Grey, slaty, nestling among trees and wooded heights, with a slate quarry prominent in the foreground, with many odd, old-fashioned, solid-looking houses, Corwen has a church dedicated to Mael and Sulien, saints unknown to the English calendar. Of Sulien it is said that he was “the godliest man and greatest clerke in all Wales.” On a stone in the churchyard is shown “the true mark of Owen Glendower’s dagger,” which weapon he threw from a rock behind the church, thus doing something more to surround his life with legend. There was another Owen whom the Corwen folk hold in loving remembrance—that Owen Gwynedd, Prince of Wales, who opposed himself to Henry II., and who made so strong an encampment near the town that there were vestiges of it remaining in Pennant’s time.
VALLE CRUCIS ABBEY.
There is an exquisite view of the Dee from what is known as Owen Glendower’s Mound. The surrounding country is comparatively open; but the river is again, before long, lost in a narrowing valley and among rich woods. And by this time we have come into the region of modern achievement. The valley of the Dee is now to be seen to most advantage from Telford’s road, which brings us to more than one of the seven wonders of Wales, and first of all to the glorious Vale of Llangollen. George Borrow has too much limited the scope and range of this glorious valley. “The northern side of the vale,” he says, “is formed by certain enormous rocks called the Eglwyseg rocks, which extend from east to west, a distance of about two miles. The southern side is formed by the Berwyn hills.” Here, says Mr. Ruskin, speaking from a wide observation, “is some of the loveliest brook and glen scenery in the world.” The remains of Valle Crucis give a special human interest to a district that is wonderfully full of beauty and charm. It was a Cistercian house, much smaller than the other famous abbeys of the same order, but resembling them in certain high architectural qualities, as well as in the seclusiveness of its situation. The abbey was founded by Madoc, Lord of Bromfield, in the time of King John, in what was, even at that time, called the Valley of the Cross, in virtue of the mysterious “Eliseg’s Pillar,” which is still a puzzle to the antiquary. The ruins lie among steep hills—
“For when one hill behind your backe you see,
Another comes, two times as high as Dee,”
as Thomas Churchyard sings. The main tower of the abbey appears to have been standing in the days of this poet; but now nothing remains but its piers. The pointed gables on the eastern and western ends of the church are, however, conspicuous objects still. The abbey is believed to have been at the point of highest prosperity in the time of Owen Glendower. Henry VIII. employed the abbot to draw out a Welsh pedigree for him, which was, no doubt, as faithfully done as circumstances would allow. Two later abbots became Bishops of St. Asaph. And then followed the Dissolution, with all its waste and ruin.
