North Wales Pilgrims' Way - Stage 1 (Greenfield to Trelawnyd)

And we're off!

Basingwerk - a ruined abbey at Greenfield near Holywell in North Wales. It belonged to the Order of Cistercian monks and was founded in the 13th Century. These guys owned lands nearby but were also granted stewardship of a significant part of north Derbyshire, notably Glossopdale. In 1536 the Dissolution of the Monasteries put paid to all that and the abbey was abandoned and its assets sold. The ruined abbey is now the starting point for a long distance footpath called the North Wales Pilgrims' Way which stretches for over 130 miles from Greenfield on the north-east coast near Holywell in Flintshire to Aberdaron at the end of the Lleyn Peninsula. Most people walk this route (usually in the summer months) but Skip and I decided to run it commencing this morning. Here we are at the very start of it, Vicky dropped us off and left us to it. We were somewhat optimistic at this stage, well you have to be don't you?

The path makes its way in the early stages through Holywell which is the home of St Winefride's Well and this is one of the first significant staging posts of the pilgrimage. This is a remarkably well preserved example of a medieval holy well. I couldn't get any closer than the gate and the men in the photo were working on some essential repairs. Mind you there were no hordes of disgruntled pilgrims standing outside missing out on their dunking in the well. However there would have been in the Middle Ages, St Winefride's was renowned as being the 'Lourdes of Wales' and pilgrims galore thronged there, some of them undoubtedly setting off on the long haul overland down the Lleyn Peninsula and over to Bardsey Island.

Our route out of Holywell was upwards and more upwards on rather muddy paths. We crossed several slippery stiles and gradually we became shrouded in a thick wet mist. The little round Pilgrim's Way markers on stiles and gateposts are all very good on stiles and gateposts but in large open fields they were non-existent. In the enveloping clag all hope of using the features of the countryside to get our bearings was lost and I had to follow my OS map and use a bit of guesswork. I felt we were making good progress shuffling up the hills and jogging down them but Pantasaph was reluctant to appear. Had we taken a wrong turn? No the spectacular church and friary eventually loomed out of the fog - we'd made it. The buildings date from the middle of the 18th century; the first to be built was the church on land owned by the Earls of Denbigh. The 8th Earl of Denbigh was one Rudolph Feilding, he and his wife converted to Roman Catholicism.  The church and subsequent friary buildings for many years housed a chapter of Cistercian monks. In case you think that Feilding is a spelling mistake, it's not and Rudolph's brother William Feilding in 1874 founded a town in New Zealand named for him. Just to provide a convoluted link we stayed in Feilding New Zealand a few years ago being hosted by our brother-in-law's uncle who, after 40 years abroad, still has a rich Derby accent!

Feilding has won New Zealand's Most Beautiful Town Award and here's a picture of Manchester Square in the centre of town; you can see the clock tower with The Feilding Hotel in the background. This iconic hotel dates from 1875 and sadly it may have to be pulled down because it doesn't comply with the latest earthquake protection regulations.

So, carrying on through some lovely woodland and along ancient green lanes, we resumed our stroll/run. I began to realise that we were not going to have a chance to visit many of the points of interest during our trip as it would have taken numerous diversions off route to catch them all. In the mist we missed the Pen y Ball monument, at over 800 feet above Holywell it stands on an important medieval smelting site - a odd location perhaps but the strong winds on the summit would have been just right for fanning the flames to help extract lead from the ore mined on Halkyn Mountain to the east. We didn't take in the Coed y Garreg Watchtower, thought to give warning of pirate attacks in the 17th century, Maen Achwyfan, an impressive stone cross at Whitford eluded us and on a fine day I wouldn't mind exploring the Pantasaph friary grounds a bit more. 

Llanasa church - Asaph was here!

There's a bit of a thread linking some of locations along this early section of the Pilgrims' Way. After just a few miles the village of Pantasaph is reached with its magnificent collection of ecclesiastical buildings. Once into Denbighshire the way passes through St Asaph (although we didn't quite get that far this time). St Asaph is one of the smallest cathedral cities in the UK and although it was named for Asaph who was the first bishop of the diocese, the cathedral was founded by Kentigern who was a Scottish saint (he was also known as St Mungo the founder of Glasgow cathedral). Towards the end of today's ramble we encountered Llanasa, one of the ancient parishes of Flintshire, Llanasa in Welsh means the village of the church of St Asaph. The church, which dates from the 6th century, is actually named St Asaph and St Cynderyn. And who was Cynderyn you might ask! Well this was another of Kentigern's pseudonyms, perhaps he was on the run from the Scottish Constabulary.

Well that was a breeze!

And thence almost to the end of the first stage of our pilgrimage, we were on Y Gop or Gop Hill above the village of Trelawnyd, this is the mound behind me in the photo. It's impressive on a number of counts, it's the second largest neolithic mound in the UK after Silbury Hill in Wiltshire, itself one of the largest monuments of its type in Europe. It dominates the landscape for miles around and whereas there is no evidence that it was a burial mound it may well have been some sort of watchtower, the amount of stone found in the vicinity suggests that a large edifice of some type crowned the mound at one time. A quick drop down to Trelawnyd and we met our lift home. Trelawnyd has its own fascinations, it was renamed Newmarket by a local entrepreneur in 1710 who hoped that this modest village would grow into a major trading town to serve North Wales. This didn't happen and it was renamed Trelawnyd in 1954. Secondly Trelawnyd is home to a very successful world renowned male voice choir. I'd have been happy to sing along with them after our gallop over the hills but Skip needed to get home for his supper.