The Wye and Its Associations Part 1

The Wye and Its a.s.sociations.

by Leitch Ritchie.

CHAPTER I.

Philosophy of the picturesque-Peculiarities of English scenery-Worcester-Immigration of peasant girls-The Devils' Garden-The Rest on the Stones-Plinlimmon-Inhabitants of the summit-The Inn-Source of the Wye.

Foreigners have often expressed their surprise that the English should travel so far in search of picturesque scenery, when they have abundance at home: but the remark is conceived in an unphilosophical spirit. We do not travel for the mere scenery. We do not leave the Wye unexplored, and go abroad in search of some other river of its own identical character.

What we gaze at in strange lands is not wood, and water, and rock, but all these seen through a new medium-accompanied by adjuncts which array universal nature herself in a foreign costume. A tree peculiar to the country-a peasant in an un-English garb-a cottage of unaccustomed form-the slightest peculiarity in national manners-even the traces of a different system of agriculture-all contribute to the impression of novelty in which consists the excitement of foreign travel.

The proof of this is our keener perception of the beauties of English scenery after returning from abroad. We are then capable of inst.i.tuting a comparison; and our national manners are no longer the sole medium, but one of various media through which nature is viewed. An untravelled Englishman is ignorant of his own country. He must cross the seas before he can become acquainted with home. He must admire the romance of the Rhine-the sublimity of the (mountain) Rhone-the beauty of the Seine and the Loire-before he can tell what is the rank of the Wye, in picturesque character, among the rivers of Europe.

The journey from London to Worcester, which is the direct route to the Upper part of the Wye, discloses many of the peculiarities of English scenery and character-peculiarities which to the natives are of so every day a kind, that it is only by reflection and comparison they learn to appreciate them. The country seats of the great land proprietors, with their accompaniments of lawn and plantation, extending as far as the eye can reach, form a part of the picture; and so do the cottages of the village peasantry, with their little gardens before the door, admitting a peep into the interior of the humble abode. In the aristocratical dwellings, half hidden in that paradise of groves and glades, we find every refinement that gold can purchase, or taste produce: in the huts, comfort, and its inseparable adjunct cleanliness, are the most striking characteristics.

The former speak of wealth, and the happiness that depends on wealth; the latter of comparative poverty, and the home pleasures that are compatible with poverty. On the continent, there is always something out of keeping in the picture. In the great chateaux and their grounds, there is always some meanness, some make-shift observable; while in the great country seats of England, on the contrary, all is uniform. In the cottages abroad, even those of a higher order, there are always dirt and slovenliness-inattention to the minute comforts of humble life-meals s.n.a.t.c.hed anyhow and anywhere-sleep taken without an idea of the luxuries of sleep. In England, on the other hand, notwithstanding the irregularities of fortune, we find an absolute ident.i.ty in the various cla.s.ses of the population. The labourer-returned, perhaps, from mending the highway, sits down in state to dinner, with a clean white table-cloth, and the coa.r.s.e ware nicely arranged before him. The floor is swept, perhaps washed, to do honour to the occasion; and his wife, who is at once the mistress and the servant of the feast, prides herself on making her husband (whom she calls her "master")-_comfortable_.

We need not be told that this is not a universal picture. We need not be reminded of the want and misery which exist in numerous parts of the country, for with these we are well acquainted. The _foreigner_, however, to whom such scenes are new, will meet with them frequently enough, and especially on the road we are now travelling, to induce him to set them down as one of the grand characteristics of England.

The road presents, also, at various turnings, that truly English scene, a well-known specimen of which is viewed from Richmond Hill. A level country lies a few hundred feet below us, and extends in front, and on either side, till it is lost in the distance, or bound in by low and filmy hills which just mark the horizon with their waving line of shadow.

This expanse is studded with towns, and villages, and seats, and cottages, and square towers, and tapering spires, rising amidst woods and groves, and surrounded by green fields and meadows. A great part of the peculiar character of the landscape is due to the enclosures of various kinds of foliage which separate one field from another. In most parts of the continent-and more especially in France-these are of very rare occurrence; and thus the beauty of the picture, when it has any beauty at all, depends upon the colours of the different kinds of grain or other productions, which make the vast expanse of vegetation resemble an immense and richly variegated carpet. In spring, therefore, before these colours have been fairly brought out, it may easily be conceived that France is one of the least interesting countries in Europe. With us, on the other hand, the face of the earth resembles a garden, and more especially in one of those flat landscapes we have alluded to. The changes of the seasons diversify without diminishing the beauty; and even winter presents, instead of a uniform and dreary waste, a varied picture executed in h.o.a.r frost and snow.

Worcester is one of the most aristocratic looking towns in England, and presents every token of being a wealthy and flourishing place. Its cathedral, an edifice of the beginning of the thirteenth century, has drawn hither many a pilgrim foot even from foreign countries. Our present business, however, is with the works of nature, or with those of art fallen into decay, and their fragments standing amidst the eternal youth of the hills and rivers, like monuments of the insignificance of man.

Worcester is famous for its manufactures of porcelain and gloves; but our attention was more strongly attracted to exports of another kind, of which it appeared to be at least the entrepot, if it was not the original market. At a little distance from the town, several waggons had halted near a public house, and their freight, a numerous party of peasant girls, were breakfasting by the road side. They were eating and drinking as joyously as if their laps had been filled with far more enticing food than bread and ale. They were on their way to some greater mart-perhaps to the all-devouring metropolis; and when breakfast was over, they resumed their slow journey, some few who had mounted the waggons singing in parts, and the rest, walking by the side, joining in the chorus. They had no fears, poor girls, of the result of their adventure-or rather, no forethought.

But it is not till after we pa.s.s the little town of Kington, on the eastern borders of Herefordshire, that the picturesque commences, and we must hasten on to our more immediate task. Between Kington and New Radnor, are the Stanner Rocks, with the Devil's Garden on their summit, luxuriously planted-of course by no human hand-with wild flowers. Beyond New Radnor (formerly the county town, but now a paltry village,) opens the Vale of Radnor on one side, and on the other, a rude mountain scene, distinguished by a waterfall of some celebrity, called Water-break-its-neck. The stream rushes down a precipitous descent of seventy feet, into a hollow with craggy and unequal sides. The spot of the cascade is marked by an insulated rock, eighteen or twenty feet high, standing erect above it like a monument.

After pa.s.sing the village of Penybont, the Llanbadarn Vawr, or great church of Badarn, is to the left of the road, an edifice which dates from the time of the Conqueror; and nothing else of interest is observable till we reach Rhaiadyr, on the Banks of the Wye. As it will be more convenient, however, to examine the river in descending with the stream, we shall only say here, that the journey from Rhaiadyr to the summit of Plinlimmon lies through woods, and hill pa.s.ses, becoming ruder and wilder at every step we advance. The character of the population seems to change in conformity with their physical circ.u.mstances. The want of tidiness which marks the British mountaineer is the more conspicuous from the contrast it presents to the opposite quality we have admired in the plains; and already the women have a.s.sumed the round hat of the ruder s.e.x, and destroyed with its masculine a.s.sociations the charms peculiar to their own. Against this absurdity we must protest, whether we meet with it in the Welsh girl, or the fair equestrian of Hyde Park. It betrays not only the most pitiful taste, but the most profound ignorance of nature, on which is founded the theory of female beauty.

Stedva Gerrig, or "the Rest on the Stones" now commonly called by the name of the mountain, is a hamlet of three or four houses situated on a stream which separates the counties of Montgomeryshire and Cardiganshire, in a nook of comparatively level land, into which abut several of the lower ridges of Plinlimmon. The spot has little of the wildness of mountain scenery, but its extreme solitude; for being here near the top of the mountainous group, and surrounded by its remaining elevations, we are insensible of our real alt.i.tude above the level of the country.

These elevations, besides, have none of the ruggedness of character we usually find in such places. They are, in general, smoothly-swelling eminences, which if rising from the plain would receive the name of hills; they are wholly naked of trees, or even brushwood; and being covered with green herbage, they at first sight give one the idea of an extensive gra.s.s farm, rather than a sterile mountain. It is the alt.i.tude of the spot, however, and the nipping blasts to which it is exposed, that render it naked of the larger kinds of vegetation; and there is only a nook here and there capable of bearing even a scanty crop of oats. This region, therefore, excepting a few fields around Stedva Gerrig, supplies subsistence only to sheep; and the greater number even of these we found had been withdrawn to situations less exposed to the Welsh winds.

Of the few inhabitants of the hamlet, the princ.i.p.al man of course is the innkeeper; and the other fathers of families are shepherds. The latter cla.s.s of men have wages amounting to twelve pounds a year, and enjoy their houses and little fields of corn and potatoes, with as much pasturage as they have use for free of rent. The husband, a.s.sisted by his sons, when young, tends the sheep on the mountain; the wife makes flannel, and knits stockings; and the daughters go out to service at an early age. Their little menage is comfortable. Their bread is barley cakes; they sometimes salt a pig; they provide themselves with a quarter of beef at one time, and, like their betters, "live at home, and kill their own mutton." Nay, one of these flourishing shepherds is a rival of _the_ innkeeper; his hut being duly licensed to sell ale, cyder, &c., and the sign-board having the following intimation:-"The notorious hill of Plinlimmon is on these premises, and it will be shown with pleasure to any gentlemen travellers who wishes to see it." And this intimation (letting grammar alone) is correct; for although the notorious article in question, viz., the loftiest part of Plinlimmon is not entirely in the garden, curtained off, like the balloon at the Yorkshire Stingo, from the gaze of all who do not pay a shilling to see it, yet it is actually on the premises, about three or four miles-only a sheep walk-distant.

The Plinlimmon inn, undoubtedly, is the place for our money. It is now-although its character was very different only two years ago-neat, clean, and comfortable. We do not say that it affords the accommodation of a city on the top of a Welsh mountain, but yet to the traveller who has seen more of the world than the plains of England, it will make a very desirable resting-place. Such traveller, on dismounting from the Aberystwith mail, will be right glad to sit down by a clean and bright fire-side, and if the turf should not be lighted in the parlour, he will be proud of the privilege of the kitchen. There, if he has our own good fortune, he will find the landlady, a frank, cheerful, and kindly woman, with the table drawn in quite to the hearth, and reading "Elegant Extracts." Materials of another kind will speedily grace the board, viz., bread, b.u.t.ter, cheese, eggs, and excellent home-brewed ale. Do you sneer at this bill of fare? A fico for thy travellership! Then will mine host enter in the midst, a bold, intelligent, yet modest fellow; and, bustling through the various parts of the scene, will "come, like a shadow, so depart" the substantial form of the serving maiden, her cheeks round, and flushed, her eye beaming with innocent gaiety, and her full and swelling chest seeming as if it were with difficulty withheld from bursting the corsage. These three, by the way, are the only inhabitants of the hamlet who speak English.

After supper, the traveller, if he be not of the heathen sect of Tee-totallers, takes a gla.s.s of brandy and water, for the reason a.s.signed by St. Paul in his Epistle to Timothy, or any other orthodox reason; and finally, he will enter into a clean and comfortable bed, and sleep, not the less soundly it is to be presumed, that his meal had not involved the murder of a chicken, or of any other of his fellow creatures of the earth.

The next morning the landlord walked with us to the source of the Wye, about three miles distant. We ascended and descended several of the rounded summits already mentioned; and upon the whole, the little excursion is somewhat trying to the lungs. A rill flowed between every two eminences, destined soon or late to unite with the Wye, and at length the latter stream appeared, bubbling down the side of a slope in a volume which might be comprised in the circ.u.mference of a teacup. Higher up, a few rushes seem to hide the fountain from which it springs; but following for a brief s.p.a.ce a line of damp, plashy earth above, we reach a tiny pool, little more than a hand-breadth across, supplied by droppings rather than gushes from a bank of black earth-and this is the source of the Wye. Looking down its tortuous valley, the view is majestic from the ma.s.sive forms of the objects which surround it; but the solitude, the dreariness, the utter desolation of the scene, form the distinctive features of the picture.

Plinlimmon, or Pumlumon, is not, correctly speaking, a single mountain, but several distinct mountains rising from one base. Each of these distinct mountains, again, is subdivided into several others; but in the aggregate, there is little of the variety which might be expected from so extraordinary an a.s.semblage. It is entirely dest.i.tute of wood. There are none of the craggy peaks and precipices which usually form the picturesque of mountain scenery. All is smooth but blackened turf, frequently undulating over fathomless bogs, the mysteries of which the traveller who ventures into this desolate region without a guide has a fair chance of exploring. The summit, of which the highest point is two thousand four hundred and sixty-three feet above the level of the sea, forms a plateau of several miles; whence the hills of Cardiganshire are seen to the south; Cardigan bay and Saint George's channel to the west; to the north, the perpendicular brow of Cader Idris; to the north-west, the three-peaked Breidden hills; and to the east, the fertile plains of Herefordshire and Shropshire.

Besides the Wye, there are several other rivers which have their source on Plinlimmon, the most distinguished of which is the Severn. About two miles distant from where we now stand, this stream issues from a little bog-hole, in a volume which might be stepped across by a child. The whole mountain, in fact, seems a reservoir of water; and it is not surprising that Owen Glendwr should have been able to maintain himself here, as he did in 1401, even with so small a force as a hundred and twenty men. The entrenchments made by the hero may still be traced; and brazen spearheads, and other instruments of war, have been found within them in our own day.

CHAPTER II.

Descent of Plinlimmon-Singular illusion-Llangerrig-Commencement of the Picturesque-The Fall of the Wye-Black Mountain-Course of the river-Builth-Peculiarity of the scenery-Approach to the English border-Castle of the Hay-First series of the beauties of the Wye.

Leaving Stedva Gerrig, the road runs by the side of the stream before mentioned, through a succession of mountain valleys, which, being without the grandiose forms of the view from Plinlimmon, are uninteresting from the want of trees. On the left there was a wreath of grey smoke flying backward on the wind, from the brow of the steep which forms the side of the valley; and we speculated within ourselves as to whether this was the ensign of some unlawful still. It proved, however, to be the foam of a little mountain torrent, caught suddenly by the gust ere it reached the edge of the precipice; and so complete was the illusion, that it was not till we had climbed to the spot, that we were convinced of the phenomenon being the production of water instead of fire.

The valley here was wide, and the vista backwards towards Stedva Gerrig of considerable length. A very remarkable effect was produced by the light of the early sun streaming through ma.s.ses of grey clouds, and flashed back again not only by the stream, but by the entire surface of the soil which was completely saturated by torrents of rain that had fallen during the night. Just after this, and nearly three miles from the inn, the Wye suddenly burst into the valley from the left, and rushing beneath a bridge, flung itself into the little river. The latter, conscious that although its volume was greater, its strength and impetuosity were less than those of the marauder, quietly resigned itself to its fate, receiving the name and acknowledging the authority of its lord and spouse; and thenceforth, we found ourselves wandering along the banks, less known than those less renowned, of the cla.s.sic Vaga.

[Picture: Llangerrig]

The sameness of the scenery continued for five miles further, till on entering the hamlet of Llangerrig, consisting of a few huts of the meanest description, and an old church, of which a view is annexed, trees began to add their interest to the picture. The valley, however, was wide, the trees small, and the river, notwithstanding its receiving here another accession, was still insignificant. By degrees, however, as we proceeded, the hills became closer, and the ma.s.siveness of their forms lent a certain degree of grandeur to the scene. These again disappeared; and the hills returned: and the Wye as before ran brawling through a commonplace valley. A series of vicissitudes went on till the hills, a.s.suming the character without the magnitude of mountains, threw themselves wildly together, and we found ourselves in a savage pa.s.s, the steep ab.u.t.ting ma.s.ses of which were in some cases formed of grey and naked rock.

The river here is occasionally almost choked up with stones and fragments of rocks, which must either have rolled from the heights into the bottom of the valley, or been uncovered in their original beds by the action of the water. Here opens (in our judgment) the first of the numerous picturesque views presented by the Wye. The spot is marked by the accession of a tributary stream, which is crossed by means of a bridge.

After getting out of this gorge, the scenery becomes softer and more commonplace; and at three miles nearer, the vista is terminated by the little church tower of Rhaiadyr, painted against a misty hill at some distance beyond.

In the time of the Welsh princes, there was here a fortress of some importance, of which no vestiges remain. It was erected, we are told, by Rhys, prince of South Wales, in the time of Richard II., and burnt down in 1231, by Llewellin ap Jorwerth. The little town itself is modern, and consists princ.i.p.ally of two streets intersecting each other at right angles. The name, which is in full _Rhaiadyr Pwy_, means the Fall of the Wye, but is no longer applicable, the cataract having been almost levelled in 1780, when the bridge was erected. From this bridge the view of the river is exceedingly fine, as will be seen by the annexed engraving; although all the remnant of the waterfall is the plunging of the stream over a low ledge of rocks. The town itself has a good deal of character. It is decidedly a Welsh town; and notwithstanding the commingling that must have taken place in the races, it possesses that foreign aspect which is so exciting to the curiosity.

[Picture: Rhaiadyr]

This appearance, however, is still more evident in the next place at which we arrive, Builth; but the traveller must not be in a hurry to get there. The valley of the Wye, during the fourteen miles which intervene, presents a continuous series of picturesque views, sufficient of themselves to make the reputation of the river. The stream rushes the whole way through a singularly rocky and winding bed, bound in by lofty and fantastic banks, and these by hills, naked or wooded, barren or fertile, of every variety of form. One of the most remarkable of the latter is the Black Mountain, which is posted directly in front, and fills up the valley, as if to guard the pa.s.s from the further progress of the Wye: but our wandering stream sweeps abruptly round its base, and escaping by a narrow defile, pursues its triumphant way towards Builth.

One of those pictures is imitated in the annexed engraving, and it will not be difficult to find the identical spot chosen by the artist.

[Picture: Near Rhaiadyr]

For more than half the distance the road runs close by the side of the river; but on reaching a few houses called Newbridge, we diverge a little, and do not come near again till we have travelled a distance of nearly five miles and approached the town of Builth. The pedestrian, however, cares little for roads; and, rejoining the river at will, he finds the series of views continued-sometimes grand, sometimes beautiful, sometimes picturesque, sometimes absolute gems of pastoral repose. The river increases visibly before our eyes; and at length, when near Builth, it rolls along, still foaming, still brawling, but in a stream of considerable volume. Its princ.i.p.al tributaries between Rhaiadyr and this place, are the Elian, the Ithon, and the Yrfon; the last of which is celebrated by the defeat of Llewellin in 1282, which took place at the spot where the little river is crossed by a bridge, just before it falls into the Wye, above Builth.

This part of the country, however, is completely secluded. There never was, so far as we know, a public conveyance between Rhaiadyr and Builth; and at the latter town, at this season of the year-although it is still early in October-the traveller will find no means of communication with the rest of the world, except for those who journey with post horses, and those who make use of the locomotive powers of their own limbs.

Builth is finely situated, its narrow streets rising in irregular terraces on the side of a hill on the right bank of the Wye. The houses are as Welsh as can be, and have a primitive, old world look, that has a great charm in our eyes. The town is approached by a stone bridge of considerable length; at the end of which, on the left hand, are some mounds of gra.s.s and ivy, which conceal the remains of a castle supposed to date from the eleventh century. All, however, is conjecture as regards this castle, which was a small fortress, with a keep of forty yards in circ.u.mference, surrounded by a ditch, and defended towards the south by two trenches. It was repaired in 1209, by Gilbert, Earl of Gloucester; after the death of Llewellin, it became an English fortress; and in 1690, was accidentally destroyed by a fire, which at the same time consumed the greater part of the town. Builth, however, is older than its castle. It is set down by the learned as the Bullaeum Silurum of the Romans; and various druidical remains in the neighbourhood carry back the ken of the antiquarian to a still more remote epoch, which is lost in shadows.

It was in this neighbourhood, as we have said, that Llewellin, the last of the Welsh princes, was defeated and slain in 1282. Tradition relates, that while at Aberedw, a short distance down the river, on the opposite bank, he was surprised by the English, and escaped so narrowly, that he had only just time to pa.s.s the drawbridge of Builth, before his pursuers came up. The English, however, succeeded in cutting him off from his army, by getting between the town and a village on the right bank of the Wye where it was posted. Llewellin, upon this, attempted to conceal himself in the woods, but he was discovered, and beheaded, and his body buried at a place called Cern y Bedd.

The air of Builth is supposed to be very salubrious, and for this reason many respectable families have chosen it for their residence. The abundance of game in its woods and hills, and of trout, salmon, and grayling in its streams is another inducement, and probably the _cause_ of the good health of its visitors. In this neighbourhood are mineral springs of three kinds,-saline, sulphurous, and chalybeate,-and a pump-room, frequently attended by a numerous company.

From a hill above the town is obtained a fine view of the Llynsyraddon, the largest lake in Wales except Bala. The country people believe that its bed was formerly the site of a city; and, as in Ireland, Brittany, and other places where a similar tradition prevails, they still see the towers of old "'neath the calm, cold wave reclining." Giraldus calls the lake _Clamosam_, from the "terrible thundering noise it makes upon the breaking up of the ice in winter."

The valley of the Wye is less wild after pa.s.sing Builth, but more beautiful. After the fourth milestone, there is a magnificent specimen of a formation of the hills which may be said to be the grand peculiarity of this district. It consists of a ma.s.sive range on the opposite bank, laid out in square terraces, such as Martin delights to heap on each other in his pictures. But here, where Nature is the builder, these ma.s.ses of architecture are of rough, disjointed stones, h.o.a.ry with age, and sometimes overgrown with moss and lichens. On the right bank where we stood, a small house is built just above the road, as if to enjoy the picture; and, a little further on, another of more aristocratic pretensions. A view, including a portion of the latter-the green, smooth-shaven pastures which answer for a lawn and extend to the water's edge-the Wye foaming and brawling at the bottom, half hidden by trees of the deepest shadow-with the castellated mount beyond, and the sweep of the valley closed in by hills to the left-would form a whole, which Gilpin, with the dogmatism of art, might call "correctly picturesque."

A little further on, we had an opportunity of inspecting these rocks more closely, which are only remarkable from the forms they a.s.sume. In the instance before us, they were two immense cubes of stone, as precise as if ruled by the square, and cut with the chisel. They stood exactly horizontal with the ground, and the upper was of smaller proportions than the lower. No other rock or even stone was near. At some distance another entirely insulated ma.s.s presented itself, as large as a cottage of two stories, with walls as perpendicular, and secluded like a cottage by trees.

The small village of Glasbury presents a view well worth notice. This is particularly the case at Maeslough Hall, where Gilpin characterises the scenery as "wonderfully amusing," declaring that the situation is one of the finest in Wales. On pa.s.sing the seventh milestone, the valley spreads out into a wide plain bounded by an amphitheatre of hills; and as we proceed, numerous villas peeping through the trees, show that we have now left entirely behind us the peculiarities of Welsh scenery, and are again on the borders of merry England. As we approach the Hay, the aristocratical buildings become more numerous, and the romance of the scene diminishes, till at length we enter a small, but neat and comfortable-looking town.

The Hay has some historical a.s.sociations of the doings of Llewellin and King John, by the latter of whom its castle was destroyed in 1216; but with the exception of a Gothic gateway there are no remains to interest the antiquarian. There are said, indeed, to be the fragments of some Roman fortifications; but we are something like Sir Walter Scott in this respect, who had seen so many ghosts, that at last he found it difficult to believe in them. Tradition relates that the castle was built in one night by the celebrated Maud de Saint Wallery, alias Maud de Hain, alias Moll Walbee. "She built (say the gossips)," as we find in Jones's Brecknock, "the castle of Hay in one night: the stones for which she carried in her ap.r.o.n. While she was thus employed, a small pebble, of about nine feet long, and one foot thick, dropped into her shoe. This she did not at first regard; but in a short time, finding it troublesome, she indignantly threw it over the river Wye into Llowes churchyard in Radnorshire (about three miles off), where it remains to this day, precisely in the position it fell, a stubborn memorial of the historical fact, to the utter confusion of all sceptics and unbelievers."

Between Builth and the Hay ends one series of the beauties of the Wye.

The stream hitherto is a mountain rivulet, sometimes almost a torrent, and its characteristics are wildness and simplicity. Its course is impeded by rocks, amidst which it runs brawling and foaming; and, generally speaking, it depends upon itself, and upon the nature of its own bed for the picturesque, the hills around forming only the back ground. We shall see, as we get on, the manner in which this will change, till the banks become the objects of admiration, and the stream itself, although much increased in volume, is considered a mere adjunct, and its bosom a convenient site from which to view them.