A visit to Welsh Wales
On Sunday I went to visit Mum. The weather was astonishing - so warm it might have been June, not April, and with almost clichéd blue skies with just the tiniest of fluffy white clouds.
On Sunday itself I didn't do a lot apart from driving to Bodelwyddan and visiting Mum (who seems to be on the mend. Thanks to all of you who commented on my last post about that.) Yesterday, though, I had a morning to kill.
My hotel was comfortable; a little over-ambitious, perhaps, in terms of food, but with friendly staff and a pool, so I was able to go for a swim before breakfast.
After I checked out I went south towards Denbigh, which is a pretty little town. I found the remnants of a friary church, which provided a nice doorway for a certain wombat of my acquaintance.
I liked the way they are holding the tracery together! The church was started in the 1280s, they think. Slightly too late for Brother Cadfael.
I headed back north towards Rhyl, where I had errands to run in Sainsbury's, but stopped at a passing castle. Well, a castle I was passing, anyway.
Rhuddlan is one of the castles built by Edward I, "Longshanks", Hammer of the Scots and conqueror of the Welsh. He defeated the last Prince of Wales, Llewellyn the Last and built a string of castles across the north of his newly-acquired territory. Rhuddlan, which is definitely not pronounced "Rudd - lan", BTW, was one of the earliest. It was started by Master Bertram, but soon taken over by Master James of St George, who was the mastermind behind most of the great castles which fringe Snowdonia.
Once you've seen four or five of his castles, you tend to be able to tell. They were absolutely state of the art military technology, with concentric sets of walls, ultra-strong round towers and complex defences - and superbly sited in the main too. Conwy, Caernarvon and Beaumaris are the three I know best, but there are plenty more.
The castle core is essentially in a diamond shape with two huge double-tower gatehouses to north and south, and impressive tower lodgings at east and west. Queen Eleanor had gardens and fishponds put in the central courtyard, where the royal quarters were built.
You can just see the stainless steel poles which support quite impressive sets of newish spiral stairs which allows access to higher levels.
The site is superb, commanding the river crossing and the pass down from the Clwydian range.
The white building in the middle distance is Mum's hospital, BTW.
The sea is a couple of miles or so to the right.
After I shopped I visited Mum, foisting various sorts of food and drink on her, as she has really not been eating enough recently. and was able to talk to a nurse, who said they felt it was only a matter of time before she would be moved to a hospital closer to her home to convalesce.
On my way back to the main road out of Wales I decided to stop to try to get a photo of Bodelwyddan Castle, a rather over-thetop fake (Victorian) castle nearby. I failed miserably, but did park by the "Marble Church" of the village.
I couldn't get the entire church in one shot without risking serious and unwelcome interaction with traffic on the main road. I did get this view, however:
My attention was caught by the oddly-familiar and very uniform gravestones you can see in the distance. I didn't think there had been many battles in this bit of North Wales, but to anyone who's been to the Somme or Ypres, that style is unmistakeable. Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Stranger and stranger. I read the inscriptions. Almost all were Canadians, and the earliest I saw was October 1918. Most were two, three, four months later. The penny dropped.
Canadian troops had been encamped at Kinmel Camp. Conditions there were less than ideal - there was a riot there in March 1919, in which five men died, and are buried in this group Most of the rest, though, were waiting to go home.
The Spanish Influenza outbreak of 1918-19 killed as many British people as the entire war had. Most of the men - some only boys - buried there died of the disease in the cold, insanitary camp waiting to go to a home they never saw again.
At least the War Graves Commission does a good job, as it does all over the world, caring for the graves with respect. Small consolation for their families across the Atlantic, though.
Note the poppy wreaths. Some people remember such things.
I drove home in just under four hours. I was knackered..
On Sunday itself I didn't do a lot apart from driving to Bodelwyddan and visiting Mum (who seems to be on the mend. Thanks to all of you who commented on my last post about that.) Yesterday, though, I had a morning to kill.
My hotel was comfortable; a little over-ambitious, perhaps, in terms of food, but with friendly staff and a pool, so I was able to go for a swim before breakfast.
After I checked out I went south towards Denbigh, which is a pretty little town. I found the remnants of a friary church, which provided a nice doorway for a certain wombat of my acquaintance.
I liked the way they are holding the tracery together! The church was started in the 1280s, they think. Slightly too late for Brother Cadfael.
I headed back north towards Rhyl, where I had errands to run in Sainsbury's, but stopped at a passing castle. Well, a castle I was passing, anyway.
Rhuddlan is one of the castles built by Edward I, "Longshanks", Hammer of the Scots and conqueror of the Welsh. He defeated the last Prince of Wales, Llewellyn the Last and built a string of castles across the north of his newly-acquired territory. Rhuddlan, which is definitely not pronounced "Rudd - lan", BTW, was one of the earliest. It was started by Master Bertram, but soon taken over by Master James of St George, who was the mastermind behind most of the great castles which fringe Snowdonia.
Once you've seen four or five of his castles, you tend to be able to tell. They were absolutely state of the art military technology, with concentric sets of walls, ultra-strong round towers and complex defences - and superbly sited in the main too. Conwy, Caernarvon and Beaumaris are the three I know best, but there are plenty more.
The castle core is essentially in a diamond shape with two huge double-tower gatehouses to north and south, and impressive tower lodgings at east and west. Queen Eleanor had gardens and fishponds put in the central courtyard, where the royal quarters were built.
You can just see the stainless steel poles which support quite impressive sets of newish spiral stairs which allows access to higher levels.
The site is superb, commanding the river crossing and the pass down from the Clwydian range.
The white building in the middle distance is Mum's hospital, BTW.
The sea is a couple of miles or so to the right.
After I shopped I visited Mum, foisting various sorts of food and drink on her, as she has really not been eating enough recently. and was able to talk to a nurse, who said they felt it was only a matter of time before she would be moved to a hospital closer to her home to convalesce.
On my way back to the main road out of Wales I decided to stop to try to get a photo of Bodelwyddan Castle, a rather over-thetop fake (Victorian) castle nearby. I failed miserably, but did park by the "Marble Church" of the village.
I couldn't get the entire church in one shot without risking serious and unwelcome interaction with traffic on the main road. I did get this view, however:
My attention was caught by the oddly-familiar and very uniform gravestones you can see in the distance. I didn't think there had been many battles in this bit of North Wales, but to anyone who's been to the Somme or Ypres, that style is unmistakeable. Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Stranger and stranger. I read the inscriptions. Almost all were Canadians, and the earliest I saw was October 1918. Most were two, three, four months later. The penny dropped.
Canadian troops had been encamped at Kinmel Camp. Conditions there were less than ideal - there was a riot there in March 1919, in which five men died, and are buried in this group Most of the rest, though, were waiting to go home.
The Spanish Influenza outbreak of 1918-19 killed as many British people as the entire war had. Most of the men - some only boys - buried there died of the disease in the cold, insanitary camp waiting to go to a home they never saw again.
At least the War Graves Commission does a good job, as it does all over the world, caring for the graves with respect. Small consolation for their families across the Atlantic, though.
Note the poppy wreaths. Some people remember such things.
I drove home in just under four hours. I was knackered..