Month: October 2021

Snowdonia, Sep ’21: Day trip around Anglesey

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Saturday 18th September

We agreed to have a “rest” day following the excitement (and mild trauma) of the previous day’s climbing excursion up Tryfan. Neither of us had been to Anglesey before so we decided to embark on a road trip around the island, stopping at various places recommended by our Wild Guide – shoutout to Angus (my long-suffering brother) for an excellent birthday present, although I know it was probably mum’s idea.

After watching the morning mist rise above Llyn Ogwen, scrabbling down to the water’s edge for a refreshing face wash, sorting out various bits of van admin and appreciating the beauty of the valley over breakfast, we set off northwest, between the hulking mountains that tower over the A5. We drove through the greyish town of Bethesda, past the outskirts of Bangor and across the attractive, stone-and-steel Menai suspension bridge, which spans the Menai Strait to connect Anglesey to the mainland.

Anglesey is kind of egg-shaped, with a big shark’s fin sticking out of its eastern side and a smaller lump of land barely attached to its western side by two bridges. We planned to drive around it anti-clockwise and our first stop was Beaumaris, a small, seaside town on the shark’s fin. The short drive there was along an attractive coastal road looking across the Menai Strait and back towards the dark, fog-shrouded mountains of the mainland, and our first impressions of the island were of a clean, pretty and peaceful place.

Beaumaris town

These impressions were confirmed when we reached the town’s quaint, pastel-painted streets and parked in an empty car park which seemed to be shared by the community, leisure and medical centres. We walked past a moated, compact and nearly-intact castle onto a small square where we found the Old Court House Museum, which was – to my considerable disappointment – closed.

We wandered through a small street to the seafront, where a large grassy car park charged £5 a day, a kiosk advertised boat trips, a long pier and adjacent small, triangular beach jutted into the water and people ambled lazily along the promenade. It was quietly busy – there was enough bustle that it didn’t feel like a ghost town, but not so much that we were peopled out.

As usual Ryan was after a snack, so we cut through an alley onto the high street. The buildings were attractive and of varying styles, and we particularly liked a tiny old beamed cottage – now an estate agent’s – dating back to about 1400. It claimed to be one of the oldest houses in Britain and it had a door which only just came up to Ryan’s shoulders.

We found a lovely old-fashioned butchers/deli a short way down the colourful street, where Ryan treated “us” to a small lamb and mint pie, a scotch egg and a bottle of dandelion and burdock. We ate it back at the small square by the castle, then went back to the van to continue our island tour.

Baron Hill abandoned mansion

As I started writing about Baron Hill, I realised that it deserves its own post which you can read here. This is a shortened account.

We found Baron Hill in the Wales Wild Guide, which describes it as “an extraordinary and completely overgrown ruined country mansion and gardens”. As it was nearby we thought we’d look for it, not knowing what to expect. We parked in a housing estate on the edge of the town and followed the book’s obscure directions across a road and over a shoulder-high wall into a wood thick with mature trees, shrubs and near-impenetrable rhododendron.

We stumbled across the old garden first, which was made up of several strange, waist-high old greenhouse foundations hidden in the thickets. A large walled garden appeared through the trees, nearly absorbed by Jurassic-Park-esque vegetation. Tiptoeing tentatively along the length of the high wall, struggling to imagine this overgrown jungle as a once-productive, bright, blooming courtyard, we found the stables and servants’ quarters.

Five or six large, symmetrical arches beckoned us down a long corridor lined  by overgrown, roofless stables and servants’ rooms. Patterned tiles clung desperately to the walls, and the occasional fireplace, horse stall and water trough served as a slightly unsettling reminder of the place’s forgotten grandeur. Ivy crept everywhere and undergrowth hid most, but not all, the detritus from the broken rooms.

Then we found the house. We stepped out of the corridor and our eyes were drawn upwards, just above the tree canopy, to the corner of an enormous, neo-classical mansion rising above the jungle, well into the process of being devoured by ivy. Fascinated, we approached the three-storey building, which been thoroughly reclaimed by nature. Huge, frameless windows and doors granted access to the inside, which was empty of all the things that should be in a house but full to the brim with vegetation, detritus and the eerie caw of crows. It was devoid of humanity, a shell of a once-glorious home, yet abundant with life – plants, mosses, lichens, birds and insects.

It was an extraordinary place. For more descriptive waffling [shameless plug alert] I urge you (again) to read my separate post about it.

We tore ourselves away from the towering walls and after a quick go on the rope swing we found around the back of the house, fought our way through the thick wood and back to the van.

Din Lligwy ancient settlement

We drove 20 minutes northwards along the east side of Anglesey to the roadside parking at Din Lligwy, a trio of ancient sites. We missed out the first one – a Neolithic burial chamber – in the interests of time, as we’d poked around Baron Hill for longer than planned and wanted to see the rest of the island. A short walk across a grassy meadow took us to the second site, a pretty, compact 12th century chapel ruin with a lovely view over fields that stretched down to the sweeping curve of Lligwy Bay.

A bit further on we found the third site surrounded by leafy woodland. Din Lligwy is a small Romano-British village dating back to the Bronze or Iron Age, whose huge stone foundations mark the positions of several round and rectangular buildings. I imagined the bustle of the old walled settlement, the fires that would have been lit to warm the huts and the simple (if perilous) lives people once lived, and I tried to work out how on earth they manoeuvred those enormous rocks around.

The short walk back to the van was pleasant, through wood and meadow and past a sheep field. Anglesey had impressed us so far, with its rolling green hills, well-spaced towns, smooth roads and air of quiet self-containment.

Parys Mountain copper mines

The next place of interest was another 20 minute drive north. Parys Mountain is a  huge copper mining site set high up on a hill with panoramic views of the Anglesey countryside. We parked in the large, free car park and walked up a large bank of loose, orange-brown gravel. As we climbed, the excavated landscape opened out around us: an enormous plateau of hillocks, banks, ridges and dips made of compact earth and rock covered in shale, which seemed to span the colour spectrum from reddish brown through several shades of pink to bright orange and yellow. It was like we’d wandered onto another planet.

We spotted an old stone windmill tower and walked towards it through the alien landscape along a yellow-orange track. It was dry and desert-like except for the swathes of coarse brown heather that grew everywhere in large patches, somehow finding nutrients in the loose, pinky-orange ground. The windmill was on a high point and we looked around at the Anglesey countryside. The sleek white wind turbines and rolling green fields contrasted strangely with the arid plateau where we stood.

After reading about the old copper mines, we wandered down another track and came to the top of what I can only describe as a small canyon, a bathtub-shaped hollow over 200 feet deep that was formed by the excavation of 3.5 million tonnes of rock by 1,500 men in the late 18th century. It looked as if the land had been gorged out by a giant ice cream scoop, and it was amazing to think that humans had created this vast landscape by hand. The steep banks were a rich yellow-orange-pink colour and dark heather blanketed patches of the dry, loose rock. It was very wild west, like we’d just walked into a cowboy film, and it reminded me of pictures I’ve seen of Utah or Arizona. Hard to believe it was rainy old Wales.

We squeezed through an irresistible gap between some large orange-brown rocks, found another bit of canyon on the other side, then started heading back around the giant bathtub towards the van. We spotted a cave halfway down one of the steep banks and obviously scrabbled down to investigate, disappointed to discover that it was just a hollow in the rock as opposed to the old mine shaft we’d hoped for. We walked all the way along the long edge of the gorge, took a last look at the incredible scenery, scrambled back over the loose mounds and got back to the van just as it started to drizzle, our minds slightly blown by the other-worldliness of the place and the travesty that we’d never even heard of it.

Holyhead & South Stack

The next section of the road trip was a 40 minute drive around the north and west of the island. This took us through swathes of lush farmland and across a tidal spit to Holy Island, a small, sticky-outey lump of land halfway down Anglesey’s western edge, until we reached a big petrol station on the outskirts of the town of Holyhead. We refuelled the van, grabbed a few bits from Tesco and drove through the busy, slightly shabby-looking streets towards South Stack.

We found the car park a couple of miles west of the town along a narrow, twisty, dead-end road. We wandered up to the clifftop and spent a good few minutes just looking at the view. To the south, sheer grey cliffs dropped into the flat water, grass and vegetation breaking up their hardness in all the nooks and crannies where roots could take hold. The coastline was far from straight like the long stretches of the Dorset coast where we usually climb, but “squiggly”, as if an imaginative child had drawn the line between land and sea and chosen to embellish it with lots of little headlands, inlets and sticky-outey bits. This made the cliffs look wild, rugged and very intriguing, and we watched slightly enviously as a couple of tiny climbers clung to the rough rock faces. Behind them a finger of land jutted out into the sea, and behind that the blue haze of the mainland mountains resembled the scaley back of a sleeping dragon.

South Stack is a tiny island attached to Holy Island by a footbridge, which is accessed by climbing down a lot of zig-zagging steps. We didn’t fancy paying to go over, so we just climbed down a few steps for a good view of the iconic white lighthouse perched on the grassy, rocky hump. It was a stunning, bleak clifftop view. The dead calm, blue-grey sea took up most of my field of vision, stretching an impossibly long way to the crisp horizon which itself seemed impossibly wide, and the soft grey sky looked like strokes of a watercolour brush.

We heard a few people making a fuss about something and looked over to where they were pointing. It was worth visiting South Stack for the next couple of minutes alone. I watched through my binoculars as a group of dolphins drifted lazily around the bay to the right of the lighthouse, five or six dorsal fins appearing and disappearing above the surface at once. I’d never seen dolphins before so I was very excited, and I watched them until a couple of jetskis appeared and they dived down out of sight. We also saw a bulky grey seal bobbing in the water near the rocks of South Stack and a lot of choughs, whose bright red beaks and legs contrast with their jet black feathers.

We wandered back up the steps and up the hill to a lookout hut, took in the brown, heathy, wild clifftops and hills to the north, and agreed that as much as we’d love to keep exploring, we were also keen to see Betws-y-Coed on a Saturday evening.

“Back to Betsy”

We hopped in the van and drove back to the mainland along Anglesey’s south side. I’d wanted to explore Newborough Forest nature reserve and some of the beaches but we were pressed for time as we wanted to eat out in Betws-y-Coed, so we admired the sand dunes from the van and decided to come back another time. We crossed the bridge, slipped back into the mountains and made it to the town with plenty of daylight left.

We found a discrete parking spot, wandered onto Sappers Suspension Bridge to look at the river, then went to find somewhere to eat. An ultramarathon had finished on the grassy rec in the middle of town that day, so everywhere was rammed. Hangin’ Pizzeria had an hour’s wait, the queue for Y Stabblau pub snaked way back into the Cotswold car park and Gwydyr Hotel had stopped doing food, although we had a drink there. We decided to go back to the pizzeria and drink through the wait. It was so worth it – out of all the pizzas I’ve ever eaten, this came second only to pizza from a renowned pizzeria in Italy (featured in this post, not sorry), despite being vegan. After food and a couple of drinks on an outside table, we watched bemusedly as the heavens opened around the canopy we were sheltered under, hammering water down with the unrelenting fury of Welsh rain clouds. Somehow we managed to get across to Y Stabblau for a drink and then back to the van wet, but not quite drowned.

An Abandoned Welsh Mansion: Baron Hill

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This was going to be part of my upcoming Anglesey-in-a-day post recounting the second day of our recent Snowdonia trip, but I think it deserves its own.

We found Baron Hill in the Wales Wild Guide, which describes it as “an extraordinary and completely overgrown ruined country mansion and gardens”. We were in Beaumaris anyway and as the place was nearby we thought we’d look for it, not knowing what to expect. We parked in a housing estate on the edge of the town and followed the book’s obscure directions across a road and over a shoulder-high wall into a wood thick with mature trees, shrubs and near-impenetrable rhododendron.

Garden

We wandered through the thick vegetation along narrow, criss-crossing paths. We were a little dubious until we came to a strange, rectangular structure made of waist-high stone, like the bottom half of a long room. I thought it might have been some kind of water tank or outdoor pool until we found several others nearby, all nestled in the trees. I’m still not entirely sure what they are and can’t find much about them online, but my guess is that they were the foundations of greenhouses or similar outhouses.

Next we came across a long brick wall with shallow, symmetrical alcoves and an arch leading into a large, extremely overgrown courtyard garden. Nearly every inch of brick had been consumed by ivy, the floor was smothered by ferns that looked straight out of Jurassic Park and skeletal greenhouses retreated shyly into leaf cover. It was enchanting. I looked at Google Maps on satellite view to guide us to the house, as its straight walls are easily visible from above as a fascinating, overgrown floorplan nestled in the trees.

Stables & Servants’ Quarters

It was hard to believe that we’d actually find anything as the vegetation was so thick, but suddenly we were standing in front of a building with high stone walls and an open corridor formed by several large, rectangular, perfectly repeating arches. It was obviously a big building but it was difficult to tell where the architecture ended and nature began, as the two had seemingly fused into one inseparable whole. What little was left of the roof had fallen to the floor and mostly been absorbed by roots, leaves and tendrils.

We walked along the corridor and looked curiously into the large rooms that lined its left hand side. Through the ivy, ferns and now-resident trees we saw the remnants of colourful, patterned tiles, strange semi-circular recesses set into the walls and what looked like a rusty, once-elaborate metal divider of the type used for separating horse stalls. This object, along with the large arches, occasional fireplace and several water troughs stationed along the corridor, suggested that this building – despite its apparent bygone grandeur – was perhaps just the stables and servant’s quarters.

Mansion

At the end of the corridor we turned right and our eyes were drawn instantly upwards, just above the canopy of trees. If this were a novel I’d say we found ourselves rooted to the spot with dropped jaws, rendered speechless by astonishment. This is not a novel so I’ll leave out the embellishment, but the sight of the enormous, ancient-Rome-or-Athens-esque building rising from the jungle in front of us, well into the process of being devoured by ivy, really was like nothing I’d ever seen before. We approached it almost apprehensively, instantly struck by the eerie juxtaposition of lavish grandeur and ruinous dereliction.

The house was three high-ceilinged storeys high, with huge windows that were empty apart from foliage, birds nests and the occasional remnant of a wooden frame. Stone doorways granted access to the inside, which was full of wild plants and building detritus, some of it teetering precariously against walls. The main entrance was a bit further on and on the same side, framed by four enormously high, ivy-covered columns and a colossal doorframe. Inside, only the basic structural elements were left to imply the house’s size and magnificence, with the occasional stubborn detail left as a strange reminder that this place was once a home. Bare walls (save for some graffiti) towered around us under an uncovered grey sky that seemed disproportionately small, particularly in the claustrophobic corridors, where the multitudinous wires of an old servant calling system hung suspended in an inextricable tangle. Thick RSJ beams spanned the huge rooms like bones, impervious to the decay of the grand floors, carpets and furniture they once supported. A staircase fell away to nothing after a few steps then started again a bit higher up, and trees grew from first and second floor iron fireplaces which were strange to view from below. We were captivated.

We explored the house with fascination and a little trepidation, well aware of its obvious structural un-soundness. We  padded around the old rooms, crossed a plank of wood over a gap that hinted at a basement, and marvelled at the way nature had slowly, effortlessly and almost entirely reclaimed the land. The slightly sinister cawing of several nearby crows seemed to fill the walls, but otherwise it was completely still and pin-drop silent, as if time had stopped. The atmosphere is hard to describe; it felt like a place of contradictions – majestic but ruined, peaceful but eerie, benign but dangerous, neither dead nor alive, and constantly as if we were being quietly observed. A stark demonstration that where humanity ceases, nature thrives.

We could have explored all day but were conscious of time, so after a cautious poke around we went through to the other side of the house, where more window and door frames towered high above us and the remains of a huge trellis spanned all three storeys, seemingly held up only by the ivy that grew thickly on it. The place is clearly well-known by local kids, evident from the graffiti, the odd bit of rubbish and the rope swing that I couldn’t resist before we ducked and weaved our way back through the thick vegetation to the wall we’d clambered over about an hour before. Carefully avoiding the low barbed wire fence, presumably installed as a half-hearted way of preventing access to the private land, we dropped down over the wall and back into the real world.

I now fancy myself as the next Indiana Jones.

Endnote – the History

I can’t find much detail on the history of the place, but Wikipedia reliably tells me that the ruined mansion was built in 1618 by politician Sir Richard Bulkeley and has been in the family ever since, although it was reconstructed in its current style in 1776. During World War I, death duties (inheritance tax) depleted the Bulkeley fortune so much that they could no longer afford the upkeep and the house became used to station Royal Engineers. In 1939 the government requisitioned it to temporarily house Polish soldiers following the outbreak of World War II, but they found it too cold and started a fire in the hope they would be moved somewhere warmer. The fire destroyed much of the interior and the soldiers were removed – to tents in the grounds, ironically – and the abandoned mansion was left to nature.