I visited St. John’s Church in Carrington back when we had some snow in March. The doors were locked so I couldn’t go inside but the graveyard proved to be quite interesting on its own. Building of the church began in 1841 thanks to an endowment from Ichabod Wright, a local banker who lived in Mapperley Hall not far from the church and which has since been turned into flats.
I first spotted St Grwst’s Church from across the Conwy River when I was photographing the area and that reminded me that I’d read in the history of St Mary’s Church in Conwy that a connection to Llywelyn the Great could be found at St Grwst’s and it was somewhere worth visiting. According to legend a Welsh nobleman called Nefydd Hardd murdered a son of Owain Gwynedd, king of Gwynedd, North Wales and in atonement for his actions Nefydd’s son had the church built in 1170. It was dedicated to Grwst, a saint who had set up a church nearby in the 6th century.
Just to the left of Llanrwst Railway Station, heading towards the town, is the Llanrwst War Memorial. The memorial commemorates the dead of both World Wars including Janet Jones, who was a teacher before enlisting as one of the early members of the Women’s Royal Air Force. She died on 21 December 1918, after the war had ended, aged only 28. Her brother Hugh is also remembered here, he died in Gallipoli in 1915 aged just 23.
Pont Fawr (Big Bridge) was built in the 1630s and is often called “Inigo Jones’ Bridge” after the architect of such buildings as Banqueting House and St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden. I say is often called, because there’s not actually a lot of evidence to prove that Inigo Jones was involved at all, but there isn’t anything to say he wasn’t either. A plaque on the bridge claims that Jones designed it at the behest of Sir John Wynn of, you guessed it, Gwydir Castle.
I came across Gwydir Castle while browsing Conwy’s tourist page and immediately decided that it was somewhere I wanted to see. As already mentioned in the post about Llanrwst, the town is easy to get to by train and the castle is a pleasant roughly 20 minute walk from the station. It isn’t open every day so you really must check dates and times before you travel. Admission is currently £10 for adults.
Marking the boundary of the City of London these dragons are from the London Coal Exchange which was demolished in the 1960s. The Corporation of London’s street committee selected the statues as the model for the boundary markers in 1964 and replicas were erected at main entrances to the City.
Llanrwst is a small market town less than a mile from the edge of Snowdonia. My main purpose for visiting was to go to Gwydir Castle (which will feature in a later post) but I also had time to wander around the town. It was easy to get to from Llandudno Junction Railway Station (just across the bridge from Conwy) though there were at the time of writing only about four trains a day and only a couple that were actually helpful for my needs. Note there is a North Llanrwst Station and a Llanrwst – for the town and castle you’ll want Llanrwst (North Llanrwst is a request stop so if you do want to get off here make yourself known to the train staff). As you can see the railway station is one of the smallest I’ve been to.
St Mary’s Church is a lovely building right in the centre of Conwy, steps away from the castle and the B&B where I was staying. Before the castle existed the site of the church was the Cistercian Aberconwy Abbey dating from 1172 (Llywelyn the Great mentioned earlier was buried there in 1240). Henry III’s army would go on to ransack the abbey in 1245 and in 1283 Edward I would conquer the town and build his castle. The abbey site would become St Mary’s Church in 1284.
Nottingham has a great deal of green spaces many of which I’ve never actually visited, so this year I’ve decided to try and visit more of them. Arnot Hill Park was the first of these, which I picked solely because I happened to be roughly in the area on the day. It was easy to get to by bus – there’s a stop right outside the entrance on Nottingham Road.
St Mary’s is an Anglo-Catholic church that dates from the 12th century though its impressive looking tower and spire were added later in the 13th and 14th centuries. The tower is covered in blind arcading – those bits that look like windows – which means they are decorative and have no actual opening. We didn’t have chance to go inside on this visit, but were impressed by the beautiful exterior.
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