Category Archives: Days Out

A visit to Basingwerk Abbey, Holywell

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Introduction

The Chuch is at left, the Chapter House opposite and the ground floor monks’ day parlour whcih once had their dormitory overhead. The line of the cloister, a covered walkway with arcades, and the central garth are marked out by the stone foundations

I have been to Basingwerk Abbey a couple of times, but never got around to writing it up.  It’s a super site, and although it is now a ruin, it retains enough of its original structures to ensure that its layout is easily understood.  St Winifred’s Well, with its lovely late gothic shrine, is only a mile and a bit away, and an important part of Basingwerk’s property for most of its life, will be covered on another post.

Basingwerk Abbey is only a  few miles away from Flint Castle.  The abbey preceded the castle by over a century but when Edward I founded Flint Castle and its accompanying town in 1277, the histories of abbey and castle became entwined. A visit to the abbey is easily combined with a look-in at the attractive riverside remains of Flint Castle.  I have written about the history of Flint Castle on an earlier post.

Digital Aerial Photograph of Basingwerk Abbey. AP_2009_2896 – s, Archive Number
6355272. Source: Coflein

Savignacs and Cistercian Basingwerk Abbey

Remains of the church

The first Basingwerk abbey, dedicated to St Mary, was founded as a Savignac monastery Ranulf II (Ranulf de Gernons) (1099–1153), fourth earl of Chester and later merged with the Cistercian order. It is not known why the Savignac order was chosen by Ranulf, but the monks who were sent to Basingwerk were provided directly by the founding monastery of Savigny in southwest Normandy itself. It became Cistercian in 1147.  Most of the monks who served there subsequently, up until the 15th century, were English, aliens in territory that was a bone of contention between England and Wales.

A monastic order is formed of a shared set of spiritual ideals, often spelled out in considerable detail in rules that covered everything from how many times a day a monk should pray, communally or individually, to where and when they could speak, eat and sleep, and what work they should engage in. All orders involved, at least in theory, a degree of renunciation and isolation by communities of monks, but these ideals were eroded as the influence of monastic houses grew.  The trajectory of monastic history in Europe changed in the late 11th century and early 12th century with the establishment of the so-called reforming orders, who wanted a purer, less self-indulgent and more hard-working approach to cloistered living than other contemporary monastic institutions offered.  The reforming orders believed that the Rule of St Benedict, as it had been originally conceived and set down in the 6th Century Italy, was the key to recovering a holier and more disciplined approach to a communal life of worship. The Carthusian order was established in 1084, the Cistercian order in 1098, the Savignac order between 1109 and 1112.

12th Century links between Cistercian monasteries.Although Citeaux, the node for all Cistercian abbeys, established early new bases in France, it was Clairvaux under the lead of St Bernard that was responsible for the earliest new abbeys in Wales. Of these Whitland was the most important for the northward spread of monasticism. The green lines emanating from Savigny reflect the Savignac order, which merged with the Cistercians after only 20 years, in 1147. So although Basingwerk in the north and Neath in the south were founded as Savignac orders, after 1147 they were brought under the rule of the Cistercians at Citeaux.  Source: Evans, D.H. Evans 2008, Valle Crucis Abbey (Cadw).

In Wales one of the most successful of these orders was the Cistercian order, which left remains in north, mid and south Wales.  Valle Crucis in Llangollen is the nearest of the Cistercian abbeys to the Chester-Wrexham areas, established in 1201, and is discussed in a series of earlier posts, which begins here with Part 1.  The Savignac order is much less well represented throughout Britain, and the reason for this is that in 1147 it was amalgamated with the Cistercian order.  Basingwerk Abbey, established as a Savignac monastery, became Cistercian in that year.

Because of their similarities the Savignacs and Cistercians were a good match, but there were differences too, largely in terms of the constitutional framework and systems of accountability.  To ensure that these were understood after the fusion, Savignac monasteries were put under the supervision of an appropriately located and senior Cistercian order.  Basingwerk was put under authority of Buildwas Abbey in Shropshire, which had also originally been Savignac.  This was perfectly in keeping with the Cistercian hierarchical approach to monastic management with every new monastery answerable and accountable to a mother house.  The mother house for the entire order was Cîteaux, and Clairvaux was the mother abbey for Whitland in south Wales, which was established by monks from Clairvaux itself. Whitland in turn established other abbeys including Strata Marcella near Welshpool, and this abbey in turn established Valle Crucis.   This system created a network of houses that all linked back to the ultimate mother house at Cîteaux (Cistercium in Latin) in France, the founding monastery of the Cistercian order.  Every Cistercian abbot had to return from his abbey to Cîteaux every year for what was known as the General Chapter, a great conference of the Cistercian abbots. 

A more detailed history of monasticism, and the Cistercians in particular, is included in Part 1 of the series on Valle Crucis.

Cadw guardianship monument drawing of Basingwerk Abbey. Survey-plan. Cadw Ref. No. 216/9a4. Scale 1:192. Source: Coflein

The foundation and economic basis of Basingwerk Abbey at Holywell

Exterior of the refectory

The first Basingwerk Abbey was probably in wood, and was located at a different but nearby site possibly somewhere in the vicinity of Hên Blas in Coleshill, near a now-lost castle.  There is a reference to a fortification in the Annales Cambriae describing how, when Henry II advanced into Wales from Chester,  Owain Gwynedd prepared for the upcoming battle by digging a large ditch associated with a hastily built camp at a site called Dinas Basing.  It is thought that this was the castle known to have been in the area of Hên Blas, which lies on a ridge between two streams and overlooks the Dee estuary.  Excavations in the 1950s demonstrated the existence of a 12th century motte-and-bailey castle , which was flattened by Llewelyn the Great in the early 13th century, and was replaced with a defended courtyard with timber-framed buildings.

The central garth on a very moody day looking at the remains of the church. The tall upstanding ruin is the main remnant of the church at its east end. Photo taken from within the refectory

Basingwerk Abbey was later rebuilt in stone at the current site of the ruins, possibly in the 1150s, probably when Henry II granted a charter to the house and endowed it with the wealthy manor of Glossop in Derbyshire to assist with its financial future, 10 years after it became Cistercian.  The general location seems to have been strategic rather than purely spiritual.  The area of Tegeingl is located in the Four Cantrefs between the earldom of Chester and Welsh Gwynedd, always the subject of territorial dispute between England and Wales and a source of regional discontent until Edward I completed his invasion in the late 13th century.  The establishment of a large French monastery was probably part of this process of establishing a presence, and a holy one at that.  Although the monastery was later mainly populated by English monks, the Welsh too saw the benefit of patronizing a prestigious religious establishment and both Llywelyn ab Iorwerth (d. 1240) and his son, Dafydd ap Llywelyn (d. 1246) were benefactors. 

Detail of Map 12, page 91 in Williams 1990 showing Cistercian Lands in Wales, with those of Basingwerk marked in red. Click to enlarge.

When an abbey was founded, its endowment included a number of properties that included farmland or pasture that were intended to support it by the provision of produce to make it self sustaining and later by selling produce.  Some of these could be quite substantial manors, but others were smaller farms, which the Cistercians referred to as granges.  These could resemble mini monastic establishments and often had their own chapels. Later still, properties with their land could be rented out to tenants, but as late as the early 16th century, Abbot Nicholas Pennant was busy creating a new open enclosure in the mountains adjacent to the monastery apparently for agricultural development.

Gelli Chapel, from Thomas Pennant’s 18th Century Tour in Wales. Source: National Library of Wales, via Wikipedia

Based on the work of D.H. Williams in his 1990 Atlas, Silvester and Hankinson 2015 list all the known Basingwerk granges, shown on the above map produced by Williams. These were supplemented in 2001 by Williams in 2001.  Apart from two properties in Derbyshire these are all concentrated in northeast Wales and the Wirral and include, in alphabetical order:  Baggechurch /Beggesburch Grange, Bagillt; Calcot; Gelli Grange, either at Gelli or Gelli Fawr; lands in Whitford and the adjacent parish of Cwm; the Lordship of Greenfield, alias Fulbrook, including lands of Merton Abbot and party of Holywell town; and Over Grange, Holywell (all in Flintshire).  Lands with uncertain boundaries have also been identified elsewhere in the area, including Mostyn, Wake, Flint and Gwersylt as well as transhumant pasture close to property belonging to Valle Crucis Abbey at Moelfre-fawr in Denbighshire, at Boch-y-rhaiadr and Gwernhefin. They also owned Lake Tegid at Bala.

Beyond Wales, there were also three granges on the Wirral: Caldy Grange (West Kirby), Thornton Grange and Lache Grange (known as “La Lith”), as well as the granges in Charlesworth at Glossop, their mos profitable property, and leased land in Chapel le Frith. 

Over Grange, Holywell. Source: Williams 1990, plate 39, page 120. No indication of when the photograph was taken.

Of this list, only two buildings seem to have survived into relatively recent times, the remnants of two granges.  A chapel at Gelli Fawr in Whitford (Flints), apparently once belonging to Basingwerk Abbey was recorded in  a late 18th-century drawing which suggests that the chapel was part of a larger building complex. More can be found about the building and its possible function it in Silvester and Hankinson 2015.  Another grange, Over Grange, was listed by Cadw in 1991, according to Silverster and Hankinson, and was located located to the southwest of the modern farm house, and has been much-altered.  The photograph below shows it with small cross over the gable.

The Coflein website says that it is believed that Basingwerk Abbey originally constructed a windmill on this site, but the present structure probably dates to the late18 or early 19th century.  Now restored. Source: Coflein 804658 – NMR Site Files. Archive Number 6259181

To support its farming activities, the monastery built watermills, windmills and fulling mills.  Abbot Thomas Pennant (abbot from 1481 to 1522) appears to have been particularly active in the building of mills.  Records indicate that there were at least four windmills, at least three watermills, and at least two fulling mills, as well as a tithe barn in Coleshill.

The site of the Holywell windmill is thought to be preserved by the surviving windmill that can be seen today, shown right.  Two of the windmills were on the Wirral. Rowan Patel’s research has found that the Basingwerk windmill that stood at West Kirby area had been established at around 1152, and was probably upgraded and even replaced several times.  It stood on a high spot near the coast, an ideally windy location, and eventually featured on sea charts as a major landmark for coastal navigation.   It was mentioned in Henry VIII’s Valor Ecclesiasticus, the valuation of all monastic properties. Patel has found that after the Dissolution the mill became the property of the Crown and was rented to Thomas Coventree for an annual sum of 40s.  Rowan Patel’s research suggests that the second Basingwerk windmill was at Newbold, east of West Kirby, mentioned in the Taxatio of Pope Nicholas IV in 1291, where a Newbold windmill was referred to and valued at 40s a year.  Before the Dissolution it appears to have been rented out to Thomas Coyntre in 1525 on a 100 year lease at 40s a year.  By the time of the Dissolution, Thomas’s son Richard Coventry was apparently paying rent to the Crown, and in 1659 William Coventry, presumably a descendant of Richard’s, was still paying rent.  In 1664 it is next recorded having been sold to one Thomas Bennett in who donated it to the support of the poor.  Patel notes that in 1546 two men stole oats, barley and pease worth 10d, indicating the cereals proposed at the mill in the mid-16th century if not before.

Watermills continued to have a value well into the 20th century, and medieval mills will have been replaced over time, removing the visible remains of them, particularly along the valley that ran down the hill behind St Winifred’s Well and past Basingwerk before emptying into the Dee.

Economic Values excerpted from Williams 1990, map 21, p.105, showing the dominance of the agricultural contribution to the abbey’s income

Basingwerk had a large amount of livestock.  The hills and newly cleared meadows around Basingwerk were ideal for sheep in the uplands and cattle in river valleys and pastures.  The Welsh princes are also recorded as expecting two horses annually from Basingwerk which may indicate that the monks, like those of Cymer Abbey, were breeding horses.

As well as agriculture, which made up most of its income, Basingwerk was also involved in industrial activities, owning or leased industrial properties, Williams lists silver mining as a component of Basingwerk’s economic activities, and this is supported by Gerald of Wales whose trip through Wales in 1188 records leaving Conwy and heading east through Tegeingl through “a country rich in minerals of silver, where money is sought in the bowels of the earth” before spending the night at Basingwerk.  The abbey was also involved in the salt trade, with salt extraction enterprises in Northwich and possibly Middlewich.   Williams notes a coal mine leased from the Crown in Coleshill.  Lead was also mined at Basingwerk, probably making use of the same resources that had been exploited by the Romans in the area.

Economic resources excerpted from Williams 1990, map 22, p.105

Timber was taken from woodlands in Penllyn in Merionydd for housing, hedges, fuel and other requirements, as well as for sale.  Tenants were permitted to take a reasonable amount of firewood.  Assarting, the removal of woodland for conversion to agricultural land and other uses was a common activity in the middle ages.

Fishing probably made up a significant part of the diet, as it did at most Cistercian monasteries.  Basingwerk held the fishing rights for Lake Tegid at Bala, which it owned, and had a weir at West Kirby.  Prince Dafydd granted them one fifth of the catch at Rhuddlan in the 13th century.  They may also have purchased fish caught in the nearby coastal waters.

Basingwerk had a number of urban properties too, in Holywell, Flint, Chester, and Shrewsbury, which served as bases in town for the abbot and his representatives, which were probably loaned to friends of the monastery, but could also be leased out for additional income if required.  The Shrewsbury house was probably a legacy of the abbey’s connection with Buildwas Abbey after the amalgamation of the Cistercian and Savignac orders.

The fan vaulting in St Winifred’s Well at Holywell

A major feather in the financial cap of Basingwerk was St Winifred’s shrine with its beautiful natural spring.  The Holywell shrine of St Winifred was also another source of travelers requiring somewhere to stay and something to eat.  St Winifred’s shrine was granted in 1093 to St Werburgh’s Abbey in Chester, but was passed to Basingwerk in 1240, together with the living of Holywell church.  An abbey with a pilgrim shrine had a whole world of opportunities for income generation, and St Winifred’s was not only famous in its own right for its powers of healing and provision of miraculous cures, but was on the pilgrim trail to Bardsey Island at the end of the Llŷn peninsula and Ireland, via Anglesey.  In 1427 it was given a considerable boost when Pope Martin V granted indulgences for those visiting the shrine and giving alms to the chapel.  Indulgences rewarded certain behaviours, like pilgrimages, with a remission of sins, meaning less time in purgatory.  Royal visitors included King Henry V in around 1416 and Edward IV in 1461, helping to raise the profile of the shrine, which continues to welcome pilgrims today.  It became even more attractive from the late 15th – early 15th century when the shrine was provided with a spectacular gothic building that surrounded the spring.  I will cover Holywell in a separate post.

A traditional method of income acquisition for monasteries was appropriating a church and its income, sometimes to cover a particular expense, such as a major building project, and sometimes just to supplement income.  The Cistercians officially frowned on this practice, but the ban on appropriating church incomes did not survive very long.  Even so, Basingwerk had appropriated surprisingly few, just parish churches at Holywell, Glossop and a third at an unknown location, possibly to be identified with Abergele.

The fairs and markets granted to Basingwerk during Edward I’s reign in the 1290s are discussed below, and this must have been a considerable aid to their income.

Behind the monks’ day room and the dormitory above it was a block of buildings the function of which remains unclear. Suggestions include an extension of the abbot’s personal quarters, with rooms for special visitors, or a dedicated guest wing.

In spite of these various forms of income, Basingwerk sometimes found itself in financial stress. The monastery had been unable to provide a required payment to Edward III in 1346, and by way of explanation complained of the burdens of hospitality that came partly with being a Cistercian abbey, which put a great deal of emphasis on providing free hospitality, and partly from being near a major road, which had become increasingly busy after Edward I had moved forward into Wales, establishing market towns whose merchants moved between Wales and Chester for trade.  Even later in its history, in the late 15th/early 1gth century, it was reported that guests were so numerous that they had to take their meals in two sittings. Smith paints an evocative picture of other travelers in Wales who “cautiously flitted from one English settlement to the next, seeking safe overnight bases where food and shelter could be found “in a land in which rumors of insurrection abounded.” Basingwerk was by no means the only abbey to complain of this burden, which was a particular problem for Cistercian abbeys, but was shared by any monastic community that sat at a busy location.  Birkenhead Priory, which ran the ferry that allowed crossings between the Wirral and Lancashire for access to Chester and beyond (and later Liverpool), found itself in real difficulties due to the requirement to supply hospitality for ferry users who might be stuck at the monastery for several nights in bad weather.

A rather more specific problem was the expectation by the Welsh princes to use the abbey’s Boch-y-rhaiadr range for its annual hunting expeditions, during which the abbey was expected to provide bread, butter, cheese and fish for a hunting party of 300, expanding to 500, with money due in lieu when hunting did not take place.  This was abolished by Edward I after his conquest of Wales.

The Cistercian monasteries in Wales were not exempt from all taxes, or subsidies, and some of the abbots and their community were employed as tax collectors.  Other occasional charges were made on the abbey, such as a demand for financial contributions towards the marriage of Edward III’s sister.  Basingwerk provided £5 in 1333.

The abbey, being so active in economic production in the Holywell-Flint areas, was responsible for the management of its lands and the personnel who managed and worked the land, but was also required to function in a judicial role, its courts administering justice and meting out punishments.  Lekai says that the monastery had “a pillory, tumbrel and other instruments of punishment, although the penalty most often inflicted was a fine.”

The church is on the left and the two arches of the chapter house at right,.  All the buildings were arranged around the central green area, the garth. The stone foundations for the covered and arcaded walkway survive.

Most of the Cistercian abbeys in Wales, at one time or another, had a diplomatic role acting as intermediaries between the Welsh princes and the Crown, acting for either side, a role that was in their political interests to accept.  For example In 1241 Henry III used the Lache grange for a conference between himself and Prince Dafydd’s clerk.  In 1246 Henry III chose the abbot of Basingwerk to escort Prince Dafydd’s wife Isabella from Dyserth Castle to Godstow nunnery near Oxford.  A decade later, Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffyd used an abbot of Basingwerk to carry a letter to Henry III.

In 1291 the Taxatio Ecclesiastica of Pope Nicholas IV valued Basingwerk at £68 8s 0d, gross value (compared with Valle Crucis at £91 8s 0d, and Margam  at £255 27s 4½d).  In 1346 it claimed that its lands were sterile, and it went through some bad years, but in spite of the rebellion of Owain Glyn Dŵr in the early 1400s and a very troublesome period when a monk took the abbacy without being legally elected in the first half of the 15th century, with a similar problem in the later 15th century, the appointment of Thomas Pennant in the early 16th century seems to have turned things around.  In 1535, Henry VIII’s Valor Ecclesiasticus valued the monastery at £157 15s 2d.  Margam by this time was valued at £188 14s 0d, and Valle Crucis £214 3s 5d.
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The layout of the monastery

Plan of Basingwerk Abbey. Source: Robinson, D. M., 2006. Basingwerk Abbey (Cadw).

The remains of the monastery conform to a standardized layout favoured by all the orders that followed the rule of St Benedict, clearly shown on the Cadw plan to the right, which helpfully colour-codes the dates for each part of the building. Few parts of the 12th century abbey are left.  Most date to the early 13th century, but the monk’s refectory was built in the mid-13th century.  Much of the abbey was rebuilt in the 13th century, which was not unusual when, for example, a new abbot might want to make a mark, but in this case it is possible that much of not most of it was done due to damage inflicted during the wars between the English and the Welsh, when Edward paid compensation to the abbey to enable it to carry out repairs, about which more below.

The cloister arcade was apparently remodelled in the late 14th century.  In the late 15th century Abbot Thomas Pennant carried out building work not only at the abbey but also at the shrine of St Winifred just up the road in Holywell.  There are various aspects of the site where both date and function remain unclear.  The western range, opposite the chapter house, would have been part of the original layout, used to house the lay brethren, discussed below, but may have gone out of use if a new use for them could be found when the lay brethren were no long featured in the community.  Although the above plan shows that the possible guest accommodation is undated, timbers from fire damage Basingwerk were saved for future analysis and tree-ring dating shows that the felling-date of the crown-post truss was c. 1385.  This is one of the earliest Welsh tree-ring dated.  The dating was commissioned by Cadw.

The church is at left, the chapter house to its right, the day room and the windows of the first floor dormitory next, and set to the far right is the refectory

Although every monastery differed in some aspects, the basic template of buildings surrounding a central square area, a garth (green area) with surrounding walkway (the cloisters) with the monastic church making up one side, was a universal arrangement.  The church was usually on the north side, as it was here, and often included two chapels in the transepts that flanked the crossing area where the choir was located.  Some churches featured towers either above the crossing or at one end.  The other buildings usually included a chapter house (the important monastic meeting room), day room with a dormitory on its first floor, a refectory, and sometimes an undercroft for storage. with an external door leading into the cloister on one side and the monastic precinct beyond. A sacristy was usually attached to the church, sandwiched between the church and the chapter house, which is how matters were arranged at both Basingwerk and Valle Crucis.  The cloisters were usually supplied with desks (called carrels) along the exterior wall of the church  where the monks could study and write.

The precinct, in which this arrangement of buildings sat, could include other structures like farm buildings, and visitor accommodation and often included a gatehouse, the whole surrounded by some form of boundary.  A key feature of Cistercian monasteries was good drainage, which supplied the kitchens and fish ponds, where present, and took away toilet waste, and various parts of the Basingwerk drainage system can be traced at the site.

Part of the abbey’s drainage system

Part of the abbey’s drainage system

The church, with its entrance at far left and the south transept at right

Many of these features can be found at Basingwerk.  The church is largely in ruins, but the layout is still visible in the very masonry walls that sit on the grass, including the columns that supported the roof and divided the church into a central nave with three aisles and seven bays, two side transepts each with a small transept and an eastern presbytery where the high altar would be located.  At around 50 metres in length the church would have been one of the smallest Cistercian churches in Wales. Only Cymer near Dolgellau is shorter, at just over 30m in length.  At the entrance to the presbytery a stone set into the floor may have supported a lectern.

What remains of the south transept, with the presbytery beyond

Basingwerk Abbey refectory wall

Opposite the former church, and one of the best preserved parts of the abbey, is south range with the refectory, which was built perpendicular to the cloister rather than lying along it on a north-south axis.  The refectory in Chester Cathedral, the former St Werburgh Abbey, was built along the length of the cloister, limiting its size, but the the refectory at Basingwerk as limited only by the size of the precinct.  This was probably a change introduced in the 13th century remodelling of much of the abbey, replacing a 12th century refectory that lay along the side of the cloister on an east-west axis.  It is a substantial building with many features preserved in its walls.  This includes the former entrance and stairway to the pulpit, now blocked off, from which religious texts would have been read during meals.  S series of tall windows would have let in a lot of light, and there was a hatch between the refectory and the kitchen for the convenient handing over of food, as well as a cupboard, which was apparently shelved, opposite.

The monks’ day parlour at ground floor level, with the dormitory on the first floor, the windows suggesting the original height of this building

The east range of buildings, again along the edge of the cloister, extends between the east range and the church.  As you face this range, running from right to left are the monks’ day parlour, over which was the dormitory, the length of which over-ran the cloister and ran parallel for a short distance with the refectory;  a long thin parlour is next, and then most importantly is the chapter house, where the monks met daily to discuss the business of the order.  To its left is the sacristy, which adjoined the south transept of the church.

The Chapter House

The sacristy to the left of the chapter house, with doorway leading into the church to the left.

Looking towards where the western range would have been located. The building beyond is now the café.

Opposite this range was the western range, of which there is almost nothing left.  In a Cistercian monastery this was usually used, at least in the early decades, for the lay brethren.  These were members of the monastic community who worked the land, and were not required either to be as educated as the monks, or to dedicate a similar amount of time to worship.  They worked the land and were maintained by the monastery.  As properties were leased out, the lay brethren were increasingly redundant and the western range was usually put to different uses.  It is not known how it would have been used at Basingwerk.


Edward I and Basingwerk Abbey

Plan of Flint Castle. Source: Coflein

When Edward I settled on his location for his new castle at Flint, Basingwerk Abbey was just a few miles west of the new site.  The monks of Basingwerk Abbey, which was established over 100 years earlier in 1132, must have wondered about the impact of the castle on their own security and their livelihood.  During the first few months of the castle construction process in the summer of 1277 Edward stayed near Basingwerk.  Edward saw himself as a religious man.  He had been on crusade, and had made a vow to establish a monastic house of his own, under the Cistercian order, and had selected a site for it in Cheshire.  Vale Royal Abbey was already underway in 1277 near Northwich, Edward having laid the first stone in early August.  It seems unlikely that Edward was not often a guest of the Basingwerk Cistercian Abbey during the building of Flint, which apart from being obliged under Cistercian rules to provide hospitality, was unlikely to reject a royal visitor.  Although Basingwerk had been founded by an English patron, Ranulf II it was probably more in tune with Welsh interests by the arrival of Edward.  Indeed, earlier in 1277 seven Cistercian abbots had written a letter to Pope Gregory X supporting Prince Llewellyn ap Gruffud against charges placed by the Bishop of St Asaph, although the abbot of Basingwerk was not amongst them.

Drainage at Basingwerk, from the refectory

Whatever their personal leanings, it would have been very much in the interests of the order for good relations to be maintained.  They may have offered advice about his plans for Vale Royal, and it is clear that some of the abbots in the Welsh-based monasteries, including Basingwerk, played an invaluable role as intermediaries between the Welsh and the English.  Fortunately for the monks at Basingwerk, Edward I chose the Cistercian abbey at Aberconwy for his headquarters, forcing that monastic community to eventually shift further south along the Conwy valley to a new home.

The monks of Basingwerk would have been less than astute, however, if they had not regarded the new castle with misgivings, and if they had concerns about being caught in the middle of a fight between Edward and Llywelyn, their worries would later be justified.  In the 1270s and 1280s the abbey suffered damage during the wars of Edward I, in spite of letters of protection issued to it in 1276,1278, and 1282 and in 1284 Edward granted £100 compensation to the monks after the army stole corn and cattle and the loss of workers who were abducted, presumably for labour.  An additional 132 4d was paid in damages to churches in Holywell.  Basingwerk was not the only abbey in the area to suffer and receive compensation.  Valle Crucis near Llangollen received a sum of £160.00, and nearby Aberconwy was occupied by Edward I’s forces and its monastic community was forced to move to a new home to the south, at Maenan.  Relations between the abbey and castle obviously continued to remain good, because when the castle was completed in 1280 a monk of Basingwerk was engaged as the chaplain to the royal garrison.

One of John Speed’s maps showing Flint Castle and town. The castle and town of Flint as mapped by John Speed in 1610, showing the original road layout and market place. Source: National Library of Wales

At Flint, Edward had established a Norman-style new town as part of his vision for colonizing various parts of Wales.  This was an English settlement, and any new burgesses prepared to live there was given numerous incentives.  In 1278 Edward granted it permission to hold weekly markets and an annual fair.  In 1292 he granted Basingwerk the same permissions for Holywell, having granted them permission to hold an annual fair at their Glossop manor in 1290.  The monks could charge market stall holders rent for the duration of the market, a nice source of income, as well as selling their own products.  Basingwerk, with its water mills, windmills and fulling mills and land under both grazing and grain, was certainly in a position to sell a number of products, including grain, livestock and livestock products including meat, skins and wool. Welsh wool was recognized as being of very high quality, sometimes superior to even that of the better known wool produced by the Yorkshire monastic producers.  The Taxatio ecclesiastica of Pope Nicholas IV in 1291 recorded that Basingwerk had 2000 sheep producing 10 sacks of wool, 53 cows (at a ratio of 37.1:1), and no goats. Even if it found itself in competition with Flint, Basingwerk’s fairs probably represented the opportunity to raise the abbey’s income.  Its industrial products, as well as some of its wool, may have been sold for export.

The 14th – 16th century

Burton and Stöber describe how by the mid 14th century there were reports that the abbey was in debt, and in the fifteenth century some of its abbots were a distinct liability:

in 1430 the house was seized by Henry Wirral, who made himself abbot, and the following year he was engaged in a legal dispute for the office with Richard Lee. Despite the court ruling in favour of Lee, Henry continued in power at Basingwerk until 1454 when he was arrested for various misdemeanours and deposed. Matters did not improve, for in the following decade Richard Kirby, monk of Aberconwy, disputed the abbacy with Edmund Thornbar. Although the General Chapter ordered that Edmund be recognized as abbot, Richard was still in office in 1476.

Manuscript by Gutan Owain, National Library of Wales, MS3026C. Source: The National Library of Wales

Fortunately the abbey’s fortunes improved under Welsh Abbot Thomas Pennant, who ruled the house for about forty years from around 1481 to 1523, although this was very much a last hurrah before Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries beginning in 1535. By the early 16th century Welsh bard Tudur Aled (died 1526) makes it clear that there was lead roofing and stained glass at the abbey.   Tudur Aled praised Abbot Thomas , commending his his learning but also his generosity, generally an indication that they were being sponsored by a given abbot, as at Valle Crucis.  Gutun Owain seems to have benefited from Basingwerk Abbey’s patronage.  Owain is notable for having addressed over fifteen poems to Cistercian abbots, and is known to have stayed as a guest at Valle Crucis and Strata Florida as well as Basingwerk.  Although the late fifteenth century manuscript known as the Black Book of Basingwerk (Llyfr Du Basing, now NLW MS 7006D, which was the mainly the work of Gutun Owain copied into a single volume) was probably held by Basingwerk at the time of the dissolution in around 1536, it is thought in fact to have been the work of copyist monks at Valle Crucis.

Thomas Pennant was not a man of undiluted virtue.  In an order where celibacy was required and monks were not permitted to marry, Pennant not only fathered a family, but his son Nicholas, became the last abbot of Basingwerk, which in theory was an act of simony banned by the order.  When the abbey closed, probably in 1536, with just three monks, Nicholas was the abbot.

St Mary on the Hill, Chester. Source: GENUKI

After the Dissolution every valuable object and piece of structural material was stripped for Henry VIII’s treasury.  James says that part of the timber ceiling is at Cilcain, and that stained glass can be found at Llanasa.  Burton and Stöber add that the choir stalls from the abbey were transferred to the church of St Mary on the Hill in Chester.  Lead from the roof was removed, and may have been used for the repair of Holt Castle on the Dee and Dublin Castle. Williams adds that it may have been employed also in other crown buildings in Dublin, and that it is possible that the wooden sedilia in the parish church of St Mary, Nercwys, was from Basingwerk.  There is a tradition that the Jesse window was reinstalled in the parish church of St Dyfriog (Llanrhaeadr-yng-Nghinmeirch) but this remains unconfirmed.

I have been unable to get access to St Mary on the Hill, a comprehensive history of which is on the Chesterwiki. It was decomissioned in 1972 and now describes itself as a Creative Space and venue for a range of activities.  However, the Chesterwiki site says that the fittings, presumably including the Basinwerk choir stalls, were removed after the church was decomissioned, although it does not say where these fittings went.

From the 18th century the site attracted artists who recorded features that are now lost.  In the early 20th century a large section of the south transept collapsed.  In 1923 the site was put in State guardianship and in 1984 it was put into the car of Cadw.

Basingwerk Abbey miniature by Moses Griffiths, c.1778. Source: National Library of Wales, via Wikipedia

Final comments

The building that may be a guesthouse, has had burned timbers dendro-dated, which give the roof a date of c.1385. Source: RCAHMW Exhibitions: Dendrochronology Partnerships

Information about Basingwerk Abbey is fragmented and partial, but researchers have pieced together a history of the abbey that tells a story about abbey’s past, beginning as a Savignac establishment before being absorbed into the Cistercian network of monasteries.  The disputes between the Welsh princes and Henry III and Edward I caused grief for the north Wales monasteries, but they survived to rebuild and move forward.  Like other abbeys in Wales, the abbots of the abbey had a diplomatic role, often acting as intermediaries between Wales and England.  As members of the wider community with an important economic role, the abbey was often involved in local judicial matters. Financial difficulties in the 14th and 15th centuries are recorded and but again the monastery survived these difficulties.  In the early 16th century the abbey became a haven for Welsh bards, supporting their work. Throughout its history, its location on the main route through north Wales meant that it was obliged to provide more hospitality than more secluded monastic houses, whilst the shrine of St Winifred, whilst contributing to the prestige and financial value of the abbey, also required some management to prevent it becoming a drain on the abbey’s obligation to provide shelter and food.  After the Dissolution in 1536, the abbey was decommissioned, its valuables removed and its properties either sold off our leased out.  Today it is managed by Cadw and offers an excellent visitor experience.


Visitor Information

Find the captions and see the full-sized map at https://greenfieldvalley.com/greenfield-valley-zones/. There is an interactive version of the map at https://greenfieldvalley.com/explore/interactive-map/.

The site is free to visit.  There is no visitor information centre but a small modern shop sells guide books, postcards and souvenirs relating to Basingwerk, St Winifred’s Shrine and the Greenfield Valley Park. The abbey’s postcode is CH8 7GH and the car park is on Bagillt road, just to the west of the enormous railway bridge, opposite a small trade/industrial estate.

There is a big car park at the foot of the abbey, shown to the right left on the A548, just west of the enormous railway bridge, which has a fairly gentle metalled incline up to the abbey, with a bench and information map half way up.

There is also a café just outside the main gates, which in October 2022 was doing a good coffee and a splendid lunch.

Basingwerk Abbey is a component part of Greenfield Valley Park, and is popular with dog walkers and children, so if you want a quiet visit it is probably best to go on a weekday outside the holidays. The rest of Greenfield Valley Park is an excellent visit in its own right, with a remarkable amount of industrial archaeology within its borders, and plenty of interpretation boards.  I have posted about the industrial archaeology of the Green Valley Park here.

If you want to stay in the medieval period, St Winifred’s Well is about 1.5 miles through the park (shown as No.9 at the very top of the map right), or if you prefer to drive it has its own car park.  Flint Castle is only 4 or so miles down the A548 towards Chester, and makes for a great visit.  I wrote about the history of Flint Castle on an earlier post, Together, the three sites make a very fine medieval day.

Sources

Books and papers:

Burton, J. and Stöber, K. 2015.  Abbeys and Priories of Medieval Wales.  University of Wales Press.  https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qhdvn.13

Davies, Paul R. 2021. Towers of Defiance. YLolfa

Elfyn Hughes, R., J. Dale, I. Ellis Williams and D. I. Rees. Studies in Sheep Population and Environment in the Mountains of North-West Wales I. The Status of the Sheep in the Mountains of North Wales Since Mediaeval Times. Journal of Applied Ecology , Apr., 1973, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Apr., 1973), p.113-132
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2404720

Evans D.H. 2008, Valle Crucis Abbey, Cadw

Knight, L. Stanley 1920. The Welsh monasteries and their claims for doing the education of later Medieval Wales. Archaeologia Cambrensis, 6th series, volume 2, 1920, p.257-276
https://journals.library.wales/view/4718179/4728984/314#?xywh=-63%2C345%2C2942%2C1730

Rhys, Ernest (ed.) 1908.  The Itinerary and Description of Wales with an introduction by W. Llewelyn Williams. Everyman’s Library. J.M. Dent and Co, London. and E.P. Dutton and Co (NY)
https://archive.org/details/itinerarythroug00girauoft

Huws, D. 2000.  Medieval welsh Manuscripts. University of Wales Press

James, M.R. 1925.  Abbeys. The Great Western Railway
https://archive.org/details/abbeys-great-western-railway

Jones, Owain, 2013. Historical writing in medieval Wales. PhD Thesis, University of Bangor.
https://research.bangor.ac.uk/portal/files/20577287/null&ved=2ahUKEwjxssbb0tvtAhWmxIsKHQgvBW0QFjAOegQICBAI&usg=AOvVaw2GbJiGy6Sl3SPiTX4K8RqZ

Lekai, Louis L. 1977. The Cistercians. Ideals and Reality. The Kent State University Press

Patel, Rowan 2016. The Windmills and Watermills of Wirral. A Historical Survey. Countyvise Ltd.

Robinson, D. M., 2006. Basingwerk Abbey. Cadw

Silvester, R.J., and Hankinson, R., 2015. The Monastic Granges of East Wales. The Scheduling Enhancement Programme: Welshpool. Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust (CPAT)
coflein.gov.uk/media/241/979/652240.pdf

Smith, Joshua Byron 2016. “Til þat he neӡed ful neghe into þe Norþe Walez”: Gawain’s Postcolonial Turn. The Chaucer Review, Vol.51, No.3 (2016), p.295-309
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/chaucerrev.51.3.0295

Williams, David H., 2001. The Welsh Cistercians, Gracewing

Williams, David H., 1990. Atlas of Cistercian Lands. University of Wales Press

Websites:

Coflein
Basingwerk Abbey
https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/35649?term=basingwerk%20abbey%20holywell

Monastic Wales
Basingwerk Abbey
https://www.monasticwales.org/browsedb.php?func=showsite&siteID=24
Gutun Owain
https://www.monasticwales.org/person/72
The Black Book of Basingwerk
https://www.monasticwales.org/archive/24
Valle Crucis (Abbey)
https://www.monasticwales.org/browsedb.php?func=showsite&siteID=35

RCAHMW Exhibitions: Dendrochronology Partnerships
Bilingual exhibition panel entitled Partneriaethau Dendrocronoleg; Dendrochronolgy Partnerships, produced by RCAHMW 2013
https://coflein.gov.uk/media/200/524/rcex_026_01.pdf

RCAHMW List of Historic Placenames (searchable database)
https://historicplacenames.rcahmw.gov.uk/

University of Notre Dame
A Knight in St. Patrick’s Purgatory, by Haley Stewart. March 15, 2019
https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/a-knight-in-st-patricks-purgatory/

An Essay on Cistercian Liturgy by Dr Julie Kerr
Cistercians in Yorkshire, University of Sheffield
www.dhi.ac.uk/cistercians/cistercian_life/spirituality/Liturgy/Cistercian_liturgy.pdf 

 

The chapter house propped up during excavations when M.R. James visited in 1925.

Basingwerk Abbey from the South. 1929 postcard. Source: People’s Collection Wales

Gop Cave and Cairn near Prestatyn #3 – The vast cairn

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Introduction

The cairn rising above the tree tops on Gop hill, with the cave visible as a dark line in the light limestone ridge below. Source: Coflein

Gop Cairn is at an elevation of 250m (c.820ft) above sea level  on the prow of a hill overlooking the Vale of Clwyd, just outside the village of Trelawnyd (formerly known as Newmarket).  It is oval rather than round, and measures roughly 101m x 78m (331 x 255ft).  It is the biggest man-made prehistoric mound in Wales, and in Britain as a whole it is second only to Silbury Hill in Wiltshire.

The cave has already been discussed in part 1 (Pleistocene and Mesolithic) and part 2 (Neolithic burials).

The Excavation

The plan of the cairn and excavations by Boyd Dawkins. Source: Boyd Dawkins 1901

Sir William Boyd Dawkins was hired by the landowner to excavate the cairn.  Boyd Dawkins had a simple, though labour-intensive strategy.  The plan that Boyd Dawkins made of the cairn shows the dip in the top that remains today.  Boyd Dawkins speculates that this could have been caused when the cairn was later used as a source of raw materials for local drystone walling, or alternatively by subsidence due to the collapse of an underlying chamber.

Although there is a thin covering of vegetation today, the cairn was found to be built of chunks of limestone.  Around the base of the cairn there seems to have been a more organized and well presented kerb of drystone walling.  Ian Brown suggests that when first built, and during the period when it still retained importance, it may have “shown a dramatic whiteness set against a blue or darkening site.”  The limestone ridge below, in which the cave is located and shown at the top of this post, certainly seems almost white in the sunshine, and the cairn may have had a similarly noticeable appearance, particularly given its great size.

Boyd Dawkins sunk a shaft (6ft 6 ins by 4ft / c.2m x 1.22m) vertically from the top of the cairn, which had to be shored up with timber to allow work to proceed safely.  The shaft reached the former ground surface, which was formed of bedrock.  A main “drift” (a mining term for a horizontal subterranean tunnel) was then tunnelled running 30ft (c.9m) to the northeast from the bottom of the vertical shaft towards the edge, followed by two shorter drifts.  The hope was to find a burial chamber at the centre.  It was not unreasonable to assume that there would be a burial chamber of some description.  Although Neolithic chambered cairns are not common in northeast Wales (examples are Tyddyn Bleiddyn near St Asaph and Tan y Coed in the Dee valley), there are many Early Bronze Age round barrows with cists, and there are several stone-built burial sites and a stone row on the Great Orme to the west.

Unfortunately, in spite of all the hard work, all that Boyd Dawkins and his team found were fragmented animal bones, which in spite of his considerable experience identifying animal remains, Boyd Dawkins was unable to identify with certainty: “hog, sheep or goat, and ox or horse, too fragmentary to be accurately determined.”  Overall, the suggestion is that these were domesticated species that could have been herded or penned in the area.

No artefacts were found.

Conditions were obviously very difficult, as Boyd Dawkins states: “The timbering necessary for our work was not only very costly, but rendered it very difficult to observe the condition of the interior even in the small space which was excavated.”  It is possible that the chamber, if there is one, is off-centre, and that any passage leading to it is in a different direction.  Until further survey or excavation work is carried out, there is no means of telling what lies beneath the surface.

Dating the Cairn

Neolithic arrowheads found on Gop Hill. Source: Glenn 1935

Data for the dating of the cairn is circumstantial.  Although domesticated animal species were found within the cairn, these could have been deposited at an any time from the Neolithic onwards.  On the other hand, arrowheads and other Neolithic stone tools have been found on Gop Hill. According to T. Allen Glenn in 1935, Gop Hill was known locally as Bryn-y-Saethau, the Hill of Arrows, due to the large number of Neolithic arrowheads found there over the decades.  Just below the cairn, just 43m (141ft) away, shown in the above photograph, is a shallow cave in the limestone ridge  that contained Neolithic burials.  There are ephemeral Neolithic sites nearby, identified by T. Allen Glenn during field walking during the 1920s, and there are other Neolithic cave sites in northeast Wales.  At the same time, nothing significant relating to the Bronze Age has been found in the immediate area.  Although Iron Age and Roman sites have been found in the area, Gop Cairn is not an Iron Age or Roman form of site, and there is no record of a medieval motte and bailey castle up on the hill.  On balance, accepting that it remains speculative, it seems probable that it will turn out to be a Neolithic site if it is ever properly investigated.

Myth: “Baseless Theories”

A local writer named Edward Parry, author of Royal Visits and Progresses into Wales, written in 1851, propagated the idea that Gop Hill and its cairn were connected with the battle between Boudicca and Suetonius Pauluins in A.D. 61.  It is a bizarre theory, that Ellis Davies, under the subheading “Baseless Theories” says in 1949 was a “false derivation” based on one of the names of the Gop, Cop Paulini.  It is otherwise incomprehensible why Parry should have come up with the theory, but it found its way into other pamphlets and local accounts.  As Davies points out in a rather aggrieved tone, “It would not be necessary to refer to these absurd stories about the association of Boudicca with Gop and neighbourhood were it not for the fact that locally they still persist!”

The Beacon

In his 1949 book “The Prehistoric and Roman Remains of Flintshire,” Ellis Davies notes that in the 17th century there was a beacon on Gop Hill, the purpose of which was to send up an alarm, when necessary, should pirates be spotted off the coast.  A small hut was built at the bottom of the cairn to store the combustible materials with which the fire would be lit.

Final Comments

It is a little ironic that there is such a lot to say about a rather small cave, and not a great deal to say about an absolutely enormous cairn on the prow of a hill that dominates the surrounding landscape.  It seems clear from the burials in the cave beneath the cairn, dated by association with distinctive artefacts, and supported by stone tools found on the hill, that this was an important location during the Neolithic. It seems likely that the cairn could have belonged to the same period, but it is also possible that it could belong to the following earlier Bronze Age.  Further investigation will be required to nail down the date of the site, and to establish if there are any additional structures, such as burial chambers, contained within.

 

Suggestions for the derivation of the name Gop. Source: Ellis Davies 1949, p.159

Sources and visiting details are shown in part 1

 

 

Gop Cave and Gop Cairn near Prestatyn – # 1: Woolly rhinos and hungry hyaenas

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Introduction

Gop Hill in northeast Wales, a few miles southeast of Prestatyn, and just above the village of Trelawnyd (formerly Newmarket from 1710 to 1954) is home to Gop Cave and Gop Cairn, just a few minutes apart from one another.  Gop Cairn has the distinction of being the largest man-made prehistoric mound in Wales, and when approached from a distance, its size really is impressive.  Although the cairn was investigated in the 19th century, with a vertical shaft sunk from the top to the level of the floor, and a “drift” tunnelled outward from the base of the shaft, no burial chamber or human remains were found.

The south-facing limestone cave was also investigated, producing Pleistocene zoological remains, Mesolithic stone tools and Neolithic human burials and contemporary artefacts and the bones of both domesticated and wild animals. In 1868 Boyd Dawkins excavated pre-glacial animal species such as woolly rhino and steppe bison in the cave deposits, which provided significant data about local ecological conditions. Excavations by T. Allen Glenn in the early 1920s discovered Mesolithic remains on the platform outside the cave.  Although this was a small assemblage, it is an important contributor of knowledge about the poorly understood North Wales Mesolithic.  The Boyd Dawkins excavations also produced an unusual and very important Neolithic burial chamber.  It was found in one of the upper layers, with walls made of layers of stone containing at least 14 burials.  Pottery and stone tools found with them were sufficiently distinctive to provide a chronological range, placing the burials within the Neolithic period.  Excavations conducted by John H. Morris and T.A. Glenn between 1908 and 1914 found another six burials in a previously undiscovered passageway, including two children as well as a Neolithic axe-head from the nearby Graig Lywyd axe factory and are considered to lie within the same date range as those found by Boyd Dawkins, taking the total count of individuals found up to 20.  It did not take a great leap of imagination to speculate that the Neolithic date for the cave could suggest a similar date for the cairn, although this remains unverified.

Over three posts, the Gop Hill sites are described and the work carried out summarized.  This post, Part 1, looks at the 19th century excavation of Gop Cave by Sir William Boyd Dawkins, a really rather remarkable early investigator of prehistoric habitats and fauna as well as archaeological remains. Visiting details are provided towards the end of Part 1, after which there is a list of references.  Part 2 looks in detail at the Neolithic burial within the cave, and part 3 looks at the cairn.

Sir William Boyd Dawkins, excavating 1886-1887

When I was working in caves with archaeological deposits in the mid- to late-1980s, 100 years after William Boyd Dawkins was excavating at Gop Cave, he was a very well-known name, and a respected one.  It is easy to be frustrated with the quality of the work carried out in those early investigations, some of which were far from systematic, and caves have some particular quirks of their own to contend with, but a few of these early investigators were impressive and Sir William Boyd Dawkins was one of them.

Born near Welshpool in 1837 Sir Wiliam Boyd Dawkins (1837-1929), developed a keen interest as a child in collecting fossils.  His initial field of interest was primarily geology, natural history and palaeontology, all of which have in common with archaeology a focus on stratified sequences and the relative positioning of fossils, bones and objects within those sequences.  Just as early archaeologists were interested in building up sequences of artefacts so that they could understand how human technology developed, early palaeontologists were interested in the developmental sequence of prehistoric animal and plant species. In 1860 he graduated in Natural Sciences and Classics from Oxford and in 1861 he was appointed to the Geological Survey of Great Britain. Fortunately, because Sir William found many archaeological remains during his investigations, he treated these more recent discoveries with equal interest and respect.  His earliest archaeological excavations were at Wookey Hole in Somerset where he discovered some of the first evidence of Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age) occupation.  These discoveries helped him to develop methodologies for excavating cave sites and to build up a good understanding of the type of environmental and human data that he was likely to encounter within particular geological and geomorphological contexts.  He wrote a number of important articles about extinct sub-species of rhinoceros that had once inhabited Britain. He became the first President of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society and President of the Cambrian Archaeological Association.  He excavated at a number of cave sites in north Wales, and his 1874 book “Cave Hunting: researches on the evidence of caves respecting the early inhabitants of Europe” became a classic.

The four phases of Gop Cave deposits

Figure 5 from Boyd Dawkins 1901, p.327 (the cavity marked as B was the Neolithic burial chamber)

When Boyd Dawkins first encountered Gop Cave, it was full to the brim with glacial, post-glacial and more recent debris and rock fall:

While the cairn was being explored my attention was attracted to a fox-earth at the base of a low scarp of limestone 141 feet to the  south-west of the cairn. It occupied a position which I have almost invariably found to indicate the presence of a cavern  used by foxes, badgers, and rabbits as a place for shelter. I therefore resolved to explore this, with the assistance of Mr. P. G. Pochin. The fox-earth led us into a cave completely blocked up at the entrance by earth and stones and large masses of limestone, which had fallen from the ledge of rock above. This accumulation of debris occupied a space 19 feet in width, and extended along the whole front of the cavern

Nothing loth, he set about clearing it in a top-down methodical way that would allow him to assess the chronological composition of the deposits.  It was a remarkable achievement, given the incredibly limited head space and the absence of more than a thin envelope of natural light.

Figure 4 showing the excavations of the cave in horizontal plan, with the sections through the deposits both outside and within the cave. Feature B is the Neolithic burial chamber. Source: Boyd Dawkins 1901, p.325

Boyd Dawkins identified four distinct phases within the cave.   These are shown in the table below and discussed beneath.  The terms Pleistocene and Holocene used in the table below refer to consecutive periods in the geological timescale.  The Pleistocene begins at around c.2.8 million years ago, covering the most recent period of repeated periods of major glaciation to 11,700 years ago, when the last glacier retreated and the planet entered its present inter-glacial phase, the Holocene. The Holocene levels at Gop Cave, which include the 14 burials (thought by Boyd Dawkins to be Bronze Age but now reassigned to the earlier Neolithic), will be discussed in Part 2.  Below is a discussion of the Pleistocene levels.

Geological Table Source: USGS

Figure 6 from Boyd Dawkins 1901, p.329

Boyd Dawkins noted that the layers were not as they would have been originally deposited: “They appear to have been washed out of the original hyaena floors by the action of water, and to have been redeposited at a time later than the occupation of the cave by hyaenas.”  The presence of stone of non-local origin also argues for different phases of water and glacial activity entering the cave, scouring the deposits and replacing them.

Boy Dawkins identified the Pleistocene fauna from the surviving bones and antlers found in the cave as follows.

  • Cave hyaena – Hycena spelaea
  • Bison – Bison priscus
  • Red deer – Cervus elaphus
  • Reindeer – Cervus tarandus
  • Roe deer – Cervus capreolus
  • Horse – Equus caballus
  • Woolly rhinoceros – Rhinoceros tichorhinus

Woolly Rhino. Source: Science

Woolly rhino (now designated Coelodonta antiquitatis), cave hyaena (now referred to as Crocuta crocuta , and sometimes Crocuta crocuta spelaea) and Bison priscus (steppe bison) are now extinct.  The steppe bison was the species painted in famous Upper Palaeolithic caves like Lascaux in France and Altamira in France.  Although Boyd Dawkins identified horse as Equus caballus, if the identification of horse was correct, it would probably have been the wild ancestor of caballus, Equus ferus. Reindeer are no longer found wild in Britain.  Of the species on his list, red deer and roe deer and horse are the only wild species that remain in Britain.  Boyd Dawkins observed that some of the remains, and particularly the antlers of “the reindeer, bore the teeth marks of hyaenas, and had evidently belonged to animals which had fallen victims to those bone-eating carnivores.”

20th Century Excavations

Glenn’s fold-out plan of the 1912 excavations. Source: Davies 1949

Further excavations took place during the earlier part of the 20th Century, contributing more information.

Between 1908 and 1914 John H. Morris and T. Allen Glenn investigated the northwest passage of the cave system, sometimes.  This was missed by Boyd Dawkins because it was hidden behind a blockage of clay and stalagmite.  This passage produced an additional six skeletons, two of which were children.  Glenn describes an excavation “carried out with extreme care and by modern methods” but says that due to burrowing animals there was no recognizable stratification byond determining Pleistocene and Neolithic levels.  The floor was covered to a depth of between 18 inches and 2ft “with cave earth and pieces of limestone over a hard floor of clay mixed with stalactite fragments and limestone rubble” over bedrock.   There is some indication that limestone slabs had been used to build low walls around some of these skeletons.  Finds within the cave, at the new entrance and near the cave between 1911 and 1917 were collected by Morris.  Neolithic human remains and artefacts were found, and will be discussed in Part 2.  Animal remains found were horse, sheep/goat, ox, pig, wolf, fox, bear, lynx, badger, fowl, hare, rabbit, frog, watervole, mole, stoat and fieldmouse.  The mixture of Pleistocene and Holocene species suggests that these were highly disturbed layers, probably due to the activity of burrowing animals mentioned by Allen.

The excavations linked the passage in which they were working to the second entrance, the very small opening for which is a little further along the ridge to the west, and shown on the plan at the top of this post. This is sometimes referred to as the North-West Cave, although it is part of the same cave system as the main Gop Cave.

Both cave entrances in the limestone ridge.

T. Allen Glenn returned to the site between 1920 and 1921, funded by the National Museum of Wales.  He excavated the platform in front of the cave, which was largely untouched by Boyd Dawkins and found more human and animal remains, as well as Mesolithic stone tools, described below.  Glenn wrote up both his own and Morris’s excavations in one 1935 report.

In 1956 William H. Stead excavated at the site and amongst other animal remains found a lion tibia.  The reports are in the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, nos 23 (1957), 28 (1958) and 29 (1960).  Although I have listed them in the bibliography, I don’t have access online via the University of Chester, and the library does not have these volumes on the shelves, so I have been unable to read up on the findings.  If I get hold of them (please give me a yell if you have access to them!), I’ll update this section.

Dating the animal remains in the Pleistocene cave

Gop Cairn with the cave entrance visible on the limestone ridge just below.

There were only certain periods when Britain was actually habitable.  One reason is that harsh climatic conditions during glacial periods forced most life to leave all but the most southern areas.  For example, between c.160,00 and 80, 000 years ago the environment was too hostile for human occupation and for most animals.  Another reason is that, after 130,000 years ago the permanent chalk land-bridge between Britain and Europe was destroyed, and after this time Britain and Europe were only connected during glacial periods when the water level dropped sufficiently for land-bridges to be revealed, which enabled animal and human migratory movement.  Modern research into the climatic and environmental past has helped to clarify when land bridges between Europe and Britain enabled animals and humans to wander freely. With the final retreat of the ice sheets at around 10,000 BC the land bridges were permanently submerged. De Groote et al explain this very clearly:

Generalised reconstruction of the land surface and the extent of ice sheets of the British Isles. Source: De Groote et al 2017, fig.1 p.3

From the early Pleistocene, Britain was connected to main-land Europe by a land-bridge that enabled humans and fauna to migrate in and out (Fig. 1A). Until about 130,000 years ago, this narrow chalk isthmus, separating the north (North Sea) and southwest (English Channel) marine embayments, kept Britain connected to varying extents even when sea-levels were high during the warm interglacial periods; the eventual complete breaching of this chalk barrier was crucial in forming the island and the Dover Strait. During glacial periods, much of the earth’s water would have been trapped in the ice caps and when, during the later Pleistocene, the bed of the North Sea was exposed, a large land area known as Doggerland, created by geological uplift and sedimentation from rivers, also provided a route into the British Isles and fauna, including hominins, would have entered this way. The flooding of the shallow shelf areas of the English Channel and the North Sea are the consequence of the current high interglacial sea levels.

Even without modern scientific dating methods, reliable time-ranges can be assigned to animal bone assemblages on the basis of which species were found together in a certain place during a certain period. Boyd Dawkins had already assembled a considerable amount of data on the subject, some of which was published in his earlier work Early Man in Britain published in 1880.

AHOB time chart showing periods of human absence and occupation. Click to enlarge or see original on the AHOB website

Improvements in palaeo-zoology have helped to clarify which species were present during which periods.  Some animals that are now either completely extinct or permanently migrated out of Britain provide a latest possible date for their presence.  Studies of prehistoric assemblages of fauna have also helped to fix date ranges for the presence of certain species, assigning them to marine isotope stages (also known as oxygen isotope stages).  Marine isotope stages measure oxygen isotopes in sea water that is absorbed into the skeletons of tiny single-celled organisms called foraminifera, which are preserved in sediments on the sea floor.  The oxygen isotopes contain information about the volume of ice present globally, and therefore provide a record of alternating glacial and interglacial periods. The faunal assemblage corresponds well to MIS 3, which falls into the Middle Palaeolithic archaeological period.  Woolly rhino, for example, had left Britain by around 30,000 years ago.  The entire assemblage probably puts Gop Cave in Marine isotope stage 3 (MIS 3).  MIS 3 lasts from between 60,000 and 25,000 years ago. The conditions were ideal for woolly rhinoceros, horse, bison, hyaena, and reindeer, which inhabited temperate but cold semi-arid steppe-like conditions with often hot summers and very cold winters.  Steppes are characterized by wide open treeless grasslands, with small shrubs, ideal for grazing species, and for carnivores preying on the grass-loving herbivores.

Pontnewydd Cave entrance. Source: National Museum of Wales

Even though the idea of woolly rhino, bison and hyaena roaming the hills of north Wales, all of them now extinct, may seem distinctly exotic, these time ranges are not particularly early for Britain.  Not far away, near St Asaph, the cave site of Pontnewydd produced stone tools and human remains in association with animal species for which sound scientific dates were obtained during modern excavations.  The human remains found in association with stone tools belonged to the branch of hominin known as Neanderthal (Homo neanderthalensis, named for the type site in the Neander Valley in Germany) and the dates cluster around 225,000 years ago.  If correct, the Gop Cave date ranges are relatively recent by comparison.

Although MIS 3 corresponds to periods of human occupation in Britain during the Middle Palaeolithic there was no human habitation identified within the Pleistocene levels of the cave.  Boyd Dawkins was experienced at identifying human artefacts and would almost certainly have recognized them had any been there to be found. a number of brief occupations of the country, Britain would have been occupied intermittently during this time, depending on the environmental conditions, and probably only by small groups.  The most probably candidate for any humans dodging lions and woolly rhinos and competing with hyaenas for dining on deer, may have been Homo Neanderthalensis (Neanderthals).  The oldest Neanderthal find in Britain was from Swanscombe in Kent, where a skull dates to c.400,000 years ago, a warm interglacial period.  Neanderthals left and re-entered Britain numerous times, their movements determined by glacial and interglacial conditions, until around 40,000 years ago when the Neanderthals became extinct.

The Mesolithic

Microliths from Gop Cave, excavated by Glenn in 1920-21. Source: Wainwright 1961

The Mesolithic, corresponding to the geological Holocene, represents settlement during the earliest post-glacial period.    Although the site was small, the Gop artefacts are very typical of Mesolithic finds in the area.   The stone tools found included 6 microliths (tiny stone tools usually 3cm or less long), a scraper, two other tools of undetermined types, possibly waste flakes, and twenty three microlith and blade cores.  A core is the original piece of stone after it has been worked.  When microliths, flakes and blades have been struck from it it is discarded, but still bears the marks of the tools that were removed from it.  Of the microliths, Geoffrey Wainwright describes two were obliquely blunted, two lanceolate, and four scalene triangles.  There was also one broad point retouched on both sides and a section of a bone pin.

Distribution of Mesolithic sites in Wales. Source: Heneb Dyfed

The earliest known Mesolithic site in Wales dates to c.8600 BC (some 10,500 years ago) at The Nab Head in southwest Wales (no.5 on the map to the right).  In 2021 a 9000 year old site was found on Castle Hill, off Hylas Lane in Rhuddlan, where over 13,000 stone tools and five decorated stone pebbles were found. Another well known site is at Trwyn Du on Anglesey where a Mesolithic occupation dates to between 8,000- 9,000 years ago, and was preserved beneath Bronze Age burial mound excavated when it was threatened by coastal erosion in 1974 (no.9 on the map).

With the withdrawal of the ice sheets, vegetation re-established itself, and whilst the land-bridge remained in tact, animals once again drifted across the land, with humans in their wake.  Once the ice had fully retreated, the land-bridge was submerged and Britain and Ireland became separated both from the continent and from each other.  The island was soon occupied by many small groups exploiting inland and coastal resources, hunting, collecting plant resources, fishing and collecting shellfish.

Decorated stone pebble from the Mesolithic deposits at Rhuddlan. Source: Dyfed Archaeology

Warmer and wetter than today, with a deciduous woodland landscape, the environment favoured different wild animal populations from the pre-glacial period, which required different hunting techniques.  Particularly characteristic of the Mesolithic toolkit was the microlith, a catch-all term for a large number of varieties of tiny stone artefact that could have been hafted into wood, bone or antler to make arrows, spears, harpoons and scythes.  Many Mesolithic communities were located on or near the the seashore. The seashore was a movable feast at this time as a) the ice continued to melt, raising sea levels, and b) land, which had been compressed under the pressure of the ice, began to rise.  The exploitation of marine resources included both fish and shellfish.  It was these settlers who, stranded on an island when the land-bridge was lost, were sufficiently stable and persistent to contribute to modern DNA.

Although permanent amelioration of the climate provided the ability to develop new patterns of living eventually lead to the expansion of populations and the modification of landscape, sites are difficult to locate, some were submerged during rising sea levels, and many are often highly disturbed, meaning that the period is still poorly understood.  Each new site therefore contributes important data to the overall picture, and Gop Cave contributes information about where such sites were to be found in north Wales and what sort of activities were pursued.

The location of the finds today

Neolithic stone implements found in and near Gop Cave. Source: Davies 1949, p.283

Davies, writing in 1949, says that most of the animal and human bones from the Dawkins excavations were stored at the pigeon house belonging to Gop Farm, but that some of these were sold in around 1912 to an archaeologist in Wrexham.  Davies himself saw “great quantities of bone” in the pigeon house in 1913 but in the same year, although T. Allen Glenn, who had excavated at the cave, had received permission from the estate manager to remove the archaeological remains, the tenant threw all of it “down an open mine-shaft nearby.”  He goes on: “In a letter dated, ‘The Manchester museum, The University, Nov.19, 1937,’ the keeper, Mr. R.U. Sayce, M.A., supplied the information that there were in the museum several of the remains from the cave; they included animal bones, human skulls, and limb bones; also some sherds of Neolithic ‘B’ pottery. The long flint implement and the Kimmeridge clay links have not been traced.”  The pottery, the flint implement and the Kimmeridge objects relate to the cairn and will be discussed in part 2.  Davies also says that the finds from the objects retained by Morris at his home in Rhyl (where Davies was able to inspect them) were bequeathed to the National Museum of Wales.  Those from the subsequent Glenn excavations in 1920-21 were also deposited in the National Museum of Wales, who had funded Glenn’s work.

According to Cris Ebbs, on the Cambrian Caving Council website, other zoological and archaeological remains that were not disposed of are now in the collections of Aura Museums Service, Grosvenor Museum in Chester.

Conclusions

Although there were no human remains in the Pleistocene levels of Gop Cave, the faunal remains provide a fascinating insight of their own into the environmental conditions of north Wales, suggesting that a steppe environment prevailed, possibly at some stage between 60,000 and 30,000 years ago.  Understanding of the palaeozoology, palaeoecoloy and archaeology of the Pleistocene are all dependent on the work of palaeanthropologists, geologists, geomorphologists and climatologists, and many other specialists, all contributing very specialized research about how and when animals and humans would have been able to migrate to and from what is today an island.

The Mesolithic remains are the earliest evidence of human settlement in the immediate vicinity of the cave.  Although they represent a small group of people probably passing through, with no signs of seasonal returns to the site, this helps to contribute to the fragmentary picture of what was happening in Wales in the post-glacial period.  Both tools and tool cores were found, suggesting that tools were manufactured during the short stay at the site.

 

Visiting Details

When packing your rucksack or stuffing your pockets, do be sure to take a torch with a good, strong beam, and wear some solid footwear that will cope both with slippery mud and some very irregular stones and sharp rocks underfoot in the cave itself.  Caves are nearly always dripping with water, so unless it has been a very dry period, you may want to have a waterproof ready to drag on.  You cannot stand upright in the entrance of the cave, so you enter bent over, but it does open out so that you can explore some of the cave upright.  It is a good idea to get a sense of the internal plan before you go, because the dark is very disorientating and it is quite difficult to make out what is where.

The village of Trelawnyd showing the locations of the car park (red rectangle), and the small lane that leads to the footpath (red arrow). Click to expand.  Courtesy Apple Maps.

Gop Cave is a short walk from the village of Trelawnyd on the A5151 (itself a short drive from junction 31 on the A55).  It is a two-for-one scenario, as immediately above Gop Cave and only a minute or two away, and visible for miles around, is Gop Cairn.  I forgot to to take a What3Words reading for the cave, but the cairn is at ///searcher.sprint.wins,  Both are on public footpaths and are free of charge to access.  There is a car park on the little High Street in Trelawnyd, just off the A5151, or there is a limited amount of on-street parking a bit closer to the start of the small lane that leads to the footpath on the hillside, just up the slope from the car park.  The footpath is clearly marked, as shown in the photograph below.

The first part of the footpath is a small lane that takes you past a couple of houses, until it reaches a narrow path that makes its way along the side of a tall garden fence to your right.  This turns abruptly right and slightly uphill, leading to a low stone-built stile which takes you on to the hillside.  I was with Helen Anderson (well-known on Twitter as @Helenus_) and we were busy nattering and wild-flower spotting (complete with wild orchids) so weren’t paying too much attention to the pathway markers, but they are there if you keep an eye open.

We followed the well-worn track, which leads at this time of year, late April / early May, through bright yellow gorse until it opens onto higher ground, which is completely open, with stunning views over the surrounding valley to Iron Age hillforts on the Clwydian range and to the sea to the west.  You need to turn left beneath a shallow pale grey limestone ridge to reach the main cave entrance.  A very tiny secondary entrance is a little further along.  Retrace your steps to go up to the cairn, through a gate in a drystone wall.  For anyone wanting to stop for a breather, there’s a bench near the gate, somewhat bizarrely looking like an escapee from a Victorian arcade or promenade.

Moel Hiraddug

Although the walk is slightly steep for a short section, it is a mellow walk, and far from strenuous and there are some great views across the valley.  It took perhaps 10 minutes from the road to the cave, 15 minutes maximum, and another five minutes or so from the cave to the cairn.  The cave itself requires you to duck down and be very careful both to watch your footing on a very uneven and rocky surface, and to mind your head.  Best to leave your rucksack outside after liberating your torch.

If you are interested in the Iron Age heritage of the Clwydian Range, Moel Hiraddug is beautifully clear to the southwest, and other hillforts of the Clwydian Range, fading into the distance when we were there, are easily visible on a clear day,

The wildflowers were an added bonus, with a classical karst mix of tiny hardy species clinging to the almost non-existent topsoil above the limestone bedrock, including some really pretty succulents and lichens.  The Early Purple Orchids (Orchis mascula) were a particular bonus, and apparently fairly common in early spring  in the general area.  As well as the miniature slipper-orchid shaped flowers clustering at the top of the stems, their long pointed green leaves often have dark aubergine-coloured spots along them.  Read more about them on the Woodland Trust website.

Having visited, there’s the option of a very good lunch at The Crown Inn in Trelawnyd, which was filling up rapidly during our visit.  After lunch we went on to see the gorgeous Dyserth waterfall only a few miles away, which is very close to the road (a 50p honesty fee was required for access), and then went on to visit the small but fascinating Prestatyn Roman bath-house, which was again nearby.   I have posted about the bath-house here.

If you want to incorporate Gop Hill into a much longer walk (4-7 hours over 5miles / 10.5 kilometers) the Clwyd and Powys Archaeologial Trust has published what looks like an excellent one: https://www.cpat.org.uk/walks/gopcairn.pdf


Sources for parts 1 – 3

Books and Papers

N.B. The reports by Stead and Bridgewood in the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society are highlighted in green because although they are the record of the 1950s excavations, I have been unable to get access to them so I have not actually used them in this post. I have included them for the sake of completeness.  If you do have access to them and don’t mind scanning them, I’d be really grateful so that I can add them to the post!

Barton, Nicholas 1997.  Stone Age Britain. English Heritage / B.T, Batsford.

Brace, Selina, et al 2019. Ancient genomes indicate population replacement in Early Neolithic Britain – Supplementary Material. Nature Ecology and Evolution
https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/sites/reich.hms.harvard.edu/files/inline-files/2019_Brace_NatureEcologyEvolution_Supplement.pdf

Brady, James E. and Wendy Ashmore 1999.  Mountains, Caves and Water: Ideational Landscapes of the Ancient Maya. In (eds.) Wendy Ashmore and A. Bernard Knapp. Archaeologies of Landscape. Contemporary Perspectives. Blackwell Publishers.,. p.124-145

Britnell, William J. 1991. The Neolithic. In (eds.) John Manley, Stephen Grenter and Fiona Gale. The Archaeology of Clwyd, 9.55-64

Brown, Ian. 2004. Discovering a Welsh Landscape.  Archaeology in the Clwydian Range. Windgather Press

Burrow, Steve. 2011.  Shadowland. Wales 3000-1500BC. Oxbow / National Museum of Wales

Crumley, Carole, L. 1999. Sacred Landscapes: Constructed and Conceptualized.  In (eds.) Wendy Ashmore and A. Bernard Knapp. Archaeologies of Landscape. Contemporary Perspectives. Blackwell Publishers., p.269-276

Davies, Ellis. 1925. Hut circles and ossiferous cave on Gop Farm, Gwaunysgor, Flintshire. Archaeologia Cambrensis, 7th series, vol.5, p.436-438

Davies, Ellis 1949. The Prehistoric and Roman Remains of Flintshire with a Short Appendix to “The Prehistoric and Roman Remains of Denbighshire” (1929). Cardiff

William Boyd Dawkins: Cave Hunting

Dawkins, Sir William Boyd 1874. Cave hunting, researches on the evidence of caves respecting the early inhabitants of Europe. Macmillan
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/52424/52424-h/52424-h.htm
or https://archive.org/details/CaveHunting/dawkins-w-cave-1874-RTL002406-LowRes/

Dawkins, Sir William Boyd 1886. Early Man in Britain. Macmillan

Dawkins, Sir William Boyd 1901. On the Cairn and Sepulchral Cave at Gop, near Prestatyn. Archaeological Journal, Vol.58, vol.1

De Groote, I., Lewis, M. & Stringer, C. 2017. Prehistory of the British Isles: A tale of coming and going. Bulletins et mémoires de la Société d’anthropologie de Paris
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13219-017-0187-8

Dinnis, R. & Cris Ebbs. 2013. Cave deposits of North Wales: some comments on their archaeological importance and an inventory of sites of potential interest. Cave and Karst Science 40(1): 28-34.
https://www.academia.edu/5157200/Dinnis_R_and_Ebbs_C_2013_Cave_deposits_of_North_Wales_some_comments_on_their_archaeological_importance_and_an_inventory_of_sites_of_potential_interest_Cave_and_Karst_Science_40_1_28_34

Glenn, T. Allen, 1925. Distribution of the Graig Lwyd Axe and its Associated Cultures.  Archaeologia Cambrensis vol 90, p.190-218

Jenkinson, Rogan D.S. 2023. A North-Western Habitat: the Paleoethology and Colonisation of a European Peninsula. Internet Archaeology 61
https://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue61/1/full-text.html

Last, Jonathan (compiler) 2003. The Archaeology of English Caves and Rock-Shelters: A Strategy Document. Centre for Archaeology Report 32/2003
https://historicengland.org.uk/research/results/reports/5231/TheArchaeologyofEnglishCavesandRock-Shelters_AStrategyDocument

Lynch, Frances 2000. The Earlier Neolithic. In (eds) Frances Lynch and Stephen Aldhous-Green.  Prehistoric Wales,  Sutton Publishing, p.42-78

Marsolier-Kergoat M-C, Palacio P, Berthonaud V, Maksud F, Stafford T, Bégouën R, et al. 2015. Hunting the Extinct Steppe Bison (Bison priscus) Mitochondrial Genome in the Trois-Frères Paleolithic Painted Cave. PLoS ONE 10(6)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0128267

Parker-Person, Mike 1999, 2000. The Archaeology of Death and Burial. Texas A&M University Press

Ray, Keith and Julian Thomas. 2018.  Neolithic Britain. The Transformation of Social Worlds. Oxford University Press

Schulting, Rick J. 2007. Non-monumental burial in Britain: a (largely) cavernous view. In L. Larsson,
F. Lüth and T. Terberger (eds), Non-megalithic Practices in the Baltic: New methods and
research into the development of Stone Age society, 581–603. Bericht der Römisch-
Germanischen Kommission 88, Schwerin

Schulting, Rick J 2020. Claddedigaethau mewn ogofâu: Mesolithic to Romano-British human remains (mainly) from the caves of Wales. Proceedings of the University of Bristol Spelaeological Society, 28 (2), p.185-219

Shanks, Michael and Christopher Tilley 1982.  Ideology, symbolic power and ritual communication: a reinterpretation of Neolithic mortuary practices.  In (ed.) Ian Hodder, Symbolic and Structural Archaeology. Cambridge University Press, p.129-50

Sheriden, Alison 2012. The jet belt slider, Movers Lane.  In E. Stafford, D. Goodburn and M. Bates, Landscape and Prehistory of the East London Wetlands. Investigations Along the A13 DBFO Roadscheme, Tower Hamlets, Newham and Barking and Dagenham, 2000–2003, 192–202. Oxford: Oxford Archaeology (Monograph 17)

Sheriden, J.A. and Davis, M. 1998.  The Welsh Jest Set in Prehistory: A case of keeping up with the Joneses?  In (eds.) Gibson, Alex and Derek Simpson.  Prehistoric Ritual and Religion. Sutton Publishing, p.148-162.

Stead, W.H., and Bridgewood, R., 1957. Gop Cave, Newmarket and Nant-y-fuach,
Dyserth, Flintshire, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 23, p.228

Stead, W.H., and Bridgewood, R., 1958. Gop Cave, Newmarket and Nant-y-fuach,
Dyserth, Flintshire, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 24, p.219

Stead, W.H., and Bridgewood, R., 1959. Gop Cave, Newmarket and Nant-y-fuach,
Dyserth, Flintshire, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 25, p.280

Tilley, Christopher 2004.  The Materiality of Stone: Explorations in Landscape Phenomenology: 1.  Berg

Wainwright, Geoffrey J. 1961
The Mesolithic Period in South and Western Britain. Unpublished PhD, UCL April 1961
Volume 1
https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1317731/1/282048_Vol_1.pdf
Volume 2
https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1317731/2/282048_Vol_2.pdf

Westbury, Michael V. et al.  2020. Hyena paleogenomes reveal a complex evolutionary history of cross-continental gene flow between spotted and cave hyena. Science. Vol.6, No.11.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aay0456

White, Mark J. and Paul B. Pettitt 2011.  The British Late Middle Palaeolithic: An Interpretative Synthesis of Neanderthal Occupation at the Northwest Edge of the Pleistocene World.  Journal of World Prehistory 24, p.25-97

Wymer, John. (ed.) 1977.  Gazetteer  of Mesolithic Sites in England and Wales. CBA Research Report no.20. GeoAbstracts and The Council for British Archaeology.

 

Websites

Ancient Human Occupation of Britain
https://ahobproject.org/

Archaeology Data Service
A database of Mesolithic Sites based on Wymer JJ and CJ Bonsall, 1977
https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/mesgaz_ma_2008/

Cambrian Caving Council
Gop Cave by Cris Ebbs. Based on “An Introduction to the Caves of Northeast Wales (2000, ISBN 0 9522242 1 6)) by Cris Ebbs, which is no longer available.
https://www.cambriancavingcouncil.org.uk/registry/CoNW/CoNW_04.htm#Gop

Dafyd Archaeology (Heneb)
Mesolithic
https://www.dyfedarchaeology.org.uk/wp/mesolithic-main-page/

Derbyshire County Council
William Boyd Dawkins – Chronology
https://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/site-elements/documents/pdf/leisure/buxton-museum/permanent-collections/dawkins-jackson/sir-william-boyd-dawkins/william-boyd-dawkins-chronology.pdf

Dictionary of Welsh Biography
Sir William Boyd Dawkins
https://biography.wales/article/s-DAWK-BOY-1837

Dyfed Archaeology
Mesolithic Wales
https://www.dyfedarchaeology.org.uk/lostlandscapes/trwyndu.html

A Maritime Archaeological Research Agenda for England
The Mesolithic. By Martin Bell and Graeme Warren with Hannah Cobb, Simon Fitch, Antony J Long, Garry Momber, Rick J Schulting, Penny Spikins, and Fraser Sturt
https://researchframeworks.org/maritime/the-mesolithic/

Natural History Museum
First Britons
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/first-britons.html

Nation Cymru
Unearthed 9,000 year-old encampment ‘on a par with the oldest mesolithic site’ in Wales. By Jez Hemming, 17th February 2021
https://nation.cymru/news/unearthed-9000-year-old-encampment-on-a-par-with-the-oldest-mesolithic-site-in-wales/

A Research Framework for the Archaeology of Wales
Key Sites: Northeast Wales – Palaeolithic and Mesolithic 22/12/2003
https://www.archaeoleg.org.uk/pdf/paleolithic/KEY%20SITES%20NE%20WALES%20PALAEOLITHIC%20AND%20MESOLITHIC.pdf
A Research Framework for the Archaeology of Wales: Palaeolithic and Mesolithic, version 04 – October 2022. By Dr Elizabeth A. Walker, (Co-ordinator), Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales
https://www.archaeoleg.org.uk/pdf/review2024/VERSION%2004%20Palaeolithic%20and%20Mesolithic.pdf

Science
The Rise of the Woolly Rhino. New fossil discoveries may explain origin of several Ice Age creatures. 1st September 2011, by Sid Perkins.
https://www.science.org/content/article/rise-woolly-rhino

Smithsonian Magazine
An Evolutionary Timeline of Homo Sapiens
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/essential-timeline-understanding-evolution-homo-sapiens-180976807/

South Yorkshire Historic Environment Research Framework
Palaeolithic. By Paul Pettitt
https://researchframeworks.org/syrf/palaeolithic/
Mesolithic. By Penny Spikins with a contribution by Ellen Simmons
https://researchframeworks.org/syrf/mesolithic/

UCL Blogs – Research in Museums
Migration Event: When did the first humans arrive in Britain? By Josie Mills, 24th February 2019
https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/researchers-in-museums/2019/02/24/migration-event-when-did-the-first-humans-arrive-in-britain/

University of Manchester, Science and Engineering
Sir William Boyd Dawkins – An Extraordinary Study. By Joe Shervin, 28th January 2019
https://www.mub.eps.manchester.ac.uk/science-engineering/2019/01/28/sir-william-boyd-dawkins-an-extraordinary-study/

 

View across the valley

 

The Roman Bath House at Prestatyn

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Introduction

The Roman bath-house at Prestatyn, discovered in the 1930s, is located in a rather nice little housing estate on the edge of Prestatyn, which hems it in but does not overshadow it.  Today the site is pleasantly presented in its own space, accessed via a gate.  There are two information posters, and a raised area from which one can look down into the site before walking in and on it.  There has been a lot of work carried out to stabilize and preserve it with concrete and mortar, so it is a distinct mix of old and new, but the essential layout has been preserved.  On the day that we were there, a blue tarpaulin was lying over a small part of the walkway around the site, presumably either due to unsecured damage or to protect repairs.

Roman sites in Clwyd. Source: Blockley 1989, fig.5 p.9. Click image to enlarge

Excavations in the 1930s (Professor Robert Newstead), the 1970s and again in the 1980s (Kevin Blockley for CPAT) revealed an Iron Age farmstead (to be described on a future post) and a Roman and Romano-British (indigenous) settlement dating from the late 1st century AD, some time soon after AD 70.  The combined excavations revealed a Roman complex of structures over a number of periods.  The main period of Roman and Romano-British activity, spanned two periods, defined by Blockley as IIA and IIB.  This included eleven timber buildings, seven in Phase IIA and four in IIB, a water well, and three stone-built buildings, including the bath-house with its furnace and its water management system.  The bath-house itself was built in around AD 120, quite late into the history of the site, and was extended in AD 150.  The entire group of buildings appears to have gone out of use towards the end of the 2nd century.  Originally it was thought that the bath-house and other buildings may have been outliers of a fort.  There is no known fort in north-east Wales in spite of the existence of other Roman sites and three Roman roads, and it was hoped that this might fill a gap in the data.

The Bath House

Detail from one of the information boards at the site showing the various components on the ground

Today all that remains visible of this complex of buildings is the bath-house. When it was found, much of the bath house and surrounding area were covered with c.60cm (2ft) of rubble, described by Newstead as:  “tumbled masonry, broken roof tiles, bricks and quantities of tile-cement flooring etc” a well as box tiles and ridge tiles.

The foundations of the bath-house preserve the main features of a very small but classic Roman bath house, the plan of which is clearly visible on the ground. It measures c.11.7m x 4.5m (c.38 x c.15ft).  What you can see today was the under-floor part of the bath-house.  Over the top of most of these features, except for the D-shaped plunge pool, would have been a tiled floor.  The bath-house was built in two phases.

The bath-house in AD 120

Antefixes from the Roman bath house at Prestatyn. Source: Newstead 1937 (National Library of Wales)

The walls of the building consisted of three courses of ashlar (dressed stone, to present an attractive appearance) filled with rubble and mortar to create the thick walls visible today.  The rubble within the outer walls was locally sourced, probably picked out of glacial soils near the site.   Of the exterior ashlar, Newstead found purple micaceous sandstone blocks in situ along the base of the northern wall of the bath house, the nearest source of which was around 6 miles away (and can be seen in use today at Rhuddlan Castle and St Asaph’s Cathedral). Broken roof tiles were also used in the construction.  Inner walls might have been plastered and could have been decorated.  The roof was tiled, and provided with decorative triangular antefixes showed LEG XX V V legend as well as the legion’s wild boar emblem, which like the tiles were provided with stamps identifying them as work of the 20th Legion.  The 20th Legion’s tile-works at Holt near Chester clearly provided the tiles and bricks required or the bath-house in AD 120, and it is possible that they assisted with the construction works, but there is no sign that this was a legionary base, or that the 20th Legion controlled whatever activities took place at the site.  Apart from the tiles and bricks, all of the stone used at the site was sourced within a few miles of the site.

Information board in the Grosvenor Museum, Chester, showing how antefixes were used

 

The first phase of the bath-house with the hot room and warm room in Period IIA. Source: Blockley 1989

The plan to the left excludes the later cold room (frigidarium) with the D-Shaped plunge bath, showing the stone-built components of the bath-house in AD 120, when the bath house was built.  There is no sign of a stone-built cold room, which was was either missing, which would be very unusual, or was built of wood.  The two rectangular rooms, both of which sat over two hypocausts were both built in this first phase.  Hypocausts are artificial floors set on small pillars made of bricks and tiles (pilae) into which hot air, supplied by a furnace, is channelled.

In the tepidarium, Room B, Newstead found only two of the short hypocaust pillar bases, each bearing the stamp of the 20th Legion.  An internal doorway gave access to the Room C, the hot room or calidarium which was nearest to the furnace, where the remains of another fourteen pillars (pilae) survived.  The pillars were made of a c.28 x 28cm (11 x 11 inches) brick stamped with the 20th Legion’s name:  LEG XX V V (an abbreviation of Legio XX Valeria Victrix: 20th Legion, Valiant and Victorious). These were placed face down into the floor.  These was then topped with tiles c.19 by 19cm (7.5 x 7.5 inches) set into clay, none of which were stamped.  The hypocaust bricks and tiles were sourced from the specialist tile and brickworks at Holt on the Dee just south of Chester.

Tile bearing legionary stamp from Prestatyn. Source: Newstead 1937 (National Library of Wales)

Illustration of a 20th Legion stamp on one of the bath house tiles. Source: Roman Inscriptions of Britain (RIB-2463_29_xiv)

Praefurnium leading into the calidarium and the tepidarium beyond.

The technical challenge for the builders came in the heating process, which required a furnace to provide the required heat to the two rooms. The remains of the furnace were found by Newstead, built into the centre of west end of the building and projecting 1.4m (4ft 6inches) beyond it, providing heat via a channel known as a praefurnium.  Its floor was originally flagged with large blocks of purple sandstone. You can still stand in the praefurnium, shown left, to look into the hot room (caldarium, room C) and the warm room (tepidarium, room B) room beyond.  Ducts or flues conveyed heat from Room C to Room B.

Like feeding a steam engine, this furnace would have required a considerable amount of fuel to keep the heat supplied, and this would have required manpower both to collect the right sort of wood and to feed it into the furnace.  There would have been storage nearby to dry and store wood.

The video below is a 3-D animation of how the hypocaust at Brading Villa on the Isle of Wight functioned, which gives a good idea how the smaller example at Prestatyn worked too:

Also see the excellent video at the end of the past where the Roman hypocaust at the bath house at Bath are described.

Beyond the bath-house, to its east, was a stone-lined well, and a drain that was also partially stone-lined.  The well was 1.6m deep and 1.1m sq at its base, flaring to 2.5m wide at its top.  It was probably used to supply the bath-house and the two nearby buildings R4 and R5, both of which were copper-alloy workshops dating to IIA.

AD 150 – the extension of the bath-house

The cold room (left) and D-shaped plunge room, right.

The Bath house as it was found when Newstead excavated it. Rooms B and C were included in the original building of AD 120; Room A, the D-shaped plunge-pool, and the masonry drain under the cold-room floor and a drain out of the plunge-pool were added in AD 150.  Source: Newstead 1937 (National Library of Wales)

As already mentioned above, there is no sign that a cold room was included in the first phase of the bath house.  It may have been built in timber, now lost, or it may not have been built at all. Perhaps given the climate, a rectangular cold room and accompanying apse-shaped cold plunge pool, Room A, were not considered necessary, although this is not true for other bath-houses in Britain.  The stone-built cold room was only built 30 years after the original construction of the bath house, measuring 32m by 4m (104 x 13ft).  A new entrance was presumably provided in the cold room, with an internal doorway into the warm room.

Plan and hypothetical elevations of bath-house water supply. Source: Blockley 1989, fig.28 p.51. Click image to enlarge.

The accompanying D-shaped plunge pool was lined with a 12cm (c.4.5ins) thick layer of opus signinum (a type of waterproof pink mortar) on a base of limestone and mudstone fragments set in to clay.  It was around 1.4m (4.5ft) deep.  Blockley describes the water supply to this plunge-pool as the “most completely recovered layout known in Britain,” which included a stone and timber drainage channel, an aqueduct fed by a natural spring, and possibly water tanks.

The diagonal drainage channel crosses the cold room, originally under the floor of the cold room. Blockley believes that this was probably connected to an internal basin.  A second drain leads from the apex of the D-shape as shown on the diagram above, the first 1.6m (c.5ft) within the bath-house had a floor of 40cm sq (c.15.5cm) bricks and was lined with limestone. South of the masonry section it was made of wood, and extended for 14m (c.46ft).  The wooden uprights survive along one section, probably used to hold planks in place along the sides of the drain, which was 25cm deep and 70cm wide with stakes at c.20cm (c.8ins) intervals.

The line of the aqueduct, found in the 1980s excavations, was indicated by a row of parallel postholes.  It ran from the east of the bath-house into the plunge-room, running over the top of the external drain.  Nine of the postholes had timbers of alder-wood in situ, up to 65cm long and 35cm (c.13.5ins) diameter.  The distances between timbers varies along the route, between 1m (c.3ft) and 1.5m (c.5ft).  A water tank may have been sited part way along.  It is thought that a spring further up the slope would have taken the aqueduct over a gradient of some 3m.

Using the Roman bath-house

A section of one of the information boards at the site showing the hot room, far left next to the furnace, the warm room in the middle and the later cold room and plunge pool. Click to expand and see the text clearly.

Had you been lucky enough to be a Roman official with access to a local bath house, bathing followed a sequence of steps that was imported from the core of the Roman Empire.  Movement was through a sequence of warming and cooling experiences.

Roman bathing followed a specific process. Bathers would get changed, and in bigger bath-houses there was a room put aside for this.  They would then progress from the unheated cold room (frigidarium) to the warm room (tepidarium) to acclimatize and then to the hot room (caldarium) before heading back to the cold room to cool down and take a cold dip in the plunge-pool.  All well and good in southern Italy during a balmy Mediterranean summer, and perhaps even in a good Welsh summer, but that cold pool really didn’t look that appealing to me on a chilly day in April!  A bathhouse was often accompanied by an outside, walled exercise area, but there is no indication that the Prestatyn bathhouse offered such a facility.

The Melyd Avenue complex of buildings

1930s survey of the masonry buildings at the site, showing the stone buildings including the bath house (B3 near the bottom of the image) and the trial cuts cut across the site. Source: Newstead 1937 (National Library of Wales)

The bath house was part of a bigger complex of buildings, only some of which have survived.  The site was discovered and informally investigated in 1933 by Mr F. Gilbert Smith, who noted objects and carried out surveys.  It was thought that it might have been a component of a Roman fort.  It was excavated between 1934 and 1937 by Professor Robert Newstead, who found both the bath house (his Building 3) and two other stone-built buildings (Buildings 1 and 2).  He also investigated a section of “paved causeway” found by Smith, and made 9 “cuts” (investigative trenches) at other parts of the site.  The bath house has been described above.  Building 1 consisted of three rooms in a line, with what had once had a tiled floor at one end, and measured c.19 x c.7m (62ft 6ins by 23ft). It produced a coin of Vespasian dating to c. AD 71, as well as pieces of a Samian ware platter also dating to the late 1st century. Samian ware (terra Sigillata) is a bright, glossy red high-status pottery often highly decorated in relief, which is often stamped with the manufacturer’s mark, and is very useful for dating (see image further down the page, and the excellent video at the end of the post by Guy de la Bédoyère). Building 2 was less clearly defined and far less informative, at least c.11m long (36ft), producing a single undated piece of amphora, and had been damaged by fire.

Samian pottery found at the Prestatyn site. Source: Newstead 1938

The cut through the section of “paved causeway” identified by Smith and shown on the above plan revealed that it was made of flat sandstone slabs over large pine logs on top of “a  mess of brushwood in a peaty matrix.”  Within these layers there were Roman potsherds and pieces of window glass as well as animal bones.  The other cuts revealed no features but the one in front of building 3 produced a piece of millefiori glass, 7 pieces of window glass, some fragments of a glass flask and a small black counter as well as some samian ware.  In 1938 further excavations produced no more buildings, and consisted mainly of taking sample cuts through the site, and these produced Roman levels that contained fragments of Roman objects.  All of the data from the site over the years of excavation placed it within the later 1st to the later 2nd centuries AD. As well as tiles and antefixes stamped with 20th Legion stamps, diagnostic finds included a Vespasian coin, some distinctive pieces of samian,  other dateable types of pottery and fragments of decorative and glass as well as some fittings for horses and some jewellery.

The 1972-73 rescue excavations followed another building development in nearby Prestatyn Meadows, during which Roman materials were found, including a column base and tiles stamped with  LEG XX VV. Excavations could not take place at the precise location of the discovery due to building regulations, and were therefore carried out a little to the south, with three trial trenches opened to sample the area.  No structural remains were found, but there were plenty of objects dating to the late 1st and 2nd centuries AD, consisting of building fragments and domestic rubbish including samian, coarse ware, window glass, flint, animal bones and coal.

Period plans showing the location of major features. Source: Blockley 1989, fig.6 p.12

The 1984-5 excavations, undertaken and published by Kevin Blockley in 1989 on behalf of the Clwyd and Powys Archaeological Trust (CPAT), considerably expanded the view of what was going on at the site.  Excavations took place over two seasons, or 47 weeks, and uncovered 1544 sq m (c.5065) sq ft).  As well as both pre-Roman and post-Roman discoveries, he found eleven timber-built buildings over two phases of Roman occupation, most of them with both postholes and stakeholes, indicating a probable timber frame with wattle-and-daub wall construction.  Over 2000 small-finds were excavated.  Blockley and his team were also responsible for the discovery of the well and the water supply to the new cold room and plunge pool added in c.AD 150, described above.  Most importantly, the excavations were able to make more sense of the chronology of the site, making use primarily of pottery types to derive date-ranges for different buildings and phases.

Sequence diagram for Period II, and location plan. Source: Blockley 1989, fig 31 p.54. Click image to enlarge.

Blockley concludes that the earliest phase of the site was building R1, which, judging by Flavian date pottery and Vespasianic coins, both of which showed significant use-wear, suggest a start date somewhere in the AD 70s.  The bronze-smith workshops were first established in around AD 90-100 with buildings R3 and R4, and the site continued to develop until around AD 160, when it was abandoned.  The bath-house, established in AD 120, was therefore built when the site was already some 50 years old.

The data in the timber-built buildings included features (like postholes, wall trenches, hearths and floors) and finds (industrial tools, industrial waste, and manufactured objects like horse-ware fittings, whetstones, querns, millstones, spindle whorls, pestles and mortars, brooches and finger rings, tableware glass, window glass, both fine and coarse pottery, ceramic crucibles and moulds, items made of bone, leather, wood and clay, and bricks and tiles).  Pulling all the data from all of the timber buildings together, Blockley found that a picture of a copper-alloy works emerged, an industrial site that was producing goods that were probably purchased both locally and sent further afield, making use of the Roman communication network.

Brooches of copper alloy of the Colchester type. Source: Blockley 1989, fig 36 p.89

The metalwork, including some lead (including weights and pot rivets) and heavily corroded iron, was dominated by copper-alloy, a form of bronze.  This was used to make brooches, studs, plates, simple finger rings, pins, needles and shield-bindings.  Of particular interest are the enamelled brooches, with coloured enamel inlays in different patterns, of which a number of complete or near-complete examples were found.  These include Colchester, Headstud, trumpet, plate and penannular types, all popular fashion items in late 1st and 2nd century Britain, and some unclassified types.  Only one of the finger-rings stood out, and this was a copy, in tin, of a 2nd century Roman type of silver ring using yellow glass in place of a precious or semi-precious stone.

The glass includes 600 fragments, 377 of which were table- and kitchen-ware (the bulk of which were bottles) and 159 from window glass.  It all falls within the time-range of the first half of the 1st century AD to the end of the 2nd century.  Some of the table-ware was brightly coloured and highly prestigious, but most of it was blue-green.  The window glass is thought to have come mainly from the bath-house, and was notably smooth and of very high quality.

The pottery assemblage, consisting of broken pieces, included both fine wares and coarse wares.  It ncluded items made of local raw materials, making up 44% of the assemblage, and imports.  The imports included black-burnished ware from Dorset (10%), samian (14%) and amphorae from Spain and Italy (19%).  A small number of white-ware flagons from Mancetter were also found (1%).  Some were manufactured from the Holt kilns, near Chester, and others were probably made on the Cheshire plains.

Spelt. Source: Wikipedia

Botanical and faunal remains give some indication of diet.  Although botanical remains tend to be fairly rare, the waterlogged conditions in the well preserved 13 samples of plant remains that were sent for analysis, and included carbonized grain, chaff and seeds.  The well was abandoned after Period IIA, so these survivors probably belong to IIB, contemporary with the second phase of the bath-house.  Of the grain remains, spelt was the dominant species, followed by emmer wheat and small amounts of barley and oats, probably all crop-processing waste.  Spelt is particularly resistant to cold, wind, diseases and pests, so would have been the most suitable crop for an exposed area without good quality soil.   Weeds found in the samples represent those that grow in amongst crops, and are well adapted to disturbed conditions.

Animal remains, some of which retained butchery marks, include sheep, the dominant species, cattle and pig remains.  Some fowl were kept and horse bones were found in small numbers.  Wild species include red and roe deer, goose, duck and hare.

Interpretation – what did these buildings represent?

Coarse pottery from the Prestatyn site. Source: Newstead 1938 (National Library of Wales)

Although this all suggested a well-built if fairly modest settlement, neither Newstead nor Blockley discovered any indications of a potential fort.  A ditch with a clay “rampart” was found, but this was later interpreted as an enclosure for the settlement.  However, the idea that there may have been a fort at Prestatyn continued to linger, as this could have been a civilian settlement on the outside of a fort.  In 1973 Roman building rubble was found c. 30 to 40m south of the bath-house, and judged to date to not later than c. AD 150.  This rubble included a column base, some 20th Legion roof tiles, and fragments of building stones, pottery, window glass, fine and coarse pottery and flint, all dating to the 1st and 2nd centuries AD.  When planning permission was granted for the housing estate, it was excavated by archaeologists in the 1980s, published in 1989, discussed below, producing numerous timber buildings of 1st-2nd century Roman date.  Geophysical survey in the grounds of Ysgol y Llys in the mid-1980s and further evaluations in 2001 and 2003 failed to provide any Roman features or material.  Overall, the idea that the bath house was associated with a fort has now been rejected.

So what was the bath house doing in this particular location?  It so often happens that prominent Roman sites lie in unexpected places.  The one that springs to mind is Silchester (Calleva Atrebatum) which  was once a bustling walled town in Hampshire, an administrative capital with all the buildings, facilities and services that Roman Chester once had, but is now just a set of fields and ruined walls in agricultural land, which requires (and has received) research and explanation.  The Prestatyn settlement is very small by comparison, but equally requires contextualization and explanation.

Detail from one of the information boards, showing the relatve locations of the bath house and its associated buildings, the nearby lead mines and St Asaph, which may have been Roman Varis.

The buildings themselves and the objects found suggest that the site probably represents an industrial site with a Roman lead-mining operation and harbour, which attracted Romano-British metallurgists who set up workshops nearby.  There was certainly a lead ore mining operating dating to the Roman period in nearby Meliden, and this seems like a good match for the location the site, sitting between the mines and the sea.  It is not the only lead-mining operation in northeast Wales. The best known source of lead locally in the Roman period was Halkyn Mountain, which had rich veins of lead ore (galena).  Another site exploited by Roman miners was in the Pentre-Oakenholt area of Flint, accompanied by a number of masonry buildings, and another was found at Pentre Farm, where timber structures and 20th Legion stamped tiles were found.

David Mason has described the Prestatyn site as “most likely a transhipment centre if not the actual focus of ore-smelting.”  He believes that one of the ingots of lead found in Chester, dated to AD 74, probably originated in Prestatyn (see image below).  It was marked with the word “DECEANGL,” meaning “mined in the land of the Deceangli tribe,” in whose territory it was found.  According to Roman records, at the time of the Roman conquest, most of Britain was divided into tribal areas, and the Deceangli were based in northeast Wales, giving the area a geographical as well as a tribal identity.  The ingot (or pig) was discovered in 1886 in the remains of what is thought to have been a Roman timber quayside on the Dee in Chester.  This quayside location for the ingot, together with the 20 ingots of lead found in the river at Runcorn, thought to have been lost in a shipwreck, underline the importance of moving lead by boat.

Lead ingot from a river jetty site at the edge of Chester racecourse dating to 74AD. Source: David Mason’s “Roman Chester. The City of the Eagles,” p.45

Three lead pigs (ingots) in the Grosvenor Museum, Chester, including the example shown above

In fact, given the sheer quantities that David Mason estimates would have been needed for the building of the fort at Deva (Chester), it is difficult to imagine the significant amounts being moved any other way: 39 tons or 50 wagon-loads for water pipes, and 34 tons or 43 wagon-loads for reservoir linings.

Roman lead pipes in the Grosvenor Museum, Chester

Lead stamp used to mark bread. The abbreviated inscription reads “Made by Victor of the Century of Claudius Augustus”

The Coflein report suggests that “a vicus-like settlement associated with a harbour installation designed for the shipment of lead and silver from nearby the mines, though its precise nature is unclear.”  A vicus was a small settlement (plural vici), usually rural, that springs up on the edges of a centre of Roman activity such as a fort or mining or quarrying operation in order to sell goods and services.  It has been suggested that some of those connected with larger military forts were established intentionally, but at smaller military and industrial sites there may have been a more spontaneous development of such vici.

The mixture of Romano-British timber buildings and more official stone-built structures argues for a pragmatic working relationship between the Roman military, the Roman industrial team operating at Prestatyn and local metallurgists, each benefiting from the resources, skills and knowledge of the other, as well as the potentially extensive through-traffic – although whether a British copper-alloy worker ever had the opportunity to test out the joys of the bath-house is an other matter!

A Roman Road?

Information board at the site showing linkages between different sites in the Roman period. Click image to expand to read clearly.

Most of these proposals would make sense if the bath house and the related structures that must have accompanied it were on a road that connected into the road network; or that it was associated with a port, or both.  The Antonine Itinerary lists a route in north Wales as Iter IX, which ran between the legionary fortresses at Chester (Roman Deva) and Caernarfon (Roman Segontium) at the crossing to Anglesey.  This bypassed the north coast in favour of a more direct route, which still, however, had to skirt the Clwydian Range, nearing the coast at the northern end of the range, which would not have been too far from Prestatyn .  As the CPAT report puts it:

It is assumed that a major Roman road ran the length The Vale of Clwyd, linking military sites at Caer Gai near Bala and an assumed fort in the Corwen area with sites in the neighbourhood of Ruthin and St Asaph. The course of this road and its relationship with Roman settlements and possible military activity in the vale will no doubt be discovered in the future.

The Roman fort of Canovium at Caerhun with St Mary’s Church in one corner. Copyright Mark Walters, Skywest Surveys, CC BY-NC-DD 4.0. Source: Vici.org

The route is presumed to have proceeded to the fort at Caerhun (Roman Canovium) in the Vale of Clwyd before heading towards Segontium and Anglesey.  A bath house with a hypocaust was found in the Canovium fort, which was built in c.75 AD and destroyed in c.200, with tiles similarly stamped with Legio XX markings. The Antonine Itinerary’s description of Iter IX mentions a Roman way station named Varis. Although its precise location is unknown, and there were suggestions that this might have been located at Prestatyn, the most likely candidate at the moment is thought to be St Asaph. It is possible that a branch road could have connected a settlement at Prestatyn to this route, possibly at St Asaph, particularly if it was being used as a coastal port.  Looking at a map, Rhyl might seem a better choice for a port, but there may have been political as well as economic reasons why Prestatyn could have been more suitable.

A Roman milestone was found at Gwaenysgor in 1956, dated to AD 231-5.  The nearest known Roman road was 6km away, so it was either brought from there or an as-yet undiscovered off-shoot of that road.

The site and its objects in the 20th and 21st Centuries

The bath-house site

Although the site was opened up for excavation in 1937 and 1938, it was covered over afterwards to protect it.  When planning permission was granted for the building of the housing estate, which began in the 1980s, archaeologists were allowed in to excavate, after which the site was left uncovered and preserved for visits by the general public.

Screen grab of part of Steve Howe’s Chester Walls page showing what Melyd Avenue looked like on one of his visits, as well as one of the stamped tiles in situ. Source: A Virtual Stroll Around the Walls of Chester website . Click to expand.

The modern story of the Prestatyn Roman baths as a visitor attraction is described by Steve Howe on his A Virtual Walk Around The Walls website here.  Steve Howe visited in 1998, when the hypocaust was in good condition, preserving tiles stamped with the name and symbol of the 20th Legion.  In subsequent visits in 2001 and 2008, Steve Howe talks about the the deterioration of the site, the absence of the stamped tiles and the general state of degradation.  Writing in 2022, in County Voice (a Denbighshire County Council newsletter), Claudia Smith outlined a series of works being proposed in order to repair the site and to improve its public appeal.

At the end of the 1984-5 report, published in 1989, Blockley suggested that looking for the postulated harbour would be a logical follow-up project, in the Fforddisa area of Prestatyn, but this has not yet taken place.

In 2018 the Daily Post reported that an area of land earmarked for a housing development near Dyserth (to the south of Prestatyn) was under assessment by the Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust with a view to excavating it to attempt to find the elusive section of Roman road that it is thought must have connected Prestatyn with the wider world, but I have not yet tracked down any follow-up to this story.

Artefacts

Professor Newstead describes, in his 1937 publication, how some objects remained in the private collection of Mr Smith, the discoverer of the site, and how those that Newstead himself had excavated were removed to the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff.  The Roman Inscriptions of Britain website mentions that many of the inscribed objects from Prestatyn were in the Prestatyn Museum, but also notes that this appears to have closed down.  There is no note of where either Mr Smith’s collection or the Prestatyn Museum’s objects (perhaps one and the same) may have ended up.  I cannot find a record in Kevin Blockley’s account of the 1984-84 excavations of where the artefacts from that excavation were eventually sent.

Final Comments

Although the bath-house, built in around AD 120, was small, by AD 150 it contained the three main components required for a bath-house: the hot room, warm room and cold room with plunge pool.  This required two technical elements – a means of heating the two heated rooms (furnace, flues and hypocausts) and a means of channelling cold water to and from the cold room (aqueduct and drains, and possibly water tanks).  A store for wood would have been required adjacent to the bath-house.  The bath-house was the leisure-centre for a settlement dominated by industrial workshops, notably for the manufacture of objects made of copper-alloy (bronze).

The site is a bit like a glacial erratic – something unexpected left during a substantial invasion and after a substantial retreat.  There is not a great deal of Rome surviving above the ground in northeast Wales, and that gives the Prestatyn Bath House all the more kudos. As more sites are discovered and more stretches of road revealed, the picture should become clearer.  In spite of neglect in the past, during which some of the stamp-marked tiles were apparently removed, it is a great little site to visit, for which details are provided below.

Visiting

As mentioned above, this is right in the middle of a small housing estate, a cul-de-sac.  It is just off the A547 (Meliden Road) to Prestatyn on Melyd Avenue.  Its What3Words location is ///unfocused.detective.jetting. There are two car parking spaces at the site, and a limited amount of on-road parking, but this is not a busy destination.  It was nice that we were not the only people there when we arrived, and I am sure that there are occasional school trips to a local heritage celebrity, but it was a quiet visit whilst we were there.

The two information boards at the site were helpful, and each of them had a QR code.  Very sadly it comes up with a “404 Page Not Found” message.  Always a disappointment when this happens and a good idea to provide additional information is allowed to lapse.

The approach pathway to the bath house ends in three steps.

Always thinking about people with unwilling legs, I would give this a thumbs-up based on my Dad’s experiences (walking with a stick due to a dodgy leg, but okay for the three steps at the site if there was an arm to lean on).  There are no handrails accompanying the steps, and part of the circuit around the site was blocked by repair works.

If you are coming at it from Chester, and want a day trip, it is worth coming off the A55 at Junction 31 and taking the opportunity to visit Gop Cairn, Gop Cave (see details on the Coflein website – parking in Trelawnyd and reached via public footpath, and about which much more on a future post) and the stunning Dyserth waterfall as well, which is just a few seconds from the road (operating a 50p per person honesty payment system, with a small car park next door).  Take a raincoat or hat – the spray from the waterfall is considerable and we got quite a good soaking!

There seem to be plenty of places to stop for a coffee in the villages, and we had a very good lunch at the newly renovated The Crown public house in Trelawnyd after walking up to Gop cairn and cave.

Sources

Books and papers

The site under excavation by Newstead in the 1930s. Source: Newstead 1937 (National Library of Wales)

Arnold, Christopher J. and Jeffrey L. Davies, 2000.  Roman and Early Medieval Wales. Sutton Publishing

Blockley, Kevin. 1989. Prestatyn 1984-5. An Iron Age Farmstead and Romano-British Industrial Settlement in North Wales. BAR British Series 210

de la Bédoyère, Guy, 2001. The Buildings of Roman Britain. Tempus Publishing

de la Bédoyère, Guy, 1988. Samian Ware. Shire

Dark, Ken and Dark, Petra 1997. The Landscape of Roman Britain. Sutton Publishing

Mason, David J.P. 2001, 2007. Roman Chester. The City of the Eagles. Tempus Publishing

Newstead, Robert 1937. The Roman Station, Prestatyn. First Interim Report. Archaeologia Cambrensis vol.92), p.208-32

Newstead, Robert 1938. The Roman Station, Prestatyn. Second Interim Report.  Archaeologia Cambrensis vol.93), p.175-91.


Websites

Coflein
Prestatyn Roman Site
https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/306722?term=prestatyn%20roman%20bath%20house

Clwyd and Powys Archaeological Trust (CPAT)
Historic Landscape Characterization. The Vale of Clwyd. Transport and Communications
https://www.cpat.org.uk/projects/longer/histland/clwyd/cltransp.htm

A Virtual Walk Around the Walls of Chester
The Roman Bath House near Prestatyn, North Wales by Steve Howe
Part 1, 1998
https://chesterwalls.info/baths.html
Part 2, 2001 and 2008
https://chesterwalls.info/baths2.html

County Voice, Denbighshire County Council
The Roman Baths: A Roman Mystery in Prestatyn? December 2022
https://countyvoice.denbighshire.gov.uk/english/county-voice-december-2022/countryside-services/the-roman-baths-a-roman-mystery-in-prestatyn

Roman Britain
Caerhun (Canovium) Roman Fort
https://www.roman-britain.co.uk/places/canovium/
St. Asaph (Varis) Roman Settlement. Possible Roman Fort and Probable Settlement
https://www.roman-britain.co.uk/places/st_asaph/
Ruthin Roman Fort
https://www.roman-britain.co.uk/places/ruthin/

The Roads in Roman Britain
Roman Roads in Cheshire > The Roman Road from Chester to North Wales
Margary Number 67a. By David Ratledge and Neil Buckley
https://www.romanroads.org/gazetteer/cheshire/M67a.htm

Deganwy History
Roman Roads in North-West Wales. A talk by David Hopewell (Gwynedd Archaeological Trust (GAT), October 17th 2019. Written up by Lucinda Smith.
https://www.deganwyhistory.co.uk/roman-roads-in-north-west-wales/

Roman Insciptions in Britain
RIB II.2404.31-2 lead ingot found in Dee at RooDee in 1886
https://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions/2404.31
Leg XX VV inscriptions found in Prestatyn both at the Baths and beyond
https://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions/search?qv=prestatyn&submit=

Wales Live (The Daily Post)
Archaeological dig could unearth Roman road on site earmarked for new homes. October 16th 2018. By Gareth Hughes
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/archaeological-dig-could-unearth-roman-15285372

Vindolanda Charitable trust
A closer look at Samian pottery
https://www.vindolanda.com/blog/a-closer-look-at-samian-pottery

English Heritage
Baths and Bathing in Roman Britain
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/story-of-england/romans/roman-bathing/

 

 

April’s ‘Chester Archaeological Society’ visit to St Collen’s Church in Llangollen

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The Chester Archaeological Society 2024 season of excursions started excellently today with the CAS visit to the Church of St Collen, who gave his name to Llangollen. It is the only church in Wales to have taken the saint’s name. Like most Medieval churches in Wales, St Collen’s has undergone considerable alterations, including an 18thcentury tower and a 19th century chancel, vestry and south nave, but there are some very fine 13th century features to be seen, in the Perpendicular Gothic style, including an impressive shrine canopy and mason’s marks. There are also intriguing signs that a Lady Chapel was once incorporated into north aisle. The most remarkable feature of the church is a really superb hammerbeam roof bedecked with ornamental sculptures, both religious and secular, from the early 16th century.

Today, to ensure the survival of the church as a living and breathing community asset, it is undergoing extensive but very sympathetic re-forming.  Suzanne Evans is the Project Manager of this massive task, and was our superb guide today. Suzanne described how the reinvented church will be fully inclusive, not only of the existing congregation who are much-attached to the church, but of the wider community as well, taking into account the needs of those currently unable to make the most of what St Collen’s has to offer. At the same time, the exciting opportunity will be taken to investigate as much of the church’s architectural and funerary history as possible, adding to the community’s understanding of this important contributor to the town’s impressive ecclesiastical heritage.

Suzanne guided us around both the key features and recent discoveries, explaining all the steps to be taken in the upcoming weeks and years. As well as replacement glass doors and the opening up of the nave to enable the interior to be visible by passers-by, there will be new lighting, heating, kitchen and toilet facilities, as well as a large stage, which will all contribute to enhancing the value of the space and improving the visibility of the superb architecture. All archaeological and architectural discoveries will be professionally recorded and published.

After a very welcome cup of tea, there was a round of applause as we thanked both Suzanne for being our terrific guide and Pauline for making all the arrangements. It was great to meet some of the other CAS members, and to hear all the questions and observations. There was a lot of information sharing, which is exactly what one expects of CAS members. What a great start to the year’s excursions! Many thanks again Suzanne and Pauline.

The 13th century exterior

 

Peterborough Cathedral (Overnight trip to Peterborough #1)

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This is a slight departure for this blog, the usual premise of which is that every visit can be accomplished in a day, there and back, from where I live in Churton.  The visit to Peterborough required a stop overnight.  I have always wanted to see the Romanesque cathedral at Peterborough, which is a former Benedictine abbey.  I set out by car early on a Wednesday in November 2023 and stayed one night in Peterborough near the town centre, visiting the cathedral both on the Wednesday afternoon and again on the Thursday morning.  On my way home on Thursday afternoon I visited the lovely Normanton Church.  The routes taken and other visiting details are at the end.

Peterborough Cathedral is covered in part 1 (here) and a very brief snapshot of Normanton Church on its custom-made plinth on Rutland Water is in part 2. Needless to say, I have barely skimmed the surface of the cathedral’s history.

Introduction

South transept

Peterborough Cathedral is somewhere I have wanted to visit from the moment that I laid eyes on photos of it in a book. It has an almost split personality with its magnificent and unique 3-bay Gothic frontage, its sublime Norman-Romanesque interior, the stunning painted nave ceiling and the almost organic delicacy of the fan vaulting in the date eastern extension.

The abbey was terminated in Henry VIII’s dissolution of all the monasteries, but like Chester Cathedral was fortunate to escape some of the indignities of this process when it was converted to a cathedral. The building that visitors see today, dedicated to St Peter with St Paul and St Andrew, is the third abbey. The first abbey, Medeshamstede, was destroyed by Danish invaders.  The second abbey church, built over a century after the demolition of the first, burned down by accident although the cloisters survived.  The third abbey church was started from scratch, and is remarkable for the survival of the magnificent Romanesque vision.  All three abbeys were built on the same site, and there is some evidence for a Roman building beneath them.  The three phases are described very briefly below.   For detailed descriptions see one of the guide books available, or the cathedral website’s History page (details in Sources at the end).   If you go in person, I recommend the guided tour.

The 7th Century Abbey – Medeshamstede

Artist’s impression of Medhamstede, shown on an information poster in the cathedral

Bede’s 8th century Ecclesiastical History says that the first abbey on the site, Medehamstede, was established  in the 7th century, and it is now thought that it was founded in around 654, and was probably built of wood.  A later phase may have seen the rebuild of the wooden walls in stone, imported from a quarry to the west.  Very little is known about the building and its phases, although the artist’s impression to the right is a useful suggestion of what might have been on the site.  The first abbey was very isolated, deliberately divorced from human settlement to provide a suitable environment for contemplation and prayer.

The River Nene in Peterborough

Perched on the side of the River Nene and on the edge of the marshlands and mudflats of the Fens, it was an ideal location for peaceful contemplation and prayer.  For this and subsequent abbeys on the site the nearby marshy Fenlands provided one of the best resources for freshwater fish in England, offered a rich habitat for wildfowl and supported reed beds that provided the raw materials for thatching roofs.  The land also had the farming potential required for an expanding self-sufficient and isolationist community, providing summer pasture for livestock, and later on, when improved techniques of land drainage were mastered, the opportunity for agricultural development.  Communication links were provided by the River Nene and the nearby Roman road. 

The monastic community would have been organized along very austere lines adhering to the so-called Celtic tradition of monasticism.  The abbey became an important early religious centre, and founded a number of daughter houses in Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Kent, Surrey, and Bermondsey (now in southeast London), which were important vanguards of the spread of Christianity.  I

The Hedda Stone

Housed today in the cathedral chancel / presbytery is the Hedda Stone shown above, a large and beautifully sculpted piece of limestone belonging to this period of the abbey’s history, showing Christ, Mary and the Apostles.  It is carved on both sides and pierced with holes that have no generally agreed purpose.  It is quite easy to miss, so do make a point of finding it, as it is delightful.

In 870 the abbey was plundered and destroyed during a Danish attack on the east coast, and the site, now abandoned, became part of the Danelaw territory.

The 10th Century Abbey – Gildenburgh

Plan of Saxon and Medieval Peterborough showing the outline of the second church. F is the site of the gate stormed by Hereward and the Danes. It is thought that E is the old marketplace, replaced by the new town in 1133-1155. The motte is thought today to have been built by Abbot Thorold. Source: Current Archaeology 89, 1983

In the 10th century, Æthelwold of Winchester had a vision of Christ in which he was instructed to rebuild the abbey of St Peter.  He was assisted in this challenge by Dunstan of Canterbury and by King Edgar and Queen Ælfthryth.  It was consecrated in the early 970s by Dunstan as a Benedictine monastery (i.e. one following the guidelines for monastic life developed in the 6th century by St Bendict of Nursia, Italy).  From fairly early on it was decided to provide it with a defensive wall, making it a fortified settlement or “burgh.”  The church was laid out along traditional lines with a nave, two transepts and a chancel at its east end.  It must have been provided with a belfry, because Æthelwold provided 10 bells for the church.  Although there were no sources of stone and wood close to the site, these were imported from Barnack and Rockingham Forest respectively. 

The prestige of the monastery rose when it acquired an important relic, the right arm of Oswald, a Saxon king and saint who was noted for his kindness to the poor and whose arm, with which he handed out so many alms, survived, perfectly preserved, after he was killed in battle.  The monastery’s position was again strengthened in 1041 when one of the monks, Æthelric, was chosen as Bishop of Durham.  The selection of the abbey as the final resting place for Ælfric Puttoc and subsequently Cynesige, both archbishops of York was an indication of how well regarded the abbey was in the 11th century.  Like many Benedictine monasteries, it became a major landowner, becoming wealthy and both economically and architecturally ambitious, accumulating books for a library, and fine objects for its ceremonies and liturgies.  It was so rich that it became known as the golden burgh, Gildenburgh.

Reconstruction of the abbey precinct at the time of Hereward’s attack. Source: Peterborough Abbey

The second abbey was still standing proud when William the Conqueror landed in England.  Its abbot, Leofric, died in the Battle of Hastings.  Abbot Brand, who followed him, was also Saxon and supported opposition to the Norman invasion. This opposition was punished with heavy taxation, and when Brand died in 1069 the abbey was put into the hands of an abbot, Thorold, loyal to William. In the event, a local Saxon rebel, Hereward, had found an ally in King Swein of Denmark, and in 1070 the Saxons and the Danes marched on Peterborough and plundered it.  Although the arm of St Oswald was saved by the prior (second in command) the rest of the treasure vanished with the rebels.  The abbey itself was badly damaged, and what survived was occupied by the abbot and sixty knights and significant portions of land that had once formed the basis of the abbey’s wealth was now allocated to many of those knights, filling the formerly rebellious countryside with loyal Normans.

When Thorold died in 1098 he was replaced by two successive abbots who had very little impact, but the third abbot to be appointed, in 1107, was Ernulf who was prior of Canterbury, a scholar with a good understanding of political manoeuvring, who had plenty of ambition for his new posting.  He began by rebuilding the damage to the cloister buildings that had been largely destroyed by Hereward. In 1114 Ernulf moved on to Rochester and was replaced by Abbot John de Séez.

In early August 1116 when a fire broke out in the bakery and took most of what remained of the abbey church with it, although Ernulf’s new claustral buildings survived beyond the abbey church.  A new church was now not only desirable but necessary.

Today’s abbey, established in the 12th Century

The Romanesque architecture

Plan of Peterborough Cathedral. Click to expand.  NB – the “sanctuary” is referred to in most of  the Peterborough Abbey literature as “presbytery” so I have stuck with the latter throughout. Source: Sweeting 1899, Project Gutenberg

Abbot John de Séez oversaw the construction of a stunning new Romanesque building, complete with a vast vaulted presbytery.  The scale of his ambition saddled the abbey with such an enormous financial and logistical commitment that it took 120 years to complete.  Masons who had worked at Durham were brought in to ensure that the most up to date civil engineering techniques were employed, and what unfolded was a mixture of magnificent vision and superb skills.  The church was laid out on the usual cross-shape, with a long nave, side transepts (containing chapels) and a shorter east end.  The south wall of the church (the righ thand side of the plan) made up the north wall of the cloisters, the administrative and domestic buildings were located, arranged around a square garden called the garth.

Entering the nave, the interior is light-filled and breathtaking. With windows on three levels, light pours in.   Cromwell’s soldiers destroyed the medieval stained glass, and the plain replacement glass allows in much more light than the stained glass would have permitted.  Of course it does help that the cathedral has installed artificial lighting, but even allowing for the changes, the layers of window and the soft, faintly reflective pallor of the Barnack limestone walls must have provided a degree of light that was remarkable in the Middle Ages.

View from just inside the west entrance to the end of the presbytery, with the pulpit in the foreground, and the modern rood (crucifix) hanging over the entrance to the Victorian choir

Because there is no surviving pulpitum (a stone division between nave and choir in monastic churches) or rood screen (again, between nave and choir), there is a very rare almost uninterrupted view from the west end entrance to the restored stained glass windows at the east end.  In spite of the 19th century marble edifice that sticks up in the middle of the presbytery, the impression of a vanishing point is dramatic and gives a real sense of the length of the building.  The walls soar upwards too, meeting a unique and fabulous painted ceiling.

On the death of Abbot John, the new Abbot Benedict, from Canterbury, persisted with the same vision.  This is interesting because at Canterbury new ideas from France, captured in the Gothic style, were being implemented, but for whatever long-lost reason, Benedict retained the Romanesque plan that Abbot John had initiated, including semi-circular apses at the east end, one of which survives within the rectangular “New Building” that surrounds it.  This apse is a rare survivor as most British churches had their apses removed for replacement by rectangular extensions such as Lady Chapels and similarly prestigious expansion projects.  Benedict extended the original design west by two bays, and if you stand at the west end and look at the arches of the aisles you can clearly see the difference.

Blind arcading in the north aisle beneath the great arches of the windows

The nave and the two transepts contain the bulk of the easily visible Romanesque architecture.  That within the east end presbytery is more difficult to view.  The long nave with its side aisles is monumental.  The massive arches of the aisles, with characteristic geometric decoration, are supported on vast octagonal piers.  They are topped with another set of arches, each of which contains twin arches separated by slender columns topped with square capitals.  The top level features rather smaller central arches, each flanked by even smaller blind arcades.  The transept ends are simpler, each with three levels of of arches, each of the same size, with unpainted roof panels in the same lozenge shapes as those in the nave.

 

The lost cloister and infirmary

Artist’s impression of the cloister on an information board in the remains of the abbey cloisters.

Today’s cathedral was once the abbey church, and is a wonderful survival, but it was only one part of the monastic establishment.  A cloister was always an integral part of the monastic establishment, with buildings along three sides of a courtyard or garden, with the church making up the fourth side.  This cloister was usually on the south side of the church, sheltering it from the worst weather and providing it with seasonal sun.  The central part of it was often a garden of some description, called the garth.  The buildings arranged along the three sides included the refectory, where the monks ate, the dormitory where they slept and the chapter house where they held daily meetings.  Some of these buildings could be very elaborate and ornate, particularly the chapter house.

If you leave through a door in the south side of the cathedral (on the right as you head from the entrance towards the end of the nave) or turn right in front of the cathedral and head down a narrow pathway, you will find yourself in what remains of the cloister.  There is some very fine stonework left behind, giving a hint at the magnificent buildings that once stood here, and many of the changes that the buildings clearly underwent.  The buildings were robbed for building materials following the Civil War.

Cloister wall, where it meets the abbey church

Beyond the cloister was the infirmary.  Many monastic establishments were furnished with an infirmary, mainly to take care of the elderly and unwell within the monastic community, but most of these are long gone, and again there is some attractive gothic arcading that indicates where the monastic ifirmary was located, to the east of the cloister.  It was built by Abbot John de Caux in around 1250.  It is worth mentioning, because it gives some idea of the scale of the monastic operation at Peterborough.

Relics

The 12th century Becket Casket (Height 29.5cm; Width 34.4cm; Depth 12.4cm). Source: V&A Museum

No important abbey was viable without relics of saints, which gave it great spiritual credibility, prestige and integrity.  Amongst the valuable relics collected were the arm of the Saxon saint Oswald of Northumbria. More prestigious by the 12th century were the bloodstained objects directly connected to the murder on 29th December 1170 of St Thomas Becket of Canterbury (the reliquary for which survives in the V&A museum).  A 12th century genuine British martyr, canonized in 1173, was a remarkable thing, and the snaffling of authenticated relics for Peterborough was a real coup.  Benedict did not witness the martyrdom, but he became an ardent collector and collator of Becket miracles. Becket had actually been to Peterborough, visiting with King Henry II in 1154.  A chapel was built to St Thomas at the abbey gate in 1174 to hold this and other relics, allowing pilgrims access to monastic relics without permitting them to disrupt the abbey church itself.

Painted walls and woodwork

Romanesque cathedrals in Europe often preserve painted decorative patterns on walls and ceilings, some emulating red mortar,  but only faint hints survive in Britain.  Fortunately, some very delicate paintwork in Peterborough survives.  As well as imitation mortar, and some lovely swirling curves, there is a truly charming section on the ceiling with tiny red flowers that may have been intended to evoke the Virgin Mary, who is often associated with red and white roses.

Within the apse, at the rear of the Presybytery, accessible from the New Building ambulatory,  there are coats of arms painted on the white walls.  Given that the eye is inevitably drawn first to the Hedda stone and the enormous marble high altar, it is easy not to notice the paintings.  I have been unable to find out anything about them either in the literature I have to hand or on the Peterborough Cathedral website, but they probably belonged to wealthy benefactors of the abbey or the later cathedral.

The chapels in the south transept were provided with wooden screens to provide access and entry, and provide privacy.  Remarkably, some of the decorative painting on these also survives.

The west front, the porch and the Lady Chapel

The Romanesque building did not escape the fashion for Gothic style embellishments.  Tracery in the window arches, for example, is Gothic, and the Romanesque interior was topped and tailed with a remarkable Early English west front and a stunning fan-vaulted rectangular ambulatory around the central semi-circular apse at the east end.

The unique 3-bay frontage was started in 1195 but progress was halted when King John, and England as a whole, were excommunicated from the Catholic church in 1209.  When the crisis was over, building resumed under Abbot Hugh, and it is thought that he made some changes the original design.  The result is three 29m high arches at the front, the central one narrower than the two flanking ones.  Inset into these are further arches.  Flanking the arche tops and and built into the triangular gables above were a total of 22 figures looking out from the front, although many have crumbled and have now replaced.  The three at the top of the gables are Saints Paul, Peter and Andrew.  The figure at the very top of the central gable is St Peter, overlooking the entrance, and marking the transition from the impure outdoor world to the heavenly space within.

Following the 13th century fashion for adding a Lady Chapel to a church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, one was built at Peterborough 1272-1286 to the north of the presbytery, accessed from the north transept, and was still standing by the 17th century, when it was taken down during the Civil War. It was in the Gothic style and was probably elaborately decorated and furnished.

A later Gothic porch, dating to 1375, protrudes from the middle of the west front.  I was inclined to be more than a little judgmental about the porch, which looked like a very misguided vanity project, but I stand corrected.  It was found that the central arch of the west front was beginning to tip forward, and the engineering solution was to create a wedge to prop it up.  The structurally necessary wedge was designed as a Gothic style galilee porch with perpendicular windows, and although it breaks up the magnificent frontage, has done a great job of preventing its collapse.

The 15th century “New Building”

The so-called “New Building,” a sublime gothic vision, is in fact an eastward extension of the Romanesque cathedral.  The New Building was probably built between 1496 and 1508  by star architect John Wastell of Bury St Edmunds (later responsible for the fan vaulting at Westminster Abbe, under the abbey’s superior, Abbot Robert Kirkton.  This was no mere add-on, but a fabulously imagined and beautifully crafted piece of fan-vaulted delight.  The abbot who took the gamble of gluing on an extension to a perfectly conceived Romanesque delight lived up to the legacy of his predecessors.  The ceiling bosses, some of which are shown in the above photograph, were carved with both secular and religious themes showing coats of arms, symbols of the saints, and other familiar subjects.  The job of the extension was to enclose the central semi-circular apse within a rectangular extension, providing a low-level ambulatory around the inner sanctum, which rises above it, for ceremonial processions.  Ambulatories often contain additional chapels, but the cathedral’s architecture remains largely uninterrupted and therefore retains the impact of the fabulous fan-vaulting, which is one of the largest examples in England.

Ceiling boss showing the instruments of the passion

The New Building also, of course, delivered some fairly glossy feathers to the cap of the abbot who was so pleased with himself that he incorporated his name, a partial rebus, into the building itself.  Abbot Robert Kirkton was not a self-effacing man – his initials are also conspicuous in the elaborate Prior’s Gate that he built and which celebrated key royal figures in the form of their heraldry, and ornamented with Marian roses, managing to be both obsequious and self-congratulatory.

Prior’s Gate by Abbot Kirkham

The unique 13th century painted ceiling

Magnificent painted ceiling of the nave

Deserving a post in its own right, the wooden ceiling is a marvel.  Unique, it was started in around 1238 and was finsihed sometime in the 1240s.  It is made up of a series of lozenge-shaped panels, which one painted either with a small scene or with leaf and floral motifs.  The repeating pattern of the lozenges is dramatic from below.  Interpretation of the scenes has established that the individual subjects are arranged into a series of core themes, but there is much that it still unclear.  Obvioulsy religious scenes like the Creation, The Lamb of God, Saints Peter and Paul and the Anti-Christ are accompanied by historical clerics and kings, music, astronomy and the liberal arts. A scene showing a money riding backwards on a galloping goat whilst holding an owl is a representation of folly.  John Foyles  dedicates several pages to the ceiling in his book and there is a book about it by Jackie Hall and Susan Wright for those who want to delve deeper (see sources at the end).

Unpainted wooden ceilings over the apses are also arranged in lozenges, and are very fine in their own right.

Lozenge-shaped framed painting on the ceiling of the nave., showing St Paul holding a sword in his right hand and a book in his left (panel C7). The sword evokes the means of his martyrdom (beheading) and the book represents his epistles.

The Tudors before the Dissolution

The main contribution of the Tudors to the cathedral are the tombs of Katherine of Aragon, who died in 1536 and Mary Queen of Scots in 1587.

Katharine of Aragon had been married to the heir to the English throne, Arthur, elder brother of the future Henry VIII.  When Arthur died, Henry VIII married his widowed sister-in-law.  When the marriage failed to produce the necessary male heir, Henry decided to annul the marriage.  Unable to obtain papal permission to do so, he split from the papacy and established the Church of England.  Katherine was shuffled off to Kimbolton Castle, where Henry hoped that if she was out of sight of the public, she would also be out of mind.  When she died she provided, on Henry’s orders, with a tomb in Peterborough Abbey, the nearest important ecclesiastical building to Kimbolton.  Here she was identified as the widow of Henry’s  brother Arthur.  This was presumably Henry’s excuse for not granting her a place in Westminster Abbey.  Deposited under the floor up against the south side of the presbytery, where she would be close to God, she was provided with a monument above the grave.  This was destroyed in the Civil War, but the grave beneath remains in situ, marked by a stone slab and gold lettering. 

The Dissolution

The opening page of the Valor Ecclesiasticus (the survey of monastic establishments that paved the way to the Dissolution), showing Henry VIII. Source: Wikipedia

The New Building had only just been finished in the first years of the 1500s when Henry VIII fell out with the Catholic papacy.  Henry, having found a way to both dissolve a marriage that produced a daughter but no male heir to his throne, and simultaneously remove papal authority over both his personal affairs and the management of the church, also found that being the head of his own Church of England enabled him to raise substantial funds by laying claim to all the properties and goods of the monasteries, priories and friaries, by simply denying their ongoing right to exist.   The Dissolution caught up with Peterborough abbey in 1539, which had survived the first round of closures that took place in 1536.  The abbot at the time was John Chambers, and he was unusually fortunate.  He took no part in the protests in Lincoln or the Pilgrimage of Grace, and although initially pensioned off his meek resignation to the inevitable was rewarded.  Whether it was because of the creation of new dioceses at this time, or because Henry VIII’s first wife Katherine of Aragon was buried here in 1536, the abbey escaped demolition and was converted instead to a cathedral in 1541 with John Chambers as its first bishop.  Of all the 100s of abbeys, priories and friaries that were dissolved by Henry VIII, only a handful were converted to cathedrals, of which Chester Cathedral is another example.

Fifty years later Peterborough was again the royal choice of burial place for an embarrassing queen.  Executed in 1587, Mary Queen of Scots was buried on the opposite side of the presbytery from Queen Katharine.  She remained there for 25 years until her son, James I, removed her remains to Westminster Abbey. 

The Civil War

Peterborough, from Speed’s 1610 map, shortly before the Civil War. Source: Sweeting 1899, Project Gutenberg

During the English Civil War of 22 August 1642 – 3 September 1651, each side attempted to use the medieval castles to gain advantage.  The result was that many 13th century castles were slighted (demolished) to prevent re-use at the end of the Civil War.  Castles were fair game, but religious institutions were also targeted because they represented a different threat – the challenge to Puritan religious belief.  Henry VIII had rejected Catholic authority, but his Church of England was established for convenience, and the Church of England contained many lingering aspects of its Catholic ancestry.  Oliver Cromwell’s soldiers were given free reign to obliterate any of the artistic signs of lingering tendencies to papism to force through reform.  What they could reach they either maimed or destroyed.  What they could not reach they sometimes hit with musket fire.

One of three surviving misericords at Peterborough Cathedral

At Peterborough, as in so many places, the medieval stained glass was demolished.  Some of the stained glass windows at the east end today was formed of the fragments that people picked up and saved after the Puritans had left.  The painted ceiling over the east end apse was shot with muskets, but somehow the ceiling over the nave was missed.  The choir stalls, together with the misericords (the so-called mercy seats once in the choir stalls, all of which were carved with fascinating scenes on their undersides) were also destroyed at this time.  Only three of the misericords survive (at Chester there are 48 misericords, which gives some idea of the level of destruction at Peterborough).  The survivors are preserved in a chapel on the south side of the nave near the entrance, a sad reminder that something quite spectacular has been lost.  The high altar was also destroyed.  The cloister buildings were used as the raw materials for nearby Thorpe Hall.

The 17th and 18th centuries

This sub-heading would normally be an exercise in naming and shaming, but, amazingly, the abbey has not suffered the usual indignities of an important ecclesiastical building during this period.  There are no 17th and 18th century monuments jostling for position on the walls to undermine the sense of coherence and uniform splendour.  The soaring nave in Westminster Abbey, utterly spoiled by truly awful funerary memorials, is a good example of how badly a beautiful building can be dramatically undermined by later insensitivities. Although some of the monuments in Peterborough Cathedral were damaged during the Reformation, there seem to have been restrictions on the number permitted.

The biggest surviving monument is baroque, dedicated to wool merchant Thomas Deacon, former high sheriff of Northamptonshire and founder of a charity school for 20 boys.  He died in 1730.  His wife, who died 10 years later, is also commemorated on the monument.  I would much rather that it had not been built in the cathedral, at the entrance to the New Building, because it is such an alien presence, but it is a particularly fine example of its type.

The Victorians

Two of the most active restorers of the Victorian period were Sir George Gilbert Scott and John L. Pearson.  Unfortunately, although their ideas of restoration included the valuable rescue and repair of serious damage and decay, it also involved what they clearly thought of as improvements to the original vision of earlier architects and artists.  Enthusiasts of Chester Cathedral and Valle Crucis Abbey in Llangollen will probably have Gilbert Scott’s name ringing in their ears.

The crossing

In the late 1800s the tower was on the verge of collapse and it was Pearson who was responsible for dismantling and rebuilding it, a massive undertaking that saved the cathedral from irreparable harm.  His work altered the 14th century tower but was done to blend in with the existing architecture.  The twin sets of choir stalls, to the east of where the originals were located, the cathedra (bishop’s throne) and the pulpit are also Pearson’s work, and although clearly not medieval, are a skilled emulation of a medieval style quire.  Pearson’s, however, was the evil genius that created the temple-like marble high altar within the presbytery as well as the cosmati floor leading up to it.

Cosmati floor

Gilbert Scott was responsible for the painted ceiling over the apse, which he claimed at the time was based on the damaged example that he was replacing.  It is unmistakeably Victorian in its rendition and colouring.

Gilbert Scott’s ceiling in the apse

In this period the circular cast iron Gurney stoves were added, manufactured by The London Warming and Ventilating Company who bought the patent registered in 1856 by Goldsworth Gurney, surgeon turned engineer.  The stove looks like the filter in my wet-and-dry vacuum cleaner, with ribs standing out from a central cylinder, distributing heat in a full circle.  It was fired by anthracite, and the entire thing sat in a trough of water, helping to add humidity to the air.  Peterborough cathedral retains several of them, and they are in many other cathedrals too.  The Peterborough ones are powered by either as or oil, and they do a stunning job.

Modern additions

There has been some restoration work in the last few decades, but the emphasis has generally been on preservation rather than modernization. For example, many of the badly decaying figures on the west front were replaced by Alan Durst between 1949 and 1975.

A particularly noticeable modern addition is a hanging rood – a red crucifix with Christ in gold affixed to it, suspended from the ceiling at the east end of the nave, added in 1975. This hangs above the line that the rood screen would have taken across the nave.  Up against the south side of the presbytery some very fine gold lettering, was put in place to mark the burial place of Mary Queen of Scots, which works well.  In the New Building, someone has seen fit to place framed photographs on the walls between the fan-vaulting columns, which really doesn’t do the architecture any favours.  The entrance to the west end has automated glass doors, which add to the light, and there is of course the inevitable gift shop on your left as you enter.  Outside, Thomas Becket’s chapel is now a tea room.

Final Comments

The Romanesque is so comparatively rare in Britain, that this stunningly coherent and unfettered example is a particularly amazing treat.    When the decision was made to extend the east end in a contrasting style, the slender, delicate columns and fan-vaulting of the New Building provided contrasting but additional brilliance. Moving through the building from the Norman to gothic gives the sense of being in an ecclesiastical time machine, a transition from one perfect world to another.

There is so much more to be said about the abbey and its features, inside and out, so much that has been missed out here.  If you decide to visit, you won’t be disappointed.


Visiting

View from the choir to the east end

I am accustomed to driving to southeast London, so rather than looking at other options I took was my usual route, zipping down the A41, the M54, the M6 and the A14.  From the A14 the A605 goes straight to Peterborough and I was there, end to end with no delays, in just over three hours.  The A41 is always the joker in the pack because it is a long way from Chester to the M54, there are very few sections of dual carriageway and it can be difficult to overtake if you find yourself behind something slow.  The A5 to Shrewsbury and the M54 is sometimes quicker.

The cathedral opening times are on the website, where any special events and closures are shown.  Although I had done some top-level background reading I was lucky enough to arrive half an hour before a Highlights Tour was due to start, so I had a wander around on my own and then returned to the entrance for the tour.  I failed to get my guide’s name, which is particularly sad as I had her to myself, November being a quiet time of year, and we had a great chat.  She was splendidly knowledgable, encouraged my stream of questions and added multiple layers of detail and interpretation to my visit.

There was full-on white frost resembling snow over the days that I visited, and it was exceedingly cold, but thanks to the deployment of multiple Gurney stoves in the cathedral (fabulous heat-generating monsters like the ones in Chester Cathedral), I actually had to take off my top layer.  It is the first cathedral I’ve ever visited that actually felt cosy!

For those who are dealing with unwilling legs, Peterborough as a whole is on the flat.  The cathedral has very few steps to negotiate, automated doors provide access to the cathedral, a ramp is provided to get into the chancel from the New Building to visit the Hedda stone, and there are a great many places to sit down even beyond the nave.

I returned home via Normanton Church (see my short post with photos), for no better reason than it looked pretty and I do love a well-proportioned Georgian church, so my return journey was different, following the A606 to Melton Mowbray (I didn’t stop but it looks interesting), the A6006 and the A50 to Stoke on Trent and Nantwich, and the A534 home.  Thanks to a convoy of lorries on the A6006 it was slow going but it was a spectacularly beautiful day and the unfamiliar landscape showed to terrific advantage in the sunshine.  The A50 is dual carriageway, very unlovely but a smooth run.  The drive from Peterborough to Churton, via Normanton Church, took me just over four hours (not including the time wandering around at Normanton).

Sources

Books and papers

Pair of figures believed to be Roman, possibly late 2nd century. In the west wall of the south transept

Biddick, Kathleen. 1992. The Other Economy: Pastoral Husbandry on a Medieval Estate. University of California Press

Foyle, Jonathan. 2018. Peterborough Cathedral. A Glimpse of Heaven. Scala

Higham, Jack (Revd. Canon). 2001. Peterborough Cathedral. The Pitkin Guide.  Pitkin

Selkirk, Andrew and Selkirk, Wendy 1983. Peterborough. Current Archaeology, no.89, vol.VIII, October 1983, p.182-183

Sweeting, W.D. (Revd.) 1899 (second edition). The Cathedral Church of Peterborough. A Description of its fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See.  G. Bell and Sons Ltd.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13618/13618-h/13618-h.htm

Book about the nave’s painted ceiling (which I have not read, but is listed here for those who would like to find out more)
Jackie Hall and Susan Wright (eds.) 2015. Conservation & Discovery: Peterborough Cathedral Nave Ceiling and Related Structures. MOLA———

Websites

Peterborough Cathedral website
https://www.peterborough-cathedral.org.uk/
Visiting: https://www.peterborough-cathedral.org.uk/home/visiting.aspx
History: https://www.peterborough-cathedral.org.uk/history.aspx
The painted nave ceiling: https://peterborougharchaeology.org/peterborough-cathedral-nave-ceiling/
Abbot Benedict: https://peterboroughcathedral.wordpress.com/tag/abbot-benedict/
Katherine of Aragon: https://www.peterborough-cathedral.org.uk/home/katharine-of-aragon.aspx

National Character Area Profile: 46. The Fenlands
Natural England
https://publications.naturalengland.org.uk/file/5742315148673024

Books by Abbot Benedict of Peterborough available online
https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Benedict%2C%20Abbot%20of%20Peterborough%2C%20%2D1193

Antarctic Heritage Trust
The Gurney Stove in Antarctica
https://nzaht.org/gurneystove/

 

A visit to The National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port

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Although quite literally freezing cold, the sun was stunning yesterday so on the spur of the  moment, having just run an errand to Rossett, I plotted a route to the National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port on the Wirral.  It’s very easy to find, being just off the M53.  I have been meaning to visit ever since I moved to this area.  It is one of those places best done in dry weather, because there is as just as much, if not more, to see outside as indoors.  Visitor information details are at the end.

Background History

The museum occupies the 19th century canal and port complex, re-using the lovely brick-built buildings for exhibits and displays and using sections of the docks and basins for a number of fascinating canal and waterway vessels.   Ellesmere Port was the largest Inland Waterway dock complex in the United Kingdom.  The name Ellesmere Port refers to the town of Ellesmere, where many of the decisions about the Shropshire Union canal network were made.  There was no Ellesmere Port until the port was established in 1796 as a small base at the Mersey end of the Shropshire Union Canal.

The Shropshire Union Canal was one of a number of canals built at different times which, in 1846, were amalgamated into a single operational network.  The earliest part of this network was the Nantwich to Canal section.  The earliest part of the system was the Chester Canal which ran from Chester to Nantwich in 1772.  It was not until 1793 that a section connecting Chester to the Mersey was built, with its terminus at Ellesmere Port.  The section from Nantwich to Birmingham, the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal, was the main north-south artery of this network, and was not completed until 1835, joining the national canal network for which Birmingham was the central hub.

By 1802 as well as a series of locks with a lock keeper’s house, there was also three basins, wet and dry docks, a small wharf, a clerk’s house and a canal lighthouse.  Over subsequent decades additional wharves were added and warehouses, workshops and sheds were built.  A scheme by Thomas Telford for a dock and entrance for seagoing vessels was completed in 1843, significantly improving the port’s suitability for transhipping.  During the 1850s the most important cargo was iron, followed by ceramics from the Potteries, and substantial facilities were provided for both.

The opening of the Manchester Ship Canal in 1894, and the simultaneous improvement in facilities at Ellesmere Port significantly improved the prosperity of the port.  Unfortunately this was something of a swansong for the canal port, and In 1921 the Shropshire Union Canal Company sold its fleet of barges and the commercial viability of the canal and the port for freight handling came to an end.  The railways replaced the canals throughout Britain, with many of the former wharves and ports falling into disuse and dereliction. Ellesmere Port managed to survive until the 1950s and became a museum in the 1970s.

More details of the history of the port, (together with some of the business and industries it attracted, the development of the surrounding settlement and details of the drainage of Stanlow marshes by German prisoners of war in the First World War), are available in Vince Devine and Jo Clark’s excellent survey (see Sources at end).

The Museum

The derelict port buildings became a museum in the 1970s after a heroic effort by a group of volunteers, and is now a conservation area with nineteen Grade II listed buildings.  It was originally known as the North West Museum of Inland Navigation and had various other names until it became The National Waterways Museum, with its emphasis on inland waterways, both rivers and canals, although coastal vessels are also included.  As well as boats and exhibition and display spaces, the site is also home to the Waterways Archive, and education centre, conference facilities, a shop and café and other amenities, all located within the port buildings.

Map of the museum. Sorry it’s a bit crumpled, but there does not appear to be a clean version online. Click image to expand.

Entrance is via the ticket office that sits between the shop and the café.  There is a 5 minute video to watch if required, and then access to the rest of the museum is on the other side of the shop, which sites on the side of the canal entrance to the port.  There were obligingly two narrowboats moored further up the quayside, hemmed in with ice, and this is a very good place to orientate oneself with the help of the excellent map that comes with your entry ticket.   It’s quite a complicated site, with several buildings containing exhibits, so the map is invaluable.

I started out by walking over the bridges towards the Exhibition Hall, former warehousing, taking in some of the historic boats moored up alongside the quays in the Upper Basin.

The big former warehouse, called the Island Warehouse, has displays on two floors.  The ground floor is a vast collection of objects connected to the waterways, including bits of engine, windlasses, tillers, rudders, sack barrows, buckets and lamps and a zillion other objects, parts and bits.  There’s very little information on display, although a QR code promised more details about some of the objects via your smartphone (I had left mine in the car by accident).

A really wonderful find on the ground floor was a long glass cabinet containing a prehistoric log boat found in Baddiley Mere in Cheshire, and made of a single, hollowed-out trunk of oak.  This is a nationally important object and it was splendid to see it.  I had no idea it was at Ellesmere Port.  Sadly, the cabinet was hemmed in on all sides with other objects. It was also covered in dust and the glass sides reflected the surroundings, so it was difficult to get close or see it properly and impossible to photograph well.  I do wish that it was on the first floor exhibition area, where it could be seen and appreciated properly.  According to the Heritage Gateway website, it is on loan from the Grosvenor Museum.

The prehistoric log canoe, which could be rather more conspicuously and sympathetically displayed.

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The first floor is a more formal exhibition area.  There is a cut-away narrowboat called Friendship with its painted bow and stern and a tiny little cabin, the unimaginably small living quarters of the narrowboat’s operator and his family.  A delightful pleasure boat, the 1954 Amaryllis, glows with glossy mahogany and polished brass.  My favourite was an example of a long, slender boat called a “starvationer,” designed to run on the 46 miles (74km) of subterranean canal tunnels in the Duke of Bridgewater’s Worsley coal mines.  Other cabinets have model boats and ships showing a range of different types and sizes.  A couple of cabinets have examples of canal art associated with narrowboats.  Items commonly found in the dock and canal port are included.  There’s even a working model of the Anderton Boat Lift.  Information boards provide plenty of detail.

A “starvationer”

Sack chute

Out on the other side of this building, back outside, there are more boats.  Some of the boats that are usually out in the summer are under cover for winter, still visible but not as accessible.  This is particularly true of the valuable wooden narrowboats like Gifford and the ice-breaker Marbury.  Being under cover, they are also easier to work on.  The ongoing care and repair of wooden boats is a major part of the out of season work at the museum, and there information boards explaining what is being done to each.

The ice-breaker “Marbury”

Walking to the left, a splendid ship hull rests in a giant covered cradle, the remains of the Mersey flat barge Mossdale. According to the signage she is the only surviving all-timber Mersey flat.  She was initially named Ruby, in which guise she carried cargoes of up to 70 tons, towed by steam tug on canal, river and along the coast.  In spite of her flat base she was very stable. She was sold in 1920, after which she carried pottery, grain, flour and sugar along the Bridgewater canal.

Mossdale

Beyond this is the splendid Pump House with its 69ft (21m) chimney built in 1873.  This was closed to the public on the day I visited.

Heading back, the next place to visit is Porters Row, four terraced houses, each one fitted out with furniture, accessories, wallpaper, technology and kitchen equipment that would have been found in dock workers’ homes of the 1830s, 1900s, 1920s and 1950s.  This is such fun, a really evocative way of getting a sense of how past objects were deployed in ordinary homes, although some were clearly more prosperous than others, one with a piano, and more remarkably one with a organ!

Beyond and downhill (reached via a ramp, or by locks if you are in a boat) is the Lower Basin containing more boats, with the rather well disguised Holiday Inn hotel beyond.

Crossing to the other side of the port, there is another set of buildings that includes the old stables (for the horses that pulled the unpowered narrowboats), the blacksmith’s forge (still operational), and the Power Hall, which is a display of ship engines, one of which can be operated via a push-button.

FCB18 – a barge made of concrete

On the other side of the Power Hall are two more boats, one of which, the barge FCB18, is fascinatingly made of concrete, which is a crazily counter-intuitive concept. But there it is, happily afloat.  The information signage says that she was built in 1944 during the war, which was a time of steel shortage.  Concrete was readily available and cheap, and although steel was still required, only 18 tons was required, as opposed to the 56 for a steel barge with a carrying capacity of 200 tons.  Unfortunately, the resulting barge was heavy, difficult to steer, and brittle.

The other boat is Basuto, looking like something built of rusty Meccano, but again, still afloat in a sea of green weed.

Back up towards the exit is a sign pointing you to the slipway with its blue-painted wooden winch house, and from here you can see over to the channel that connects the Manchester Ship Canal to the River Weaver and Ellesmere Port.  When you leave the museum, you can turn left along the road that passes between the museum and the car park, and walk along the channel’s edge towards the Holiday Inn, where there are some great swing bridges and more canal-side buildings, including a unique port lighthouse.

The above is just a sample – there’s lots to see.  A great visit.

Visiting Information

A dry day is preferable for a visit, because there is a lot to see outside, and the buildings themselves are part of the attraction.  Opening times are on the Canal and River Trust website here.  At the time of writing (January 2024) the entrance fee was £11.75 for an adult, which seems quite steep but the ticket lasts for a year, and I will certainly be making use of mine for another visit.  Other entrance fees are on the museum’s website on the above link.  There is a nicely presented shop with books, toys and canal-themed ornaments, and a bright, comfortable café.  Outside there are plenty of picnic benches, and a play area.  The museum was amazingly quiet.  Given the bright sunshine I thought that it would be fairly busy, but the cold was obviously a deterrent, the docks being frozen solid.

I was warned at the ticket office about icy surfaces, which takes on a particular resonance when you are walking along the edges of frozen expanses of water with almost no-one around.  But they had done such a good job with the salt and grit that even in the cold shadows there was no ice on which to slip.

For those with unwilling legs, there are ramps nearly everywhere.  In the Island Warehouse there is an elevator to the first floor, but this was out of order when I visited so it might be a good idea to phone first if you need it.  There is a lot to see on the first floor, so it would be best to go when the elevator is working.  The Pump House was closed, but this appears to be accessible only via a short flight of steps (5 or 6 steps).   Otherwise, as far as I could see, the whole site seemed to be fully accessible for wheelchair users and those with unwilling legs.

Boat trips are available in the summer.

 

Sources

Books and papers

Vince Devine and Jo Clark. 2003.  Ellesmere Port Archaeological Assessment. Cheshire Historic Towns Survey
http://www.cheshirearchaeology.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/HTS_Arch_Assess_EllesmerePort.pdf

Websites

The Ellesmere Port Canal Port Trail
The Mersey Forest
https://www.merseyforest.org.uk/things-to-do/walks-bike-rides-and-more/walks/ellesmere-port-canal-port-trail/

The Shropshire Union Canal
The Canal and River Trust
https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/canals-and-rivers/shropshire-union-canal
Virtual Tour of the Museum
https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/things-to-do/museums-and-attractions/national-waterways-museum-ellesmere-port/virtual-tour-of-the-national-waterways-museum

History of the Shropshire Union Canals
The Shropshire Union Canal Society
https://shropshireunion.org.uk/shropshire-union/early-history-of-the-shropshire-union-canals/

Postcard of a photograph from the museum archives. Lovely to see all those Fellows, Morton and Clayton narrowboats lined up. A real canal legend.

Day trip: Edward I’s 1282 Denbigh Castle and Town Walls

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Introduction

Aerial view of Denbigh Castle. Source: Coflein

The substantial remains of Denbigh Castle and its walls represent an important slice of Anglo-Welsh history, and are truly beautiful to visit on a sunny day when the castle walls and the surrounding landscape are bathed in bright, lovely light. It is thought, partly because of the original name Dinbych meaning ‘little fort’, that a previous castle, along much more modest lines, had been on the site at least from the 12th century.  The new castle at Denbigh was built by Edward I (1239-1307, reigning from 1272).  It was started in 1282, and given to Henry de Lacy to complete and defend in the same year.  It survived the 1294 rebellion by Madog ap Llywelyn, the rebellion of Owain Glyndwr in 1400 and held out under siege for six months during the Civil War in 1646, before being slighted at the end of that war in 1659.  The ruins attracted a number of painters, examples of whose work are shown towards the end of the post.  On a visit to the town, and making it a good day out, there are also impressive heritage sites to see in Denbigh, some of which I have included in the Visitor details at the end of the post.

Llywelyn the Last paying homage to Edward, sitting on Edward’s left.

It is probably impossible to fully understand Edward I’s castles in Wales without getting to grips with the longstanding conflict between the English Crown and the Welsh princes in the 13th century.  I did my best to summarize the background in a post on this blog in which, as well as discussing the conflicts, I have tried very hard to distinguish the different generations of Welsh princes from one another coherently, which is something of a challenge due to their repetitive naming conventions.  Apart from a short introduction in the next paragraph, all my comments on Edward’s military strategy, and the reasons for it, are on that post, and are not covered here.

Map of Wales showing Edward I’s new castles in Wales. Source: By Eggishorn on Wikipedia

Denbigh Castle was Edward I’s sixth castle in Wales as he headed relentlessly west to subdue Wales.  His castles at Flint, Hawarden, Rhuddlan and Builth (unfinished) in the northeast, and Aberystwyth in mid-west Wales were already underway, all started in 1277. Henry III and Edward had been troubled throughout Henry’s reign by rebellions in Wales, masterminded by Llywelyn ap Gruffud, known as Llywelyn the Last (not to be confused with Llywelyn the Great, his grandfather).  Several treaties had failed to achieve long term peace, and although the Treaty of Montgomery of 1267 looked as though it might hold, Llywelyn ap Gruffud was labelled an outlaw in 1276, and war was declared in 1277. A peace was brokered, marked by the Treaty of Aberconwy of November 1277, but although Edward had every reason to believe that the new treaty might secure peace between England and Wales, he was taking no chances and began to build a series of castles in northeast Wales, beginning at Flint in 1277, with Rhuddlan Castle started later in the same year.  These costly and invasive measures were vindicated in 1282 when war broke out again, instigated by Dafydd ap Gruffyd, Llywelyn’s brother, whom Llywelyn joined in the new uprising.  Both were killed during the war, and peace lasted until 1294 when a distant cousin of Llywelyn’s, Madog ap Gruffud, again took up arms against Edward, marking the last of the 13th century attempts to regain both lost territory and lost dignity.

Why here? The location of Denbigh Castle

Strategic importance of the castle

Denbigh in the Vale of Clwyd with the River Conwy to the west and the Clwydian range and the Dee estuary to the east.  Source:  Google Maps

Denbigh Castle was built on a Carboniferous limestone outcrop overlooking the flat plain of the Vale of Clwyd and the lowlands of the Clwydian Range of hills, rising to 468ft (142m) above sea level.  There may have been an earlier castle on the same spot.  From the point of view of visibility of the surrounding landscape it is an excellent site for a castle.  The Dee estuary lies over the hills to the northeast, and the River Conwy to the west.  The Conwy marked a natural border between east and west Wales, a border that was a frequent bone of contention between the Welsh princes of Gwynedd and the English crown, as the Welsh attempted to push west in the face of the determination of the English crown to hold them safely contained in the west.   

The Four Cantrefi. Source: Wikipedia

Denbigh lies in what was Rhufoniog, one of the so-called Four Cantrefi, four areas of north Wales that Henry III wrested from Wales and were allocated under the Treaty of Woodstock in 1247.  Following grievances with the English governorship of the Four Cantrefi, Llywelyn the Last took up the cause against Edward I. Following Llywelyn’s surrender, Rhufoniog had been granted under the 1267 Treaty of Montgomery to Llywelyn’s treacherous brother Dafydd ap Gruffudd, together with Dyffryn Clwyd, but Dafydd rebelled against Edward.  Llywelyn threw in his lot with his brother, and was killed in battle in 1282.  Dafydd was captured and then tortured and killed in 1283, after which the cantrefi reverted to the English crown, a source of bitter resentment for the Welsh. 

Edward granted land in Wales to favoured supporters, and allocated Denbigh to Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, together with the cantrefi of Rhos and Dinmael, the latter having been wrested from the rulers of northern Powys.  These three regions were combined to become Denbigh, a massive English footprint in northeast Wales.  Henry de Lacy certainly set out to make the most of his new possession, evocatively expressed by R.R. Davies:

The seal of Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln

Henry Lacy, earl of Lincoln: in his new, vast lordship of Denbigh not only did he create a brand new manor (with a brand new name) for himself from forfeited and other lands, grant out sizable estates for his followers and servants (including his chamberlain and his cook), establish two studs for his horses, and carve out parks for his pleasure and stock them with deer from Cheshire; but he also declared majestically that the new land measurement to be used in Denbigh was to be a perch of twenty-one feet as gauged by the length of his own foot.

Edward’s chain of castles, the so-called ring of iron, consisted of both both fortifications and a communication network.  It was put to the test not only during the Middle Ages but in subsequent the early 1400s and the 17th century, highlighting the strategic importance of each castle. 

Economic potential of the area

View from the castle’s main gate house

Edward’s castles were not standalone constructions.  Communication networks were vital for a peripatetic king and court, but also for the movement of troops and the commercial viability of new settlements.  Each castle connected to Edward’s growing network of roads and was accompanied by a new town. Areas in which castles and their towns were located had to be economically viable to attract English settlers to potentially volatile locations.  Additional benefits were low rentals, exemption from tolls, and, in the case of Denbigh and some other towns, Edward granted the town a monopoly.  The towns were monetized, using coinage for purchases, rather than the traditional Welsh system of exchange.  Edward established mints at Rhuddlan and elsewhere to enable the urbanization of Wales.

View over fields beyond the castle walls today

Denbigh was one of the few castles built by Edward that was not a port, and did not have river access to a port.  However the land was suitable for agricultural activities and livestock rearing.  Cattle prefer good quality grazing, but sheep, which are less fussy about their food source, could be converted not merely into meat and dairy, but sheared for the thriving 14th century trade in wool and inexpensive cloth centred in nearby Ruthin.  Stevens says that the in the Denbighshire lordship of Dyffryn Clwyd, “the lord’s demesne [productive land attached to the manor] flock numbered 2,000 – 3,000 and the aggregated tenant flocks nearly as many, with several private flocks numbering between 100 and 240.”  In Dyffryn Clwyd it is known that weaving on a piecemeal basis in farmsteads supplemented other income.

The design

Burgess Gate, from the castle side

It is thought that the castle was designed and its build overseen by James of St George, who was responsible for Edward’s most spectacular castles in Wales.  It was built mainly of local limestone, with some components built in local yellow and Triassic red sandstone.  For the Green Chambers, the two-storey building with chambers over a wine cellar and meat store, a different type of sandstone was sourced from a site 16 miles (25km) north of the castle.

Today, as in Edward’s day, the castle was approached primarily via the Burgess Gate, which sits along the town walls, north of the castle.  This is a thoroughly substantial piece of architecture with the power to intimidate and impress as well as to defend.  Its original portcullis has long gone but when you stand beneath the arch you can see the carefully cared square holes in the masonry above you, which shows where the portcullis was raised.  The mechanism that operated it was on the first floor.

St Hilary’s Tower with the remnants of the church still attached to its eastern side.

Passing through the gate and heading uphill brings you to the castle, with St Hilary’s tower on your left.  St Hilary’s was a chapel with a tower at its west end dating to the early 14th century, only two decades after the castle was founded, and was altered a number of times, but the church itself was taken down in 1923.  The chapel had fallen out of use when a new church was built in the town beyond the walls in 1874.  The tower with its contemporary west doorway and its 15th century battlements are all that remains to commemorate the church.

The castle is still fairly awe-inspiring, but must have been magnificent when towering over the valley, particularly when compared to the smaller and less solidly built Welsh castles.  L.A.S Butler describes three main phases of construction work.  Initially what are now the outer defences on the south and west were built to provide a defensible enclosure within which the main building activity could be carried out.  Once the outer defences were completed, the castle was built on rather more massive lines.  The curtain walls are taller and thicker, and were interrupted by hexagonal and octagonal towers, the postern gate almost opposite the main gate and a hidden passage called the sally port allowing pedestrian movements during times of siege.

A CGI impression of the three towers that make up the gate house, showing some of the internal passageways and the locations of the three portcullis gates. Source: Castle Studies Group Journal 2015

The entrance to the castle proper is an extraordinary construction consisting of three octagonal towers, on a triangular plan, with internal passages and staircases. It was protected by a portcullis over a ditch, and contains a statue in a niche above, which may be a later addition depicting Edward II (1307-1327).  Following the attack of 1294 additional protective walls were added, with semi-circular towers at weak points.  The areas between these outer walls and the later inner walls are referred to as mantlets and offered additional protection to the completed castle. Construction work continued after the attack, both to undertake repairs and to complete most of the original design.

Today the castle walls surround a large green area along the edge of which are the foundations and partial ruins of a number of structures essential to the castle, including two wells, a great hall, apartments, a kitchen with two splendid 16ft (5m) wide fireplaces, a combined treasury and muniments tower, and a pigeon house.  The open area of green grass, the ward or bailey, was once the place where troops could muster and train, and might be used for storage.  Interestingly, Neaverson comments that the well sunk into the Carboniferous limestone would have been unreliable, with the many joints in the rock allowing water to escape, and notes that there were medieval records describing this problem.

For information about the building process involved in Edward’s early castles in Wales, see my post on Flint Castle, which quotes former mayoress Vicky Perfect’s excellent research on the subject.


The town and the walls

The town

Photograph of a wall poster from the Denbigh Castle shop, showing what the castle may have looked like in the 14th century.  Also shown in the Cadw guide book.

Like his first Welsh castle and town in Flint in 1277, the new castle-town at Denbigh,  was Edward I’s replication of a French “bastide” of the sort he had already built in Gascony, in which both the castle and the town were planned as a single entity, each supporting the other.  These new English castle-town arrangements were deeply unpopular in Wales because the land appropriated from the Welsh for the town and associated land-use was reserved for the English, part of Edward’s plan to undermine the Welsh occupation and domination of key strategic places.  Pioneer settlers were expected to help defend the town should it come under attack, but were granted commercial privileges as incentives in these troubled areas, and might attract those who were unable to generate similar opportunities in more peaceful places.  

Artefacts on display in the visitor shop at Denbigh Castle.

One of the primary activities of the new settlers was agriculture. The Welsh inhabitants were ousted and English settlers were given the most productive land.  Other settlers would have been traders and middlemen, sourcing luxury goods and other desirable produce and goods from elsewhere for sale both to the castle and townspeople.  Service industries will also have grown up, like grain mills, blacksmith forges and tanners, as well as food outlets such as butchers, bakeries and breweries and would all have been vital to a successful town.  A church and courthouse would have been essential, and would have required their own officials.

John Speed’s map of 1610. Source: Cadw

Once the land within the town walls had filled to capacity with homes and businesses, other buildings grew around the exterior of the walls, forming a very large settlement site.  Butler says that the original layout of the town in c.1282 incorporated 63 burgesses (a free citizen of the borough) each with its own burgage plot (property and attached land held by ownership or tenure).  By 1305 only 52 houses were within the walls and up to 183 were outside, the latter taking advantage of the flatter land and the easier access to water.  By 1476 there were 276 burgages beyond the walls.  A tile kiln dating to the 14th or 15th-century was found during the 1930s during building work.  15th century records refer to town routes including High Street, Beacon’s Hill, Pepper Lane and Sowter Lane, and during both late 15th and 16th centuries craftsmen included a draper, glovers, shoe-makers, mercers and weavers.  Leland, writing in the 1530s, comments that the walled town was largely abandoned in favour of lower land beyond the walls where water could be accessed and “maany welles” had been established.

The battered remains of the Carmelite Friary on the edge of the medieval town. Source: Coflein

All that remains of the medieval town within the walls is the tower of St Hilary’s Chapel, started in the early 1300s.   Beyond the castle walls, the CPAT survey dates the cruck-framed Friesland Hall House (later the Old Castle Arms and now Bryn Awelon) to the 14th century.  The same survey states that The Plough in Bridge Street was originally an L-shaped timber-framed building with a medieval rock cut cellar below.  An outlier in the medieval town was the Carmelite friary dating to c.1289.  In the current town all the other ordinary wood-built buildings will have been replaced many times over, although some of the stone cellars may date to the late-15th century during the War of the Roses, when townspeople may have decamped from within the town walls after Jasper Tudor burned the town in 1468 (about which more below).

Robert Dudley’s courthouse, now the library

In 1536 the Act of Union promoted Denbigh to one of four administrative capitals in Wales. Surviving buildings from the reign of Elizabeth I in the 16th century are the courthouse of 1571 and the incomplete church of 1578, both built by Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, who was granted the lordship of Denbigh in 1563.   The courthouse was built in the lower town, whilst the new church took advantage of the empty spaces within the town walls.  Dudley appears to have done very little to restore the castle.  A 1610 map of Denbigh by John Speed shows only a handful of building, including the two churches, within the town walls, and a sprawling town beyond, with the 1289 Carmelite friary (the only one in Wales, and marked on the map as “The Abbey”) on the outskirts.

The walls

Walking the town walls of Denbigh

The walls were built to contain the new town and were started at the same time as the castle.  Unlike Flint’s long-gone rectangular town walls, Denbigh’s loop around in an irregular sub-circular shape, enclosing enclosing c.9.5 acres (3.8 ha), again supplied with defensive towers, offering good views over the surrounding area.  Access into the town was via two main gates in the walls, the Burgess Gate mentioned above to the north and the Exchequer Gate to the west.  You can walk a section of the walls, but you need to pick up a key to the gate from either the library or the castle shop.

The castle under attack during the reign of Edward I

Tombstone of Madog ap Llywelyn in Gresford All Saints’s Church

In September 1294 a distant cousin of Llywelyn the Last and Dafydd ap Gruffudd, named Madog ap Llywelyn, made one last- ditch attempt to repel the English before Owain Glyndŵr’s attempt over a century later.  His reasons were not simply territorial but had much to do with the English tax burden of 1/15th imposed on the region.  Madog successfully captured a number of castles, including Denbigh, forcing their defenders to retreat, but only three months later Madog was forced out of the castle, and by April 1295 the castles had been restored to the hands of their English lords.  The plan might have worked had Edward, who had mustered an army on the coast for action in Gascony, and should have been absent when the revolt took place; unfortunately for the rebels, bad weather delayed departure and Edward temporarily abandoned his campaign in Gascony and headed for Wales.  Madog was taken to London where he was held in captivity, probably until his death in around 1312.  For those in the Wrexham-Chester area, Madog was buried in Gresford All Saints’ Church (described on this blog here), where his tomb, showing an effigy of him in armour with his shield, can still be visited.  Gresford Church is very well worth a visit in its own right.

Tombstone of Madog ap Llywelyn in Gresford All Saints’s Church


Back in the wars after Edward I

Owain Glyndŵr’s Rebellion (1400 – c.1410)

Banner of Owain Glyndwr. Source: Wikipedia

By 1400 the castle had passed through a number of hands under the reigns of Edward II (reigned 1307 to 1327), Edward III (reigned 1327 to 1377) and Richard II (reigned 1377 to 1399).  In 1399 Henry Bolingbroke became Henry IV and ruled until 1413, and one of the earliest challenges of his reign was the rebellion of Owain Glyndŵr in 1400.  Glyndŵr was the last Welsh national to claim the title Prince of Wales, which had actually been conferred on Edward I by his father Henry III.  By this time the lordship of Denbigh had passed into the hands of the Mortimer family, but Roger Mortimer died in battle when his son Edmund Mortimer was a minor.  Henry IV therefore appointed Henry Percy to take charge of Denbigh, together with other administrative responsibilities in the area.  In 1400 Glyndŵr attacked the town of Denbigh, although apparently did not attempt to take the castle.  Percy, popularly known as Hotspur, planned a rebellion of his own and was interested in forming an alliance with Glyndŵr.  Fortunately for the king, Hotspur died in battle in 1403.  The preservation of the castle was possibly due to a strategic marriage between Sir Edmund Mortimer (young Edmund’s uncle) and Glyndŵr’s daughter Catrin in November 1402.  As Denbigh was part of young Edmund’s inheritance, the agreement to preserve of Denbigh’s castle from destruction might have been part of the marriage negotiation.

The War of the Roses (1455 – 1485)

Still in the hands of the Mortimer family, who supported the Yorkist cause, Denbigh Castle became the target of Jasper Tudor, who had been granted the role of constable (high official) of Denbigh, but was unable to fulfil the role until he gained access to the castle.  He made his attempt first in 1460, when he successfully took the castle for a number of months before being ousted, and again in 1468 when he failed to take the castle, but breached the town walls and set fire to the town.  The castle was again repaired after the end of the war, and as mentioned above, it appears that the area within the town walls was abandoned rather than rebuilt.

The English Civil War (1642 – 1651)

Charles I. Source: Royal Museums Greenwich

The slow decay of the castle under the earl of Leicester continued unchecked until the castle suddenly resumed strategic importance during the English Civil War, beginning in 1642, when it had to be made fit to garrison 500 royalist soldiers.  This task was allocated to Colonel William Salesbury of Rhug near Corwen (whose colourfully decorated Rhug chapel is now one of the real gems of north Wales).  Butler says that although off the beaten track in terms of the main centres of fighting, Wales was nevertheless under threat.  Its relative proximity to Chester proved useful in 1645 when Charles I’s royalist siege of Chester was unsuccessful, and the king headed to Denbigh, staying for three nights, as a royalist force assembled at the castle prior to making another attempt on Chester.  Charles and the additional royalist force were attacked by Sir William Brereton and Sir Thomas Mytton, and were defeated in the land around the Carmelite friary on the outskirts of the Denbigh town.  Within the castle, Colonel Salesbury remained under siege with 500 men from April to October 1646, only surrendering when he received a written command to do so from Charles I.  Following a brief royalist reoccupation in 1659 the castle was slighted (demolished) by the parliamentarians to prevent it being of any further value to the royalists.  It instantly became a source of very useful building material, and no attempt was made to restore it under Charles II when the crown was restored to the throne in 1660.

Denbigh Castle in Art

Denbigh Castle by Edward Dayes 1715. Source: Art Fund

All of the artworks here were painted in the 18th century, a period when an interest in the Classical ruins of the Mediterranean had also turned British artistic eyes towards ruins on the doorstep. Each  of the paintings has its own very distinctive personality, but all are part of a tradition that responded to the ruins of grand buildings, particularly castles and abbeys, as symbols of a lost grandeur, fallen kingdoms and abandoned dreams.  The Romantic fascination with aesthetically-pleasing icons of loss and decay also highlighted the inevitability of entropy as something sympathetic and pitiable.  Although unimpeded by the facts and figures behind these vast structures, there is a sense that the artists of the 18th century were finding their own way of grappling with the past.  The result was often poignant, usually striking, evoking magnificence and beauty blended with regret, redefining castles in their 18th century setting as something not merely benign but infused with a certain special value conferred upon them by their very antiquity.

 

Click to expand.  Denbigh by John Boydell 1750 showing the castle, the Burgess gate, some of the city walls, St Hilary’s Chapel and the Earl of Leicester’s incomplete Protestant church. Source: Peoples Collection Wales

A View of Denbigh Castle by Francis Towne, 1777. Source: francistowne.ac.uk

The Gatehouse of Denbigh Castle: Colour Study 1799-1800 by J.M.W. Turner 1775-1851. Source: The Tate Research Publications

Final Comments

Denbigh Castle ticks all the boxes as a part of the story of Anglo-Welsh conflicts in the 13th century, as an excellent example of James of St George’s architectural imagination, and as an imposing and impressive component of Edward I’s chain of castles in north Wales.  There are sufficient structural remains still visible within the castle walls to understand some of the key features regarded as necessary to the running of a castle in times of both peace and war.  Denbigh Castle also demonstrates how medieval castles could be adapted for use during the English Civil War.  As a ruin it inspired a number of 18th century artists who appreciated it more for its sense of the romantic than its military past.  As a visitor destination it offers lovely views over the surrounding landscape, and provides the opportunity to explore a small multi-period market town which has a great deal to offer in terms of its architecture and its personality. There is even an annual plum festival in autumn, which this year was held on 7th October, and which we only just missed.  At the castle, don’t miss the stairs in one of the gate towers up to the upper walkway, which gives you a birds-eye view over the interior of the castle and down into the town, across the valley and into the hills.  

Visiting

First you need to check the opening times on the Cadw website. Particularly in autumn and winter, the site is only open on certain days.  There is an entry fee unless you are a member of Cadw or an affiliated organization (again, check the Cadw website for up to date information).  If you want to walk the town walls you will need to collect the key, available with a refundable deposit from either the library in the town or in the castle ticket office and shop. The library is currently shut on Thursdays at time of writing (October 2023).

If you want to park at the castle, it has a dedicated car park that you can find by following the occasional signage, and the access to which is at What3Words address ///craftsman.obstinate.explain.  Instead of going straight to the castle we followed a leaflet, available to download from the Northeast Wales website, which took us around all of the key sites of Denbigh town (some of which are mentioned at the start of this post), so we parked behind the High Street and walked up to the castle after visiting other sites.  There are lots of other parking options that are well signposted.  A great and detailed source of information about the town is the official Cadw analysis of the town’s heritage, Denbigh: Understanding Urban Character, available for download as a PDF.  At the castle there is information signage, but if you want detailed information it is best to do the reading in advance.  There is a comprehensive Cadw guide book by L.A.S Butler dedicated to the castle, which is stuffed full of information with some really excellent maps and illustrations and is available from the castle shop, or from the usual online retailers.

There is plenty to see in the town itself.  As well as the castle and walls, medieval sites include the Burgess Gate (once the main gateway through the town walls), St Hilary’s Chapel tower (the remnant of the early 14th century church), and the ruins of the Carmelite friary dating to c.1289.  The CPAT survey dates the cruck-framed Friesland Hall House, otherwise known as Bryn Awelon with a 14th-century doorway in its southern side to the medieval period, as well as The Plough in Bridge Street, which was originally an L-shaped timber-framed building with a medieval rock cut cellar below.  Elizabethan buildings from the 16th century include the Earl of Leicester’s courthouse (now the library) and his ambitious but incomplete 10-bay church, and there are other survivors of the 16th and 17th centuries in the town.  The attractive town has plenty of substantial and Georgian homes and Victorian civic and residential projects that bring to life the wealth and confidence of the former market town.  Be sure not to miss the fabulous statue of Dr Evan Pierce on his 72ft (22m) Tuscan column.  

For those with unwilling legs:  Please note that there are pros and cons with the castle and the walls.  For the castle, I would suggest that you will miss getting up close and personal with some of the castle’s key features because many of them require going up or down slippery stone steps.  On the other hand, if you confine yourself to the grass you can still see down into most of the features and up to others, and you will still get an excellent sense of the castle’s perimeter and personality, and the views over the surrounding landscape are simply spectacular in good weather.  The upper rampart walk, reached via an original stone staircase, could be a potential difficulty, although there is a solid metal banister to grip.  The town walls are also risky when there has been even a little rain due to the unavoidable shiny stone-work underfoot and the very real potential of slipping.  I would say it is well worth the visit even if you cannot do it all.

Sources

Books and papers

Butler, L.A.S. 1990, 2007 (2nd edition). Denbigh Castle. Cadw

Davies, J. 2007 (3rd edition). A History of Wales. Penguin

Davies R. R. 2000. The First English Empire: Power and Identities in the British Isles 1093-1343. Oxford University Press (https://academic.oup.com/book/7027 requires institute access)

Morris, M. 2008. A Great and Terrible King. Edward I and the Forging of Britain. Penguin

Neaverson, E. 1947.  Mediaeval Castles in North Wales. A Study of Sites, Water Supply and Building Stones.  the University Press of Liverpool, Hodder and Stoughton Ltd.

Stephenson, W. 2019. Medieval Wales c.1050-1332. Centuries of Ambiguity. University of Wales Press

Stevens, M.F. 2019. The Economy of Medieval Wales 1067-1536. University of Wales Press

Walker, D. 1990. Medieval Wales. Cambridge Medieval Textbooks

Websites

Cadw
Denbigh Castle
https://cadw.gov.wales/visit/places-to-visit/denbigh-castle
Denbigh Town Walls
https://cadw.gov.wales/visit/places-to-visit/denbigh-town-walls
Denbigh: Understanding Urban Character (PDF)
https://cadw.gov.wales/sites/default/files/2019-05/Denbigh-%20Understanding%20Urban%20Character_0.pdf

Castle Studies Group
CSG Annual Conference Proceedings, Wrexham 2015, Individual Site Summaries. CSG29 2015 Wrexham Conference.  Castles of North East Wales – Denbigh.  Journal no.29 2015-2016.
http://www.castlestudiesgroup.org.uk/page153.html
http://www.castlestudiesgroup.org.uk/CSGJournal2015-16X8-pp1-120Final-Denbigh-58-89-low-res.pdf

Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust
Denbighshire Historic Settlements (index)
https://cpat.org.uk/ycom/denbigh/denbigh.htm
Denbigh
https://cpat.org.uk/ycom/denbigh/denbigh.pdf

Ancient and Medieval Architecture
Denbigh – Castle
https://medievalheritage.eu/en/main-page/heritage/wales/denbigh-castle/

Enjoy Medieval Denbighshire (PDF) leaflet
https://www.northeastwales.wales/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/medieval-denbighshire.pdf

 

The splendid Grade-1 listed Llangar Church, Cynwyd, near Corwen

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The small Llangar Church is exceptional.  It is Grade-1 listed and a Scheduled Monument located in the Dee valley not far from Corwen. From its lovely lime-washed white walls and its small but well-filled churchyard to its painted interior and box pews, all set in the middle of a field, there is so much that is unexpected in Llangar Church. It has been subjected to detailed historical and archaeological research, and is accordingly much better understood than many other churches in north Wales.  This work, looking at over 500 years of use, means that there is far too much information to include here.  We were shown round by visitor guide Heather on the day, who was excellent, but there is not always a tour available, so the official Cadw guide book is certainly one way go to if you want a more informative account, with 18 pages dedicated to Llangar Church.  The survey and excavation report published in Archaeologia Cambrensis in 1981 (pages 64-132)  is the most detailed report available, and can be accessed online.  See Sources at the end of this post for both.

Visiting details and a map are at the end, but do note that this can be combined with a visit to the brightly painted 17th century Rhug Chapel, which is a 5-10 minute drive away, also on the map at the end (and about which I have posted here).

The meaning of the church’s name remains uncertain.  One interpretation suggests that it it can be translated as “Church of the White Deer,” whilst another suggestion is that it might refer to the name of a neighbouring Iron Age hillfort.  The Coflein website refers to it as “All Saints.”

Whatever the meaning of its name, the first documented evidence of it dates to 1291 and the church was probably founded earlier in the 13th century, serving local farms and the services that supported them.  It escaped the destructive attentions of the Reformation, and was used until 1856, when it was replaced by a new church in Cynwyd that was both bigger and far more conveniently located.  Although abandonment of the church, combined with its relatively inconvenient location, led to neglect, decay and damage, it fortunately escaped being plundered for building materials, and avoided the indignities of Victorian restoration work that usually augmented and remodelled what was found rather than merely preserving an architectural legacy.

It was not until the 1970s that conservation work accompanied by survey and research projects began to rescue the site and uncover some of its complex architectural and social history.  The church was not a time capsule of a single particular period, but a palimpsest of multiple periods.  This was a living, breathing community resource for over the 500 years, and as people and ideas changed, so did the church.  The Cadw analysis of the architectural development of the church identifies five main phases:  Medieval, Early 17th century, Mid to Late 17th century, early 18th century and later 18th and 19th centuries.  The scatter of painted and engraved dates through the church from the 17th century suggest that that this was a period when the church underwent a number of repairs and modifications.

The churchyard

The entrance to the churchyard is marked by an attractive and remarkably solid 18th century stone lych gate, with double wooden doors.  Like all lych gates it provided a shelter for coffin bearers and a place to rest the coffin bier until the service began, and also served as a formal entrance to the churchyard.  The slate roof has two tiers of decorative pointed tiles on the churchyard side.

The churchyard is on a slope.  To provide a flat surface on which to build the church, material was removed from the east and transferred to the west end.  The dangers of this scheme, leaving one end much more consolidated and compressed than the other, resulted in later structural problems on the north side (opposite the porch side) and at the west end.  Over the the decades, many of the headstones have started tilting downhill.

The cemetery has a particular charm all of its own, which is difficult to define but has something to do with the simplicity of the grave monuments, and the general absence of ostentation. The earliest of the monuments in the churchyard date to around 1600.  Chest tombs of the 17th and earlier 18th centuries cluster close to the church itself, whilst those further away were later.  These later graves were both chest tombs and graves marked by a headstone and footstone.  The cemetery went out of use in the 1870s, when the church was abandoned.  The church and churchyard, built into the side of a hill, are rather exposed and some of the inscriptions are very worn.  Interestingly, most of those graves before 1825 were inscribed in English, whereas later ones were largely in Welsh.

18th century

1821

1841

There is also a sundial base just beyond the church porch.

Llangar Church and churchyard showing the northwest corner, by the Dee, completely free of graves. Aerial view. Source: RCAHMW Coflein

In general the north side of a churchyard was the last to receive graves, either because it had previously been in use for community activities or because, being darker and colder, it was less attractive for visiting.  In the case of Llangar the northwest corner remained entirely free of burials right up to the moment of its abandonment, but this is probably because of problems with subsidence, a theory supported by various changes made to the church’s architecture to counter structural difficulties.

The church exterior

The guide book has a step by step tour of the exterior as revealed by the survey work.  It is a fascinating detective story over two pages, perfect for anyone doing a self-guided tour on a dry day.  The short version is that the south wall (porch side) dates to the Middle Ages, and the north wall was medieval but was modified over the centuries, with some windows blocked and others added. The north wall is now propped up by a modern retaining wall added during the renovation, but it is worth looking out for a top-to-bottom jagged line like a crack at the west end, which shows where structural work was carried out in the second half of the 17th century.  The west wall was rebuilt in the early 18th century.  The porch was added in the early 17th century, re-roofed in 1702, and the big ornamental window in the Perpendicular gothic style probably dates to around the same time.   

The interior

Visitors enter the church via the porch with two stone benches, probably dating to the early 17th century.  There is paintwork and various pieces of graffiti carved into wood and stone. Take note too of the noticeboard showing some of the restoration work.

As you walk in to the church, you are confronted with a fabulous red-painted life-sized skeleton representing Death, at gallery level on the opposite wall.  As a reminder that a church is the interface between the living and the dead, and that life is only a temporary condition before interment and Judgement Day, this can scarcely be beaten.  There are more details about this image below.

The ground floor is a single space with a floor covered in stone slabs and a small overhead gallery at the west end, which was probably used for the musicians.  There are no aisles or other architectural divisions.  The space beneath the gallery was clearly reserved for parts of the congregation that had the lowest status, at the furthest distance from the sacred east end, and was very dark and cramped beneath the low ceiling.

The earliest parts of the wooden beamed ceiling are thought to date to the 15th century, although timbers were replaced and repaired in subsequent centuries, and today most of them are modern, from the 1970s restoration.  The east end, traditionally the sacred end of a church, is marked by a “canopy of honour” dating to the late 15th or early 16th century, a barrel-shaped ceiling that would have shown sacred themes in paintings that have now been lost.  It is thought that they may have looked like those at St Benedict’s Church at Gyffin near Conwy showing the twelve apostles (its website is here, complete with a virtual tour).  

The only feature that would have furnished the church of the Middle Ages to survive is the simple font set into a niche, which has been moved from its original position, probably in the 18th century.  Most of the surviving fittings date to the early part of the 18th century.

From the 18th century, the public sat in the surviving box pews along the north wall and on backless bench pews on the south wall.  Four of the elegant box are dated 1711 (belonging to the Hughes family of Gwerclas, 1759, 1768 and 1841.  One preserves the initialse of one of its occupants.


Another pew, at the south side of the 18th century altar and dated 1841, was used by the rector’s family.  Opposite, on the other side of the altar, is a painted 18th century cupboard topped with a winged angel.  It is set into the north wall dating to the 18th century, with three keyholes, requiring three keyholders.    The altar itself dates to the 18th century but was built of 17th century wood.  The window above the altar is flanked by two panels, which between them show the Ten Commandments, in Welsh.  Originally the east end would also have housed a pulpit, but this was moved to part way along the south wall.  It is  a three-tiered pulpit, which was probably moved from the east end sometime after 1732 to allow the altar rail to be employed for the giving of the sacrament.

Like nearby 17th century Rhug, Llangar’s interior wall paintings escaped the whitewashing vigour of the Reformation, but unlike Rhug, the paintings represent different time periods, from the 14th to late 18th centuries. Some images were overpainted with new ones, and many are very faint.  One of the paintings has been removed to preserve it and is now in the exhibition area at Rhug Chapel.  The Cadw guide contains a full description of all of the paintings, by A.J. Parkinson, but here are some highlights.

 

North wall

Most of the images were intended to provide visual material to support sermons, which Parkinson refers to as “teaching aids.”  The fabulous skeleton is brandishing time’s arrow in one bony hand and a winged hour-glass in the other.  Between his legs are a shovel and pickaxe, tools of the gravedigger. He is dated tentatively to 1748, the death of rector Edward Samuel, who was a notable Welsh scholar and poet.  Looking to his left, on the front of the gallery, are some elegant yellow frames with floral motifs, containing texts that are now too faint to read, but may by Biblical.  

 

To the right of the skeleton, over the window, is the name of the rector in 1730, and to the right of this was the Royal Arms of the same period, now in the Rhug Chapel visitor centre.

The rest of the north wall above the box pulpits contains overlapping images, the earliest of which, possibly 14th century, is a bishop (very difficult to make out) in the doorway of a substantial and rather exotic church, the towers of which can be easily seen.

The red frame possibly dates to the 15th century and probably contained a narrative, such as the life of Christ, or scenes from the lives of saints.  Other decorations along the wall were painted over in the 18th century.

On the south wall are a series of morality-themed panels outlined in red, probably dating to the 15th century.  All are very faint.  Some of them show representations of the Seven Deadly Sins, in which each sin is personified and is shown riding an appropriate animal.  These are very difficult to make out, but are almost unique.  Jane Durrant’s reconstruction below shows what they may have looked like in the late medieval period (scanned from the Cadw guide book).

Cutaway reconstruction showing teh south wall panels as they may have looked in the 15th century. By Jane Durrant. Source: Cadw guide book by W. Nigel Yates (full details at end, p.28).

On the left is a stag, representing lechery, and on the right is a wild boar representing gluttony, two of the Seven Deadly Sins

The gallery with benches, at the west end, is reached by a flight of stone stairs. It probably housing the musicians and singers, retains a very unusual four-sided music stand.

Abandonment of the church

Llangar church with a temporary roof. Source: RCAHMW https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/93771/images

From the Middle Ages to the 19th Century populations changed, and parish boundaries often ceased to be representative of where people were concentrated and wanted to worship.  In the middle 19th century Llangar and Gwyddelwern were neighbouring parishes, but Llangar’s population did not exceed 251 people dotted around the parish, whereas Gwyddelwern’s population had reached 1,118, of which nearly half lived in Cynwyd, near to Llangar.  In 1853 the decision was made to redraw the parish boundaries so that Cynwyd was in the parish of Llangar, but at the same time it was also decided that a new church should be built at Cynwyd to replace the inconveniently located Llangar Church.  Llangar Church had gone out of use by the mid 1870s except for occasional burials.  Some abandoned buildings are robbed for their materials, but Llangar survived intact, although as its roof deteriorated, so the rest of it came under threat.

Restoration

Noticeboard in the church porch

The importance of Llangar was recognized in the 1960s, and it was taken into care by the Welsh Office in 1967.  Restoration work began in 1974.  There is a noticeboard in the porch of the church showing some of the restoration work, as well as on the Coflein website.  Amongst many other restoration activities, one of the big structural changes accomplished during the restoration was the addition of a retaining wall on the outside of the original wall on the eastern end of the north side.  This should continue to stabilize the church to secure its future.  The roof was largely rebuilt, and most of the interior required conservation work.  Survey work, involving a number of different specialists, began to reveal the history of the church and churchyard.

Final Comments

More than any other church that I have visited in recent years, Llangar provides a sense of a place of social congregation.  This was off the beaten track, even for rural people who came from their farms and forges to attend the Sunday service.  Many of them will have met at market, but a sense of real community probably only developed on the back of the weekly congregation, which was a social as well as a religious activity, attended by entire families.   The paintings on the walls, changing over time to suit different needs, helped to involve the congregation in the Christian narrative, surrounding them with key messages and providing them with a sense of context.  The painting here was not merely decorative, like Rhug, but invested with shared articles of faith.  It is a small place, but it has a real impact.

Visiting

Source: Google Maps (with my annotations).  Llangar Church is at the bottom of the map, Rhug at the top.

Before setting out, it is vital to check the website, because the church is open only on certain days of the month in the spring and summer, and is closed during autumn and winter.  Do note that opening times are timed to coincide with those of nearby Rhug Chapel, so you can do both at the same time. https://cadw.gov.wales/visit/places-to-visit/llangar-old-parish-church

Llangar Church and its churchyard are located in the Dee valley in a field just off the B4401, a well-used tourist route to the eastern side of Lake Tegid (sometimes referred to as Lake Bala).

Map sourced from the Coflein website with my annotations

There is a large lay-by opposite the farm track that gives access to the church.  The church is sign-posted, but when I was there the sign was hidden by tree branches.  There is a small post box on a pole next to the farm track that leads to the church, and a sign on the open gate for Station Cottage.  The track leads downhill for a minute or two, past farm buildings on the left. The road goes hard right and then hard left.  At the left turning, there is a gate on the right hand side (with a sign to its left saying Guide Dogs Only) that takes the visitor across a field, complete with mud and cow-pats, through a small gate on to a grassy footpath flanked by upright slates.  This leads to the lych gate and the churchyard beyond.

For those taking unwilling legs into account, although it is only about 5-10 minutes from car to lych gate this is very slippery underfoot after rainfall, meaning that this would almost certainly be better approached during a dry period.  Part of the graveyard is on a steep slope, which would make exploring it challenging, and there are steps up to the gallery within the church, but otherwise there should be no difficulties.

If you want to get the most out of the visit, the guide book is very helpful (see Sources below), covering both Llangar Church and Rhug Chapel as well as Gwydir Uchaf Church near Betws-y-Coed, which I have not yet visited, but looks fabulous.  The guide book is particularly strong on Llangar Church.  It can be purchased at Rhug Chapel, or ordered online from the usual sources.

If you plan to include a walk in your visit, the farm track from the road leads to a public footpath that runs along the disused railway track, which a couple who had arrived early recommended.  There are many good walks in the Corwen area, some of which are detailed in an excellent leaflet, which can be downloaded here as a PDF.

Sources:

Books and papers

Parkinson, A.J. 1993. The Wall Paintings. In Yates, N.W. Rug Chapel, Llangar Church, Gwydir Uchaf Chapel. Cadw, p.37-39.

Yates, N.W. 1993. Rug Chapel, Llangar Church, Gwydir Uchaf Chapel. Cadw

Additional reading:

Shoesmith, Ron 1981.
Llangar Church. Archaeologia Cambrensis vol.129, January 1981, p.64-69
https://journals.library.wales/view/4718179/4748029/87#?xywh=-163%2C-2%2C2584%2C3638
Llangar Church. The Graveyard Survey
Archaeologia Cambrensis vol.129, January 1981, p.70-132
https://journals.library.wales/view/4718179/4748029/93#?xywh=-169%2C-8%2C2584%2C3638

Although I haven’t yet managed to get hold of it Heather, the Cadw visitor guide, also recommended R. Suggett’s Painted Temples: Wallpaintings and Rood-screens in Welsh Churches, 1200–1800. RCAHMW 2021.

Another book that I haven’t yet seen, to which Peter Carrington alerted me, is Archaeologies and Antiquaries: Essays by Dai Morgan Evans edited by Howard Williams, Kara Critchell and Sheena Evans. Archaeopress 2022, which has four chapters dedicated to Llangar.
https://www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress/Products/9781803271583

Websites

Coflein
All Saints Church, Llangar
https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/93771/
All Saints Church, Llangar, Images
https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/93771/images

National Churches Trust
St John the Evangelist, Cynwyd
https://www.nationalchurchestrust.org/church/st-john-evangelist-cynwyd

The colourful and uplifting Grade-1 listed 17th-18th century Rhug Chapel, near Corwen

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Having visited Grade-1 listed Rhug (pronounced “rig”) Chapel around 20 years ago, I had always meant to return because I found it such a joyous place.  A small building, it is a jack-in-a-box full of surprises.  Although fairly plain on the exterior, it escaped Reformation erasure as well as any major Victorian remodelling.  The interior retains all of its 17th Century charm, an extravaganza of bright paintwork, wonderful patterns and motifs, and lively carvings.  It is a celebration of colour, very unusual in most of Britain’s attractive but sombre post-Reformation Anglican buildings.

The chapel is in a rural setting, just to the west of Corwen in the Dee valley, with plenty of footpaths in the immediate area.  You might consider visiting the nearby and remarkable little Llangar Church at the same time (which I have posted about on this blog here).  Both are open only a few times a month for a part of the year, closed for the rest of the year, but their opening times are co-ordinated so that they can be visited on the same days.  Visiting details for both are at the end of the post.

Many thanks to Cadw guide Heather for a great introductory talk, and for pointing out many details that we might otherwise have missed, and there was plenty of time to ask questions and wander around afterwards. There is not always a guided talk available.  I’ve written up some of the top level details of the visit below, but I recommend buying the Cadw guide book, which is stuffed full of information and great photos.  It also has the details of Llangar Church and Gwydir Uchaf Chapel.  I haven’t yet visited Gwydir Uchaf near Betws-y-Coed but it is one on my list.

Apologies for the poor quality of the interior photographs, which are very grainy and occasionally a bit blurred, due to the low lighting that helps to preserve the paintwork.  Hopefully they will still suggest that the chapel is very much worth a visit.

Background

Cross at Rhug, brought by William Salusbury from Denbigh

Rhug Chapel, properly the Chapel of Holy Trinity, was built as a private chapel by Colonel William Salusbury (1580-1660), set apart from Rhug Manor.  The land in which Rhug sits belonged to descendants of Prince of Powys Madog ap Merdudd (who died in 1160) until it passed to a daughter, who married into the Salesbury family.  Sir Robert Salusbury, the son of this marriage, added the lordship of Glyndyfrdwy to the family’s property, once in the ownership of the rebel Owain Glyndwr.  Robert died in 1599, and his only son, who had no children of his own, died only nine years later in 1608.  The estate passed to Sir Robert’s brother instead, Captain John Salusbury.  He too died without children, only three years later, in 1611 and was in turn succeeded by his brother, William Salusbury.

William Salusbury was once a privateer (a type of state-authorized pirate) in the East Indies, and most importantly a royalist governor of Denbigh Castle, who was known in old age as “Hen Hosanau Gleision,” which translates as “Old Blue Stockings.”  He is best known for his defence of Denbigh Castle for the royalist cause during the Civil War. Denbigh fell to the parliamentarians but not until  after six months under siege when he was ordered by the king to surrender.  

Denbigh Castle. Source: Cadw via Wikipedia

Inheriting the Rhug estate in 1611, William Salusbury found himself saddled with heavily encumbered estates, mortgaged to the hilt, and spent the next 30 years turning this situation around.  The chapel was built for his family’s private worship.  His religious preferences leaned towards the Anglican “high church” of Charles I, which accounts for the bright colours and the sense of celebration.  The services were carried out in Welsh, and many of the texts within the chapel are in Welsh as well as Latin.

On his death at the age of 80, having lived long enough to see the restoration of the monarchy, William left a deed of endowment dated 3rd January 1641 so that services should be maintained, and continue to be delivered in Welsh.  He also required that the curate was dedicated to the chapel and was not employed elsewhere as well.  The endowment was provided with portions of land that would provide the chapel with an income, managed by trustees.  The original requirements were ignored some time after William’s death, and the vicars of Corwen or Llangar usually took Rhug into their existing domains and delivered the service in English.  In the mid 19th Century an additional sum was bequeathed to the bishopric of St Asaph in order to reinforce the original stipend to the chaplain.

The Exterior

Approaching the church we paused at a tall cross, around 6ft (1.8m) tall, on a plinth and three steps.  This is not contemporary with the construction of the church, but predates it, having been brought by William Salusbury from Denbigh Castle.  Both the east window and the western door are accessorized with sculptural features.  At the east end these are two heads, one with a crown and one with a mitre; at the west end they are carved into a loosely floral or leafy motif. The tracery in the windows was a 19th century addition, as was the small belfry.

In the churchyard there is a circular fenced area with three large headstones, and two secondary ones.  These are headstones from the 1860s belonging to the Wynn family.  The central one features a lighthouse on top and a horseshoe at bottom left, belonging to a daughter who died after falling from her horse.  The lighthouse, of unusual four-sided construction, represents the one on Bardsey Island, once the property of the estate.

The church is surrounded by a lovely Potentilla hedged walkway.  Some of the Potentilla, yellow and white, was in flower.  I have never seen it used as hedging before, and it works beautifully.

The Interior

Open the door, and you will find yourself given the option of climbing a staircase to the gallery on the left, or opening interior doors to proceed in to the nave (main seating area) and the chancel beyond (the sacred east end) on your right.  The lighting is very low, so it is worth sitting in one of the many pews for a minute or two to let your eyes adjust, particularly if it is a bright day outside.  Upstairs, the gallery was probably used by musicians.  It provides a superb view of the ceiling and beam decoration.

The beams and trusses of the hammerbeam ceiling are painted with flowers, grapes and foliage in bright colours. One of the cross-beams shows the date of construction, 1637.  The 16 and 37 are either side of the abbreviation IHS, which stands for the first three letters of the name of  Jesus in Latin and is frequently sees on gravestones in the area.  The same IHS motif is found elsewhere in the church.  The beams themselves are painted with flowers and grapes vines that spread vigorously towards the painted sky. Ceiling bosses, wooden features that traditionally sit over the meeting of beams, are also beautifully painted with a variety of motifs.

 

Between the beams, the ceiling is also painted.  Over the nave the sinuous shapes emulate wispy clouds.  Over the chancel a “canopy of honour” is provided by a wonderful heavenly scene of angels and stars on a blue background.

Angels are a recurring theme in the small chapel, with four wooden sculpted angels suspended at the base of roof trusses and others decorating the fabulous wooden, candle-holding chandelier hanging from the centre of the church. 

The optimism of angels with their promise of heavenly mercy is balanced by the grim reality of impending death.  The skull and skeleton are accompanied by candles burning down, an hourglass with the sands draining, and a dial, both signifying the passing of time.  At the base of the dial the words “hora fugit” (the hour flies).  In the centre of the hourglass and dial is the phrase “ut hora sic vita” meaning “as with the hour, so with life.”  The welsh inscriptions below this are translated, courtesy of the Cadw guide book , as follows:

  • “as the flame gradually consumes the tallow of the lighted candle, so life on the orbit (earth) perishes daily” (from a 16th century carol)
  • “lifetime, however long its stay, will come to an end by night and by day” (from the Englynion y Misoedd, Stanzas of the Months)
  • “my nose and my face are perished, very dumb am I, no-one knows me” (from a poem attributed to Ieuan ap Rhydderch)
  • “every strong one is weak in the end” (a 16th century proverb)

One of the most celebrated features of the chapel is the frieze that runs at the top of both north and south walls, consisting of a series of rectangular pieces, highly coloured and very ornate, each showing a small creature at its centre, some identifiable as either from nature or myth, and one which is completely unidentifiable.

In the chancel, flanking the altar, are two unusual canopied benches looking rather like four-poster beds.  The role of these has been much-discussed and although it is not known exactly how they were used, a plausible suggestion is that at least one was a family pew.  The other might also have been a family pew but in the absence of a pulpit may have served as a place from which the service could be delivered.

The pews themselves were plain benches when the church was first built, but back rests were added a little later.  On each side, from front to back, each of the pews was connected with a single piece of wood, with scallop-shaped openings carved out to provide access to the pews.  Facing into the aisle, the sections between these access points are carved with images, quite difficult to see in the low light without a torch, depicting birds, animals and imaginary creatures.  The carvings were fairly difficult to make out in the light conditions on the day so I tortured the photos below both in the camera’s settings and in Photoshop.  Even so, they are still fuzzy.

The frieze along the top of the wall and the carvings on the side of the pews seem somewhat reminiscent of misericords.  Misericords at Chester Cathedral (from its monastery days), and both Gresford and Malpas parish churches are part of a Medieval tradition that includes the grotesque, the humorous, and the fabled in the holiest sanctuaries of their Christian homes.  Although the images at Rhug are at least two hundred years later than those at Chester Cathedral, they do echo this earlier medieval Catholic tradition of combining Christian icons and motifs with wild, mythological and completely invented imagery.  The world of the “other,” neither sublime heaven nor the realm of pedestrian human reality, is where demons, the unexplained and the unknown reside.  Positioning them alongside Christian images, like the pelican plucking her breast to feed her young (immediately above, a Christian symbol representing the sacrifice of Christ for humanity) emphasizes how humans negotiate a world of conflicting experiences and demands, opportunities and pitfalls, both natural and supernatural.  This glorious little chapel balances the beauty of nature, the strangeness of the unknown, the fear of impending death, and the promise of angelic eternity.

Additions and restoration work

Inevitably, some restoration work was required and there were a number of tweaks to William’s original vision.  In 1854-55 the bell turret was added by Sir Robert Vaughan, some floor tiles were laid in the nave and chancel, and a mock-Jacobean chancel screen incorporating a lectern were added (compensating for the lack of pulpit in the original church).  The windows were remodelled.  Originally, according to a visitor in 1849, the windows had mullions (vertical divisions), but no gothic style ornamental tracery.  All the windows now have tracery.  As in many small churches, a lean-to vestry was added to the north side.

The font, at the rear of the south side, was added in 1864. The altar itself, and the stained glass windows, belong to the later 19th century.  The window on the north side (right as you look down from the entrance) has a particularly Pre-Raphaelite look to it.

William’s architectural legacy has only been altered very slightly.  Rhug Chapel is now under the care of Cadw who have done a lot of work to make the chapel and its surrounding site a pleasure to visit.
———–

Visiting Rhug Chapel (and Llangar Church)

First, you need to check the opening times, as the Rhug Chapel and Llangar Church are only open on certain days, and are closed entirely over the winter period.

For Rhug the opening times and other details are available on the Cadw website: https://cadw.gov.wales/visit/places-to-visit/rug-chapel. The chapel lies just off an A-road and has its own car park.   There are toilets and a picnic area, as well as a gift shop and a small exhibition area that is well worth visiting, which contains information about Rhug, Llangar and Gwydir Uchaf.  For those with unwilling legs there are no problems here.  From the car park to the church is all on the flat. You may not want to go upstairs to the gallery, because the steps are quite steep, but this will not spoil your visit.  There are no steps to access the gift shop or the small exhibit. For disabled access, see the Facilities section on the Rhug web page.

Llangar Church

If you want to visit Llangar Church at the same time, around a 10 minute drive away, its Cadw web page is at: https://cadw.gov.wales/visit/places-to-visit/llangar-old-parish-church.  At the time of writing there is no information about facilities or disabled access on the above web page, but although I haven’t yet posted about Llangar Church following my visit (working on it) there is reasonable parking in a large layby opposite.  I would not recommend it for unwilling legs after rainfall, which was when I visited, because the entire approach (slippery farm track, muddy section after the farm track, and slippery gravestones laid as pathways) was causing people to slide and slip more than somewhat as they walked.  Like Rhug it is fine once inside, except for the stairs up to the gallery.  I would give it a flat negative for wheelchair access.

 

Caer Drewyn. Source: Peoples Collection

As you are leaving and are pulling out of the car park, pause before turning on to the road and take a moment to look up at the hill in front of you.  Towards the peak you can make out the fortifications of an Iron Age hillfort, the well-preserved Caer Drewyn.  The stone rubble perimeter that defines it is particularly clear in bright sunshine or under snow, but even in bland light you can still make it out.  The hillfort is open to the public and can be reached by a number of footpaths.  I’ve written about it on another post here.
——-

Sources

Books and papers

Yates, W.N. 1993. Rug Chapel, Llangar Church, Gwydir Uchaf Chapel.  Cadw

Although I haven’t yet managed to get hold of it Heather, the Cadw guide, also recommended R. Suggett’s Painted Temples: Wallpaintings and Rood-screens in Welsh Churches, 1200–1800. RCAHMW 2021

Websites

BasedInChurton
The splendid Grade-1 listed Llangar Church, Cynwyd, near Corwen
https://basedinchurton.co.uk/2023/09/30/the-splendid-grade-1-listed-llangar-church-cynwyd-near-corwen/

Coflein
Rug Chapel
https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/43855/

Dictionary of Welsh Biography
SALUSBURY, SALESBURY family, of Rug and Bachymbyd
https://biography.wales/article/s-SALU-RUG-1525