magnificent red kite is now a common sight in many parts of Central Wales (Image authorised for common usage)
Welsh chapels: the other iconic buildings of Wales
Apart from its magnificent castles, Wales’ other iconic buildings are its chapels, and you will see hundreds of examples while cycling through the country. Up until the Toleration Act 1689 was passed, it was illegal for dissenters to meet for worship, so many congregations met secretly in remote houses and barns. But from the end of the 17th century until the early 20th century, congregations built around 10,000 chapels, often financing their construction with loans that took decades to pay off. Initially, the chapels were quite plain but once the congregations started to commission architects, the chapels began to reflect the height of fashion, particularly during the later Victorian era when it became quite common to amalgamate all manner of influences into ornate gable end walls. Many were also rebuilt or remodelled to accommodate a growing congregation, often through the addition of a gallery that had been cleverly allowed for in the original design.
Some still maintain a thriving congregation but many have been converted for residential or commercial use, such as Libanus Chapel in Borth, which has been turned into a cinema and bistro. Others stand empty and strangely silent, waiting for someone to rescue them from creeping dereliction and potential demolition. See www.welshchapels.org for further information and an interactive map that provides more details about each of the chapels along the route.
The page opposite shows six chapels of different styles that you will pass while riding around Wales.
Henllan Baptist Chapel (top left), in the Vale of Eywas on Stage 11, was built in 1865 in the Vernacular style with a single door on the gable end.
Blaen-y-Cefn Methodist Chapel (top right), just north of Cardigan on Stage 4, was built in 1808. It was rebuilt in 1837 in the Simple Round-Headed style with separate doors for men and women along the long wall. Traditionally, the men sat in the pews to the right of the minister and the women and children sat in the pews to his left, with the interior layout designed so the minister could see everyone.
Llanfairfechan Methodist Chapel (centre left) on Stage 9 was built sometime before 1897 using corrugated iron. It is still in use and is known locally as ‘Capel Sinc’.
Bryn Seion Methodist Chapel (centre right), near the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct on Stage 9, was built in the Classical style in 1902 using locally made red brick. The Grade II listed building has been sympathetically converted into a cycle-friendly café and bistro.
Seion Welsh Independent Chapel (bottom left), situated in Baker Street, Aberystwyth on Stage 5, was built in the Italianate Classical style in 1876 by the Welsh-born architect Richard Owens (1831–1891), whose Liverpool-based practice was responsible for 250–300 chapels, largely in North Wales. Owens was by no means the most prolific of the known chapel architects, though, as his contemporary, the largely self-taught Welsh Independent minister, Thomas Thomas (1817–1888) is reputed to have played a part in the building, restoration or extension of some 1000 chapels throughout Wales. It is thought that he delivered the first sermon in each of the chapels he was involved with. However, after an illustrious career he was forced into semi-retirement when it was revealed that he owned almost 40 properties around Swansea that were used as brothels.
Zion English Presbyterian Church (bottom right), located in Mansel Street, Carmarthen on Stage 2, was built in the Classical style in 1850 by the architect RG Thomas (1820–1883) of Newport. It remains in use and is now a Grade II listed building.
Different types of chapels on the route
As the route is circular you can start and finish your tour at any point along the way. Detailed information is provided on the rail services you can use to get to and from the towns chosen for the start and finish of each stage, most of which are on the rail network. Although it is always best to follow the advice of the particular train operator, taking bikes on trains in Wales is typically far easier than in other parts of the UK, so you can leave the car at home.
Convenient access by rail also means you can split a circumnavigation across two or more tours starting and finishing at stations on or near the route. The additional cross routes, which all start and finish at towns served by rail, mean you can also plan shorter tours that are easy to get to without using a vehicle. A number of shorter tours are suggested in this guide, but you can easily use the detailed information provided to plan your own route to fit the time you have available.
George Borrow: Wales’s greatest traveller
On the morning of 29 July 1854 the Victorian travel writer, George Borrow, set out from Chester and walked on a circuitous route around Wales, while his wife and stepdaughter used coaches and the newly opened railways to hop between inns along the way. Despite his 51 years and his snow-white hair, Borrow was upright and athletic and would continue to ride horses and swim outdoors into his seventies, also undertaking long walks at a brisk pace that lasted for many weeks. He recounted his travels in the book Wild Wales, which remains in print over 150 years after it was first published in 1862. Throughout his life Barrow had three main interests: languages, legends and Romany gypsies, and he was able to indulge himself in all three during his walking holiday in Wales.
Before his late marriage, Borrow had worked overseas for the Bible Society and was fluent in Russian, Spanish and Portuguese. But many of the other languages he claimed to speak he learnt from books, so his understanding of their grammar and pronunciation was probably rudimentary at best. He learnt Welsh by comparing a translation of John Milton’s Paradise Lost by the Welsh antiquarian and grammarian William Owen Pughe (1759–1835) with the original English verse. He supplemented this with some oral coaching from ‘Taffy’ Lloyd, a Welsh-born ostler employed by William Simpson at the Norwich solicitors where he had served a legal apprenticeship while in his teens. Taffy’s tuition was not the best, and 30 years later when Borrow got to try out his Welsh on locals, those in North Wales thought he must originate from South Wales and those in South Wales thought he must originate from North Wales, while others thought he was a Breton.
Borrow died in 1881, four years before the introduction of the safety bicycle, which is now recognized as the catalyst in cycling becoming a popular pastime. But if they had arrived on the scene during his lifetime, I feel sure he would have ridden one, delighting in the speed with which he could travel and the fact that it was all due to his own physical effort. I considered following the route Borrow travelled in Wild Wales by bike as it would be fascinating to compare what he saw and described with what can be seen today, using the early Ordnance Survey maps to follow his route and Victorian censuses and parish records to identify the people he met. However this is hardly feasible as many of the rutted roads that Borrow walked along are now busy trunk roads, but I will share his observations of some of the places he visited in 1854 in the route descriptions.
Why cycle around Wales?
A circumnavigation of Wales covers the entire country from the industrial south to the sea cliffs of Pembrokeshire, passing through wild mountains and along green valleys, where some of the events that shaped Wales took place. In addition to the beautiful, varied landscape, there is great satisfaction in doing a ride that circumnavigates a country, taking in its history and industrial heritage as well as the less-visited and sparsely populated areas along the border.
The route makes extensive use of traffic-free, shared-use paths, particularly through the cities and towns along the south and north coasts, and uses waymarked National Cycle Routes that run along the coast or down the border wherever possible. This makes route-finding much easier. However,
