THE SEVEN WONDERS OF WALES

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 34, 3 November 1928, Page 23

THE SEVEN WONDERS OF WALES

(By Charles H. Lea.) ."Wales and the Welsh have always been noted for independence, but few of the many tourists in the little Principality know that there are Seven Winders of Wales, which ardent AVelshmen aver are equal to the Seven Wonders -of the World, remarks Charles ,H.i Lea in the "Dally News.” Snowden-is one of them, and no one will deny that the mountain deserves tlie title of one of the seven, just as most" visitors will concede that the fall at. Pistyil. Rhaiadr may be included. This fall is one of the finest in Wales, having a total fall of nearly 300 feet. Gorge. Borrow was astonished at its beauty, and! could not find words to describe it adequately. He bad to be satisfied with “an immense skein of silkiigitated and disturbed by tempestuous blasts.”

But the other five wonders have little to distinguish them from other places in the British Isles or even iu Wales itself.

The third wonder—St. Winefride’s Well—certainly has a fine flow of water estimated to be more than a hundred toils a minute, and many claims of miraculous cures have been made. But there, are wells as good .elsewhere. ■ • Perhaps it is a wonder on account of the legend, which says that St. Winefride was chased by a lover who, angry at being repulsed, struck off her head, which rolled dohvn the hill. Where her head rested spurted the spring, and a saint replaced her head on her shoulders, whereupon she was restored to life with but a fine .White line round ber neck as a memento of her adventure.

Llangollen Bridge was the : fourth woiider, and recent : developments in road transport suggest.that to a certain extent the title is not unmerited, for although the bridge was built-in the middle of the fourteenth century by the Bishofl of St. Asaph, its sturdy but artistic... structure still carries heavy traffic without a tremor. .The other three wonders are all gathered round about Wrexham. The best of the three is Wrexham Tower, or Steeple, as it is variously described. It was begun 400 years ago, and is 13<ift. high. No one knows quite why it is. called-a “wonder,” . Some say it is because, it is finest Gothic building in Wales,. others because it rocks in a high wind, and still others because it has no architectural merits and never rocks at all.

However, it .is included in the “seven.” and is, at aiiy rate, better than the other- two—Overton Churchyard and Gresford Bells. Overton lies about six miles south of Wrexham, and has nothing to be proud of except the age and the pieturesqueness of. its churchyard. Gresford. however, four ..miles north of Wrexham, is an interesting place in itself. Not only is it pretty, lint also It lias a tombstone 600 years old. In the churchyard, too. are yew trees thought to be nearly 2000 years old. The bells, 12 in number, used to be accounted the seventh wonder of Wales, but this was a very long time ago. One would have thought that the petrifying spring at Gresford. which hardens branches of trees into rock, would have been more of a wonder. No 0.. t? knows who first called these the Seven Wonders of Wales. He was most likely a native of the Wrexham district, for. with the exception of Snowdon, none of them is further away than 20 miles, and four of them are within a ten-mile' radius of Wrexham!