhead, or the main road from the Roman fort at Chester (Diva) to Caernarvon, as well as fellow pilgrims. Legends abound as you pass along these ancient paths and thoroughfares.
Rich with Celtic imagery is the story of the ethereal Nest bathing in the Elwy. ‘Curious Clwyd, The beauty, the history, the folklore of Northeast Wales’. Relates the legend.
‘Nest was the wife of Maelgwn Gwynedd, King of Gwynedd, during the early 6th century, a man eviscerated by Gildas in his ‘De excidio et conquest Brittanniae’, and a man whose reputation has lent itself to legend. Nest was bathing in the waters of the River Elwy one morning, when to her horror, she found that the ring presented to her by her husband had slipped from her finger and was lost in the waters of the river. The ring was ancient and had been handed down through generations of Maelgwn’s line. Not known for having a calm temper, Nest was terrified of her husband’s response.
She approached Saint Asaph for advice, and he calmed her, explaining that all would be well. At dinner that evening in the Great Hall of Maelgwn, St. Asaph told Maelgwn of the loss. Immediately, Maelgwn was all rage, but Asaph explained to him the importance of love before possessions, how God valued love before mere jewels. Eventually, Maelgwn calmed, and comforted his sobbing wife.
St. Asaph stood and made to serve the king and his queen at their table, bringing to them a huge salmon caught that day in the River Elwy. On cutting open the fish, a ring fell onto the table before the astonished couple. Before them was the ancient ring of Gwynedd.
The legend of Nest and the ring can be seen in the stained-glass window of St. Asaph cathedral.
The start of today’s walk is along lanes heavy with the bounty of Summer. Lush with wildflowers and the hum of the bees. Relatively early in today’s excursion a short path takes you from the road up to St. Mary’s church for your first stamp of the day. The stamp was outside in a small wooden box with the pilgrim motif upon it. The church is idyllically located. Tremeirchion, from Day 2 can be clearly seen nestling in the Clwydian range far across the valley.
St. Mary’s is a relatively new place of worship compared to the ancient churches we are blessed with on our pilgrimage. As we continue our walk, we pass through the village of Cefn Meriadog. Meriadog (according to Wikipedia) was a 6th century Cornish and Breton Saint, so has provenance for being along the ancient trail to Bardsey. Except for St. Mary’s all the church grounds we visit today are truly ancient.
As you leave Cefn Meriadog passing the old school, the road takes a 90-degree turn heading down into the valley of the Elwy.
If in fact you were continue straight for half a mile you would follow a path and drop down on somewhere truly prehistoric, even for the Pilgrim’s Way. The ‘Pontnewydd’ Caves.
They feature in the opening page of John Davies ‘A History of Wales’, considered the definitive guide to Welsh history. Various luminaries visited the caves including Thomas Pennant, Edward Pugh and Richard Fenton. The 22-year-old Charles Darwin visited in August 1831. ‘Pontnewydd has become a site of international importance containing the remains of an evolutionary early form of Neanderthal who used this cave some 230,000 years ago’.
Yes – you read that correctly – 230,000 years ago.
You may not get a stamp for visiting the cave, but it would be bordering on criminal to not visit when you are so close.
The caves are on private land and belong to Sir Watkin Williams Wynn. For a number of years visitors were welcomed and there was a small car park a little way down the hill. However, this has disappeared. I used to visit as a child with my family. However, attitudes to health and safety have changed and it is perhaps not surprising that the Wynn estates do not wish to open themselves up to a lawsuit.
Phone the Cefn Estates Office for permission on 01745 582200. A waiver will need to be signed. The office is just off the route. On finding the caves they are easily accessible and navigable. A torch would be useful. A unique and very special treat.
You can thank me over a pint.
You head down into the valley of the Elwy. In the lee of this peaceful river, you will find an ancient and ruined church and well, known as St Mary’s Well. If you manage to visit the caves you will have seen views that enraptured many poets. There was the 12th century – Prydydd Y Moch – Poet of the Pigs, Llywarch ap Llywelyn. Queen Elizabeth 1st’s bodyguard and bard Sion Tudur and of course internationally renowned Gerard Manly Hopkins.
In the Valley of the Elwy
I remember a house where all were good
To me, God knows, deserving no such thing:
Comforting smell breathed at very entering,
Fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood.
That cordial air made those kind people a hood
All over, as a bevy of eggs the mothering wing
Will, or mild nights the new morsels of Spring:
Why, it seemed of course; seemed of right it should.
Lovely the woods, waters, meadows, combes, vales,
All the air things wear that build this world of Wales;
Only the inmate does not correspond:
God, lover of souls, swaying considerate scales,
Complete thy creature dear O where it fails,
Being mighty a master, being a father and fond.
You cross over the Elwy for the second time today (the first time was the bottom of the High Street in St. Asaph) and take a lane up to the right just beyond the bridge. It seems to be a while since Bontnewydd was a ‘new bridge’, it’s English translation.
I can’t but help remember the lovely little pub ‘The Dolben Arms’, with a big fire and a suit of armour, closed more than twenty years ago now, was just here. Now a home. Times change.
This part of Wales boasts many literary heavy weights who found their muse on these paths and contemplating these vistas. However, a young lady who became a literary legend spent a great many holidays, not five miles from the ‘bont newydd’, sojourning in the verdant splendour of North Wales. Gwaenynog Hall was the residence of her aunt and uncle. This was where she sought solace immediately after the death of her fiancé in 1905. The sketches she made of the garden and of the potting shed attached served as the setting of ‘The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies’ written in 1909. Beatrix Potter’s love of the Lake District is clear for all to see. But it ’would also be true to say that Gwaenynog was very close to her heart.’
The Hall is privately owned. They kindly open by appointment on 01745 812066. They held an open day on June 15th, 2025. Unfortunately, I was out of the country, but my sisters and nieces and nephews were lucky enough to attend.
Leaving the sleepy village, alive with birdsong, (my Merlin Bird ID app listed twenty-two different species) you walk up through the woods leaving the valley of the Elwy behind you. You strike out over the tops of the hills for Llannefydd.
Perhaps it was us, or perhaps it wasn’t. The Pilgrim’s markers so good so far failed us, we dropped down onto a road and made our way to Llaneffydd.
We wanted our passport stamp, so we made the slight detour off the trail. A light summer rain refreshed us, and we sheltered at the church. In the church of St. Nefydd and Mary There was tea and coffee with an honesty box. The stamp was easy enough to find. There has been a church here since the 5th century. The Celtic church long in existence before the Roman Catholic ‘Saint’ Augustine and his Saxon henchmen massacred hundreds of unarmed Celtic monks at the synod of Chester in the late 6th/ early 7th century. No information on St. Nefydd other than he being the grandson of a King. (Brycheiniog in South Wales).
There is a history of Catrin O Ferain (Katheryn of Berain) – Mam Cymru, displayed in the church. A lot going on with Catrin. A lot of husbands and rumours of murders. Three of the names – Wynn, Clough and Salusbury are revered locally today. (‘Wynn’ estates for permission to see the caves, ‘Salusbury’ Arms in Tremeirchion on day 2 to name a couple of indications). Catrin was rumoured to have poured molten lead into her husbands’ ears, if the misogynists are to be believed. Catrin had four husbands and was outlived by the last.
Her great grandfather was reputedly King Henry VII, the founder of the famous Welsh line of the British monarchy. Henry Tudor was in exile in France for fourteen years from the age of fourteen, so it is perhaps not surprising he took some female companionship. Catrin’s father was the ‘natural’ son of Henry and “a Breton lady whose name is not known.”
Catrin herself was a ward of Queen Elizabeth 1st, her second cousin. The powerful Earl, Robert Dudley, the Queen’s ‘close favourite’ was granted the Lordship of Denbigh and the Governorship of North Wales. The land of Elizabeth’s ancestors. Denbigh is less than six miles from Llannefydd, and Dudley was overlord for some of her property. Dudley spent a lot of money commissioning an ambitious Church Project in Denbigh. It was never completed and the parts that were, became known to the locals as ‘Lester’s Folly’.
From the Llannefydd church visitor log, somebody from Southern Australia had been there earlier that day, thanking the church for their hospitality for a hot cup of coffee. The 17th century coaching inn, The Hawk and Buckle, across the road appears to be open for business in the evening.
A sharp right and a steep road from the church to get you back to the Pilgrim’s way. The marker directs you across open fields and glorious views.
The start of our pilgrimage at Holywell was firmly placed in the environs of the industrial revolution, with views out over the Wirral and Liverpool, and on to the Lake District. As you reach Llanasa, you are entering the edge of the Clwydian Range and the proposed Glyndwr National Park and a formerly designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. From Llanasa to Saint Asaph, you cross the Vale of Clwyd, lush, with well-kept farms and affluent homes.
However, I sensed a distinct change, as we climbed high from Llannefydd and for the first time I felt the presence of Snowdon. Passing over the tops of the mountains from the Elwy to the Aled this felt very different and very rural. Exhilarating
(I realize the ‘powers that be’ have announced ‘Y Wyddfa’ to be its primary title. However, I find calling it ‘The Grave’, a little depressing for such a beautiful part of the world).
For the first time I realized we are in the foothills of Eyryri (Snowdonia). As the pilgrimage progresses, through the different stages it will be interesting so see how far the presence is felt.
The Dolwen reservoir can be seen beneath us. The reservoir traditionally provided water to Rhyl.
We drop down from the high open fields to the ‘Valley of the Poets’. We are, and have been, breathing the air of people who exalted the Welsh language and made sure it survived. (‘Y Wyddfa’ too).
William Salesbury, who produced the first ever book printed in Welsh in 1547 – An English Welsh Dictionary, and a translator of the scriptures.
William Morgan was born at Betws-Y-Coed, and you may have seen the first Welsh Bible in Saint Asaph Cathedral.
Iolo Goch was born in the Vale of Clwyd and owned land later owned, a couple of hundred years later, by Catrin O Ferain. He was bard to many prominent families in North Wales including Owain Glyndwr.
Tudur Aled one of the greatest of the ‘Poets of Nobility’ co-founded the Caerwys Eisteddfod in 1523, to help regulate the craft of bards.
And many more……………………………………
The route is far easier to follow, taking you down into the valley and crisscrossing the River Aled. The river flows down into the Elwy. You can see the village ‘Bryn Rhyd Yr Arian’ from some distance and I had mistakenly believed this was our target for the day.
Nope. Another couple of miles to Llansannan.
I am sure they get a lot of rain in Llansannan, and the last hour of today’s walk was no exception.
The church was founded by a 6th century Welsh hermit. Not to be mixed up with his namesake- the misogynistic, monster killing Irish Saint Senan. Our Saint Sannan buried at nearby Gwytherin, where we will visit on the next stage of our walk.
Brooding and full of atmosphere were my impressions. The all-important stamp is easily located.
Some handy public toilets maintained by the village are a fast disappearing and appreciated facility.
A nice old pub, – Y Llew Coch (Red Lion), which as well as accommodation offers a good night’s drinking Monday through Sunday; to discuss the travails of the day.
The North Wales Pilgrims Way is a magnificent walk to be sure.
Written By
Jimmy Platt, Landlord,
Red Lion Inn
Llanasa
Sources;
Curious Clwyd. The beauty, the history, the folklore of North-East Wales.
Wikipedia
Photographs
Beatrix Potter – V & A Museum
All others by Jimmy Platt
