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Updated: May 4, 2025
Feeling my eyes scorching I turned away, and proceeded towards Llangollen, sometimes on the muddy road, sometimes on the dangerous causeway. For three miles at least I met nobody. Near Llangollen, as I was walking on the causeway, three men came swiftly towards me.
The view of the hill of Dinas Bran, from the southern side of Llangollen, would be much more complete were it not for a bulky excrescence, towards its base, which prevents the gazer from obtaining a complete view.
I looked about me in the hope of seeing somebody of whom I could ask a question or two, but seeing no one, I turned to the south intending to regain Llangollen by the way of the monastery. Coming to a cottage I saw a woman, to all appearance very old, standing by the door, and asked her in Welsh where I was. "In Pentre Dwr," said she.
"And thus," said Telford, "has been added a striking feature to the beautiful vale of Llangollen, where formerly was the fastness of Owen Glendower, but which, now cleared of its entangled woods, contains a useful line of intercourse between England and Ireland; and the water drawn from the once sacred Devon furnishes the means of distributing prosperity over the adjacent land of the Saxons."
Perhaps this springs in part from my own recollection of Llangollen, where I once stopped on a walking trip through Wales. The town lies on the river Dee at the foot of fertile hills patched with fences, on whose top there stand the ruins of Dinas Bran, a fortress of forgotten history, although it looks grimly towards the English marches as if its enemies came thence.
"It is there," said John Jones, "that the husband of the woman with whom we have been speaking works, felling trees from the alder swamp and cutting them up into blocks. I see there is no work going on at present or we would go over the woman told me that her husband was at Llangollen." "What a strange place to come to work at," said I, "out of crowded England.
There are many pleasant villas on both sides of the river, some of which stand a considerable way up the hill; of the villas the most noted is Plas Newydd at the foot of the Berwyn, built by two Irish ladies of high rank, who resided in it for nearly half a century, and were celebrated throughout Europe by the name of the Ladies of Llangollen.
I soon came to an unenclosed part of the mountain covered with gorse and whin, and still proceeding upward reached a road, which I subsequently learned was the main road from Llangollen over the hill. I was not long in gaining the top which was nearly level.
To ensure a supply of water for the summit of the canal, the lake called Bala Pool was dammed up by a regulating weir, and by its means the water was drawn off at Llandisilio when required for the purposes of the navigation; the navigable feeder being six miles long, carried along the bank of the Llangollen valley.
The Llangollen people can show nothing like that. Tom Jenkins looked at me for a moment with some surprise, and then said: 'I see you have been here before, sir. 'No, said I, 'never, but I have read about the Tomen Bala in books, both Welsh and English. 'You have, sir, said Tom. 'Well, I am rejoiced to see so book-learned a gentleman in our house. The Tomen Bala has puzzled many a head.
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