Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The town is called after Collen ap Gwynnawg ap Clydawg ap Cowdra ap Caradog Freich-
fras ap Llyr Merim ap Yrth ap Cunedda Wledig. St Collen's church has a carved oak roof
which may have benefited in the 13th century from the skills of craftsmen working on Valle
Crucis Abbey, the church being enlarged in 1865. Also enlarged was one of the Three Jewels
of Wales, the bridge crossing the Dee below Llangollen Town Fall. Begun as a stone pack-
horse bridge in 1282, it was rebuilt in sandstone in its present style about 1500 by John Tre-
vor, Bishop of St Asaph. It was being lengthened to accommodate the railway in 1865 and
widened to 6.1m in 1873 and 11m in 1969, its four arches retaining their pedestrian refuges
over the cutwaters.
A large school is left on the uphill side as the canal moves away on a section rebuilt with
a heavy concrete lining in 1985. This section is narrow and has a long line of moored nar-
rowboats in the summer. Across the river is the Hand Hotel, claimed by Kilvert in the 1870s
to be the only hotel in Wales with a Welsh harp (as distinct from the easier-to-play English
harp). Gale's Wine Bar, along the road, was opened in the mid 1970s, the local paper protest-
ing it was not what Llangollen wanted as it would attract Hell's Angels and the like. With old
church pews for seating and a harpist sometimes playing in the evening, it has done so much
to improve the quality of the town that it has spawned a row of look-alikes.
The canal begins cut into an ivy-clad rock wall above the Serpent's Tail
.
The canal breaks clear of its rock cutting to reveal steep sheep pasture leading up to the
340m peak, topped by Castell Dinas Bran, the castle of the crow, the legendary castle of the
Holy Grail. The home of Gryffudd ap Madoc, son of the founder of Valle Crucis Abbey in the
12-13th centuries, it was 88m x 43m and nearly impregnable but was burned in 1277 by the
Welsh defenders in the war between Llewellyn ap Gryffudd and Edward I. On a clear day it
has views of the peaks of Snowdonia. Behind is the grey carboniferous limestone escarpment
of Creigiau Eglwyseg, packed with fossils.
An old lattice footbridge carries the Offa's Dyke Path over the canal. While the path was
opened in 1971, the dyke was probably built in the 780s to keep the Welsh at bay.
Narrowboat moorings at Trevor are sited in the remains of the Ruabon Branch on what was
to have been the main line from Chester. Trevor Wharf is served by the Telford Inn.
