A Book of North Wales

by S. Baring-Gould

Thence it rapidly spread throughout England. The banks of the Severn were, however, the focus of the malady, and a fetid mist was thought to hang over the river, “which mist,” says a writer of the time, “in the countrie wher it began, was sene flie from towne to towne, with such a stincke in morninges and evenings, that men could scarcely abide it.” It lasted from 15th April to 30th September.

To return to Deganwy, from which we have wandered. It was struck by lightning in 812, but was speedily restored. Hugh the Fat, Earl of Chester, made it his stronghold, but it was taken and demolished by Llewelyn ab Gruffydd in 1260.

Llandudno, on the neck of land connecting the Great Orme’s Head, or Pen y Gogarth, with the mainland, has grown into a fashionable watering-place. The Head rises to the height of nearly 680 feet above the sea; on the Conway side was an ancient monastic settlement at Gogarth. In the first half of the sixth century a low-lying tract of land, now overflowed by the sea, formed a hundred called Cantref y Gwaelod, in Cardigan Bay. It was probably a portion of land that had been reclaimed by the Romans from the waves by strong sea walls. This district was ruled by two chiefs, Gwyddno and Seithenin. The story goes that owing to the neglect of Seithenin, who was a drunkard, and whose duty it was to see to the repairs of the walls, one stormy night the rollers coming in with an unusually high tide and wind, the dykes were overleaped, and the whole cantref was covered with sea.

With difficulty did the sons of Gwyddno escape with their lives, and as they had lost their lands and tribal rights, nothing was open to them save to enter religion and found ecclesiastical tribes. Among the sons of the tipsy Seithenin was Tudno, who settled on the Orme’s Head. But here also was a great inundation, as we shall see presently. The church, which is of the twelfth century with a fifteenth-century chancel, was for some time left in ruins, but it has been restored, and service is now held in it in summer. In the interior is an early circular font.

In 1881 a cave in the limestone was discovered behind Mostyn Street in Llandudno, which had been inhabited in prehistoric times, for beside the bones of cave bears, were found skeletons of men, and a necklace of pierced teeth of beasts. These were the relics of that primeval race which began to settle in the land as the Ice Age came to an end and the glaciers disappeared.

There are many caves in the limestone rock of the Head, one fitted up as a summer-house, by some of the Mostyn family, with stone seats and tables. A small cromlech and some rude stone remains on the headland may be seen, but the relics are sadly mutilated.

Pen y Ddinas overhangs the town, and on it is a logan rock, the Maen Sigl, which is also called S. Tudno’s cradle.

A stony ledge runs out to sea, and is covered at high tide with about two feet of water, and is named the Steward’s Bench. Here, according to tradition, a steward of the Mostyn family, who had been convicted of peculation, was compelled to sit naked during the flow and reflow of two tides.

The entire north coast of Wales, after having been invaded by the Gwyddyl, and then by the Britons from Strathclyde, and next by the Normans, has been invaded by a horde of trippers. It has been taken possession of by them for the summer months. The horde derives from Manchester, Liverpool, and Birmingham; and every vantage place is laid out with piers, promenades, pavilions; and for the delectation of the holiday-makers there are Ethiopian serenaders, dancing-dogs, cheap-jacks, organ-grinders, and monkeys.