Corwen
is a town in Denbighshire North
East Wales. It sits at the foot of the Berwyn Mountains on the banks
of the River Dee. The
town is situated between the Welsh Border Lands and the Snowdonia National
Park being some 22 miles east of Betws y Coed, 11 miles west of
Llangollen and 13 miles south of Ruthin. Corwen is best
known for its connections with Owain
Glyndŵr,
sometimes Owen Glendower, the Welsh nobleman who
declared himself Prince of Wales and led the Welsh in their final struggle
for independence from the English. Glyndwr lived close by in Glyndyfrdwy
and the history and reasons for his early 15th century rebellion can
be found here
>. To this day the townspeople of Corwen celebrate their most
famous son and a grand bronze statue was erected in 2007 to commemorate
his deeds.
Due to it's strategic location on a bend in the River Dee the area we
now know as Corwen has been occupied for many thousands of years.
The iron-age hill fort of Caer Drewyn close to Corwen has been
witness to the often violent history of the Dee Valley from Roman
times through to the medieval campaigns of the English Kings and indeed
may have protected Glyndwr himself in the early 15th century.
Close by is Capel Rûg built in 1637 by William Salesbury. The Chapel
contains fine seventeenth-century interior fittings. Salesbury scorned
the plainness of the Puritan Chapels and fortunately for us had the money
to do something about it. He gave free reign to craftsmen and the result
is a collection of fantastic carved screens, pews, and most spectacular
of all is the roof, panelled and coloured from end to end, decked with
cut-out angels, and lined with a frieze of flowers and beasts. A real
poke in the eye for those Puritans who had desecrated so many of the old
Welsh Churches. However we are brought back down to earth by a rare 17th
century wall painting with skeleton, skull and hourglass reminding us
that time flies by and life is short.
The present structure of the town Church of St Mael and St Sulien is
of Norman origin but was founded in the 6th century by the Breton-Welsh
saints Mael and Sulien. The church is an example of the desecration of
the churches mentioned above, this time the vandals were the Victorians
who drastically remodelled the interior in the 19th century. But more
by accident than design the church still has many interesting features
including a preaching cross dating from the 9th century, an ancient 12th
century font, a massive dug-out chest, and the carved memorial to a 14th
century vicar. A prehistoric standing stone has been built into the entrance
porch -‘Carreg y big yn y fach rhewllyd’, ‘the pointed
stone in the icy corner’ – probably indicating that this was
already a pagan sacred site when Mael and Sulien came here.
The lintel above the south door of the church has a mark said to have
been made by Owain Glyndwr`s dagger when he threw it in rage from Pen-y-Pigyn,
the hill behind the church. In the churchyard is the tall shaft of a medieval
cross.
An overgrown mound on the town outskirts is scheduled as a Prehistoric
Round Barrow and also described as a Medieval Motte.
Corwen has always had to bear the influx of strangers being they the
armies of the Romans, the English invaders or the Welsh defenders. In
later times the town became a centre for the cattle drovers en-route
to England. In the early 19th century Corwen was to find itself as a
stopping point on Thomas Telford's magnificent acheivement the A5 road
from Holyhead to London and with the coming of the stage coaches the
people of Corwen welcomed travellers to their picturesque little town.
Today the tourist trade is an important part of the Welsh economy and
Corwen is no exception in offering a warm welcome to a new class of
visitors to Wales ......tourists. Activity holidays and heritage and
culture holidays are ever more popular and Corwen is ideally placed
to benefit from this interest. The county of Denbighshire
itself is awash with history, narrow country lanes lead to historic villages
and market towns and they all seem to have a castle or an ancient church
! They may be off the beaten tourist track but that's part of the pleasure
in exploring this delightful part of Wales. For activity and adventure
enthusiasts Corwen sits between the towns of Ruthin, Llangollen and
Bala. Between them they offer a wide range
of activities including mountain
bike trails, kayaking, canoeing, sailing,
white water rafting, trekking and guided walks into the hills and mountains
of Wales.
