The rest is history

I’m sitting in a 400 year old hotel sipping a cask ale and feeling my feet and legs throbbing after a big 21km day. It was a good day though, with lots of surprises and a large dose of history.

The day started with a haul out of Llangollen back up to the trail. A promising start as we didn’t get lost. The forecast had been for cold and possibly wet, but we were met with a perfect sunny Spring day. The views back across the valley were worth the climb. Next change was a sharply descending track through a spruce forest which popped us out into the town of Trevor. The canal that we first saw in Llangollan flows through there, and the next surprise was seeing the astonishing aqueduct it then travels over!

The Pontcysyllte (pont -ker-sulth- yay) Aqueduct was built in 1805. It is the highest navigable aqueduct in the world with 18 arches at a height of 38m. There’s a pedestrian path along one side and the canal boats cruise along an iron trench along the other. I managed to walk across it by not looking over the edge! It’s a remarkable construction and World Heritage listed. On the other side we joined the canal and walked along its tree lined bank for several km. There were lots of canal boats moored along the way and it does look rather a romantic way to travel.

This stretch of canal was significant as it marked the first encounter with Offa’s actual dyke. I’ll tell you about that a little later.

We bumped into our first fellow Offa hikers today doing the North-South route. Shelly and Colin, also Australians from Perth. They kept us company until we suddenly came across a castle- and a spectacular one at that!

Chirk castle was built in the 1300’s on the foundation of a fort of Henry I. It has a remarkable history as it was one of the March castles. That’s a whole bit of history I knew nothing about, but apparently the Welsh have long been a thorn in England’s side, and a group of nobles were given land along the Welsh border and responsibility to control the Welsh rabble. They were March lords and were allowed to build castles- so that’s where this one appeared from. The name comes from the border between England and Wales being called the Marches. It also explains why there are so many castles! This one was in magnificent shape as was its garden and was a rewarding side trip.

The Welsh also gave William the Conqueror a run for his money after the 1066 invasion. He subdued the English but the Welsh were having none of it. Got to admire them!

Again, in 1165 King Henry II decided it was time to annihilate the Welsh once and for all. He gathered 30 000 soldiers from across all his lands and they converged just down the road from where we are now. The Welsh princes collaborated for once and joined forces but were massively outnumbered. They had the advantage of knowing their land - and this is one of the times Offa’s Dyke works in the Welsh favour. It ironically created an impediment to the English invasion as they tried to push through a gap and the Welsh archers could pick them off as they bottlenecked. A huge battle ensued with massive loss of life. It’s known as the Battle of Crogen and the word Crogen has come to mean a mix of great bravery and loss of life.

(Henry II tried to push further into Wales but was injured in the mountains that we walk through in a couple of days. He gave up and left the Welsh to another 120 years of independence).

Nine hundred years later they are still a proud independent people barely tolerating the English.

The history in this part of the world is very hard to get your head around sometimes! I like these bite-sized little gems and hopefully it will all make a coherent whole by the end of the walk. Apologies to those of you who actually know this history properly as I’ve done a very Readers Digest version.

I’ll tell you about Offa tomorrow as that’s enough history for today.

There’s only one place open for dinner tonight in Chirk as it’s Monday but it looks like a great little bistro. (It was).

We have a HUGE day tomorrow. 25km with some savage climbs so I’m going to try for an early night and not think about it.

We hit our 100km milestone today!

Loving your comments by the way. Thank you xRead more