Travelling Light

Southland Times, Issue 21560, 25 November 1931, Page 4

Travelling Light

> Gambolling with Money. j

$ To Europe and Back on J * Two Hundred. \

(By

H.K.S.).

ARTICLE XXII. FROM CHESTER TO WALES. A drive of twenty miles took us to Chester next morning. “With its well-preserved walls, its famous rows, its quaint timber houses and its fine cathedral Chester is the most medieval looking town in England and should be omitted by no traveller.” Thus said my Blue Guide. Before we had been half-an-hour in Chester we were ready to endorse this description. We had hoped much from York, Lincoln and other old English towns and had not been disappointed. But Chester was even more medieval and very much cleaner and prettier than the east coast towns. Before I refer to the places of interest which we visited in Chester I feel constrained, even at the risk of growing wearisome, to deal for a moment with its history. The Romans made Chester (or as they called it Castra Devana, the camp on the Dee) the headquarters of the illustrious 20th legion. When the Romans left, the Britons, the Saxons and the Danes successively struggled to keep it from the enemies that beset them. When William the Conqueror was subduing England Chester proved the toughest nut he had to crack. He finally captured it and granted it to his nephew, Hugh Lupus, as a county palatine. In 1237 the earldom of Chester was united with the Crown. To-day it provides one of the titles of the Prince of Wales. Chester was a Royalist stronghold and declared stoutly for Charles I. It was from the walls of Chester that the unfortunate monarch saw his army defeated at Rowton Moor, which lies three miles outside the city. The atmosphere of the ancient town is redolent with these pleasantly musty pages of history. Turn where you may you encounter a church, a house, a street, a bridge or an inn which has its story. Round the City Walls. We began our tour by walking round the walls which entirely enclose tiie old part of the city. A man approached us and invited us to buy postcards. So pleased was he when I took several that he accompanied its for half-a-mile and showed us a spot just below the wall where a few weeks earlier during the making of a new road the remains of a Roman amphitheatre had been discovered. The remains were not very exciting to look at but they must have been regarded as important for the road work was immediately stopped and learned professors rushed to the spot. Continuing our w’alk alone we passed two watch-towers on the wall and saw below us the field where all the plague victims in Chester were buried. A little further on was another open space beneath the walls. This was the Roodee racecourse where since 1540 the Chester Cup has been decided. It rather amused us to observe that members could, step off the walls into their stand. The general public would have no need to pay admission to see the races for in addition to the walls there were many vantage points round the low-lying course. At the south-east angle of the walls are the wishing-steps. If after having completed the circuit of the walls one can run up, down and up the steps without taking breath one will have his wish fulfilled. But what more could one desire than to be in Chester? I therefore refrained from taxing my lungs ami heart. Finally we saw Dee bridge and the weir near which the famous mills of Dee stood. In place of the jolly millers are electrical engineers, for a power station followed the flour mills. I cannot do better in writing of the walls of Chester than conclude with the charming description of Henry James: “The tortuous wall-girdle, long since snapped, of the little swollen city, half held in place by careful civic hands—wanders in narrow file, between parapets smoothed by peaceful generations, pausing here and there for a dismantled gate or a bridged gap, with rises and drops, steps up and steps down, queer twists, queer contacts, keeps into the homely streets and under the brows of gables, views of cathedral tower and waterside fields, of huddled English town and ordered English country.” Chester is famous for its “rows,” the arcades which form continuous passages along the first floor of the old timbered houses. In other towns we saw galleries running from street to backyard of the old houses, fulfilling the duel function of passage and dividing fence. In Chester the builders went one better and put the passages on the first floor. We took photographs of some lovely old houses and inns dating from the days of the Tudors. Then we turned our attention to the cathedral.

It has doors that would grace a iort. This is a characteristic of most English cathedrals and there was probably good reason for it, as churches were by no means immune from attack. Battle-axes would have had a bad time against the doors of Chester cathedral. The—to us — most interesting thing we saw inside tho cathedral was the flag by H.M.S. Chester during the Jutland battle when Boy Cornwell won the Victoria Cross. A church in which the dead were buried upright and a church dating from A.D. 1 were other items in our itinerary. “How on earth can a church in England date from A.D. 1 ?” I asked a guide. “It was originally a pagan church,” was his reply; but I rather mistrust those carved letters “A.D. 1.” Into Wales. It is only half an hour’s run from Chester to the Welsh border. After passing a lot of unsightly smoke stacks and factories we climbed steadily until at the summit of a hill we encountered many notices announcing the fact that we had entered Wales. In the little town of Mold, which completely belies its dull name, we halted for lunch. “Is Welsh or English taught in the schools?” I asked the waitress, who was both pretty and pleasant. She told us that both languages were taught. I remembered how one of the 1905 All Blacks had told me of the effect produced on the team by the massed singing of the huge • crowd which witnessed that oftdebated test match. “’Do the Welsh sing as much as ever ” I asked her. “Oh, yes,” she replied, “they are still very keen. It is wonderful to hear hundreds of them singing 'on a mountainside. But the language. . .” “What, aren’t you Welsh?” I queried. “No, I’m English,” she hastened to assure me.

We were rather surprised to find how many of the waitresses both in Scotland and Wales were English. Our waitress amused us when she spoke of the religious fervour of the Welsh. It did not appeal to her at all, for she was apparently expected by her employers to go to' “chapel” (the Welsh don’t go to “church”) too often for her liking. Just before we finished our meal there was a great bustle in the hotel and ten important looking men walked into the dining room and took their seats at a long table which had obviously been specially prepared for the occasion. “Now you’ll see some fun,” whispered

our waitress as she brought us strawberry tart. “That’s the Board of Education. It’s breaking-up day' in Wold.” We heard the name “Sir George” being freely used and we had no trouble in deducing that the grey-haired, keen faced man at the head of the table answered to the title. Most of the board showed him marked deference; but we could pick out one or two whose attitude showed that they considered they were every bit as good as a baronet. It was a great shock to us when just as the soup was put on the table the ten men stood up and sang a Welsh dirge. We presumed it was grace. I should like tn see the Southland Education Board following this good example, preferably in Gaelic. Apparently in Wales the board members attend all breaking-up ceremonies in their district. The schools have their functions on different days or at different hours to make this possible. We lingered over our lunch, thoroughly enjoying the conversation of the Welshmen who, by the way, did not use their own language save in song. When we emerged from the hotel we discovered it was raining heavily. Now, as luck would have it, I had a few days previously read J. B. Priestley’s “Benighted’ in which he gives the most awe-inspiring picture of a rainstorm in Wales. Had I not read the book I should probably have seen more of Wales, but with his story fresh on my mind and the rain coming down more pitilessly than ever on the hood I decided to modify our plans. We did, however, see some very beautiful parts of Wales that afternoon, though I realize that, the most famous scenery was not included in our re-arranged route. From Wold to Ruthin was full of charm even on a wet afternoon. It wotdd have been strikingly beautiful in sunshine. Wales is all hills and valleys, with many amazing panoramas from the tops of the steep hills. Those Welsh Names. Wo were interested to observe that road notices were printed both in English and in Welsh. The inscriptions on war memorials are in Welsh and many of the shops use only Welsh in their show-cards. How anyone can l>e expected to pronounce Welsh names beats me. Here are two to amuse yourself with: Hwntw; Ffrwd. Through Derwen and Llangollen we passed. Then the sun began to shine and we sat by the roadside and had afternoon tea. Either the tea or the sun must have gone to my head for I got well off the road I meant to follow and we found ourselves in the pretty village of Wrexham, which is not very far from Chester. We photographed a thatched cottage which stood in the main street. Then we sped at a very fast pace (for us) to Shrewsbury, the county town of Shropshire and the birthplace of the “Shrewsbury cakes of Pallin’s own make.” Shrewsbury. There is another rich array of timbered houses in Shrewsbury, some with most interesting associations. We saw the house where Charles Darwin was born, an inn where Farquhar wrote ‘The Recruiting Officer,” the first play ever acted in Australia; and the half-timbered house where Henry VII. (then plain Harry Richmond) lodged on his way to Bosworth Field. Across the river Severn (which almost surrounds the town) is Shrewsbury School, one of the great public schools of England. For its war memorial it has a statue of Sir Philip Sidney, who was one of its early pupils. The names of the streets in Shrewsbury are very quaint. Our hotel was situated in Fish street. Not far distant were Milk Street and Butcher Row. As we strolled around these picturesque narrow streets with their sixteenth century timbered houses we felt many thousands of miles removed from Invercargill and Puni Creek. (To be continued to-morrow.)