Gloddaith woods particularly, and most part of this small district, afford considerable amusement to the botanist; as will the libraries of Sir Thomas Mostyn, Bart. at Gloddaith and Bodysgallen, to the antiquarian and the historian. The former of these seats was built in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; since which period both mansion and furniture have experienced but trifling alterations.
The tremendous precipice on the west side of the Ormshead is worthy of a visit. The sea view is very extensive, and generally enlivened by the passing of Liverpool shipping; you likewise command a view of the Isle of Man, and occasionally views of the Irish, Lancashire, and the distant haze of the Scottish coast. The sea birds frequent these cliffs and shores in great abundance, more particularly gulls, razor-bills, and guillemots, corvorants, herons, and the peregrine falcon; the latter of which, in the days of falconry, were held in such high estimation, that the celebrated Lord Burleigh sent a letter of thanks for a present of a cast of hawks from this place to an ancestor of Sir Thomas Mostyn’s. Unprotected by any shelter, on the summit of the high promontory, stands the small church of Llandudno, but little famous for any thing but its singular situation, and its service as a beacon. Proceeding along the mail-road, with the sea on our left, and low rocks on our right, nothing particular attracted our attention, till in descending a hill about two miles from the neat bathing-town of
ABERGELE,
we observed on our right, two immense caverns, about half way up the mountain; they are called Cavern-arogo, and run four or five hundred yards into the ground; but their real extent has never been ascertained with accuracy. From these mountains vast quantities of lime are shipped for Liverpool and many parts of England.
Abergele, situate on the edge of Rhuddlan Marsh, is a small neat town of one street, resorted to in the summer season for bathing. The sands afford excellent walking; in the evening we lingered on the beach for a considerable time, enjoying the calm, but cheerful beauty of nature, and inhaling the pure sea-breeze—for
. . . “The wind was hush’d;
And to the beach each slowly-lifted wave,
Creeping with silver-curl, just kiss’d the shore,
And slept in silence.”Mason’s Garden.
With pleasure mixed with reverential awe, we trod Rhuddlan Marsh, so celebrated in the annals of history. Here the ill-fated Richard II. was betrayed into the hands of Bolingbroke, and taken prisoner to Flint: here, Offa, king of Mercia, met his untimely death: here the Welsh, under the command of Caradoc, in the year 795, were defeated in a conflict with the Saxons, and their leader slain in the action. This memorable and tragic event is handed down to posterity by an ancient celebrated and affecting ballad, called Morva Rhuddlan, or the Marsh of Rhuddlan, composed by the bards on the death of Prince Caradoc.
The ground we trod, connected with so many events, revived in our minds the memory of past ages; a series of historical events came to our recollection: events, that are now so distant, as almost to be obliterated from the page of history. Passing over a bridge of two arches, thrown over the river Clwyd, we entered
RHUDDLAN
once the largest and most respectable town in North Wales. Walking over the ruins of the castle, in which Edward 1st. kept three Christmases, I recurred, by a natural association of ideas, to the times, when the parliament-house, the halls, and courts, echoed with the voices of those, who have been long since swept from the earth by the unerring hand of death. One solitary Gothic window is now only remaining to distinguish the old parliament-house, where King Edward the 1st. instituted that famous code of laws, under the title of the statute of Rhuddland, from a neighbouring barn: and what once contained the parliament of England, now contains nothing but bark for the supply of a tan-yard.