of considerable volume. Its principal tributaries between Rhaiadyr and this place, are the Elian, the Ithon, and the Yrfon; the last of which is celebrated by the defeat of Llewellin in 1282, which took place at the spot where the little river is crossed by a bridge, just before it falls into the Wye, above Builth.
This part of the country, however, is completely secluded. There never was, so far as we know, a public conveyance between Rhaiadyr and Builth; and at the latter town, at this season of the year—although it is still early in October—the traveller will find no means of communication with the rest of the world, except for those who journey with post horses, and those who make use of the locomotive powers of their own limbs.
Builth is finely situated, its narrow streets rising in irregular terraces on the side of a hill on the right bank of the Wye. The houses are as Welsh as can be, and have a primitive, old world look, that has a great charm in our eyes. The town is approached by a stone bridge of considerable length; at the end of which, on the left hand, are some mounds of grass and ivy, which conceal the remains of a castle supposed to date from the eleventh century. All, however, is conjecture as regards this castle, which was a small fortress, with a keep of forty yards in circumference, surrounded by a ditch, and defended towards the south by two trenches. It was repaired in 1209, by Gilbert, Earl of Gloucester; after the death of Llewellin, it became an English fortress; and in 1690, was accidentally destroyed by a fire, which at the same time consumed the greater part of the town. Builth, however, is older than its castle. It is set down by the learned as the Bullæum Silurum of the Romans; and various druidical remains in the neighbourhood carry back the ken of the antiquarian to a still more remote epoch, which is lost in shadows.
It was in this neighbourhood, as we have said, that Llewellin, the last of the Welsh princes, was defeated and slain in 1282. Tradition relates, that while at Aberedw, a short distance down the river, on the opposite bank, he was surprised by the English, and escaped so narrowly, that he had only just time to pass the drawbridge of Builth, before his pursuers came up. The English, however, succeeded in cutting him off from his army, by getting between the town and a village on the right bank of the Wye where it was posted. Llewellin, upon this, attempted to conceal himself in the woods, but he was discovered, and beheaded, and his body buried at a place called Cern y Bedd.
The air of Builth is supposed to be very salubrious, and for this reason many respectable families have chosen it for their residence. The abundance of game in its woods and hills, and of trout, salmon, and grayling in its streams is another inducement, and probably the cause of the good health of its visitors. In this neighbourhood are mineral springs of three kinds,—saline, sulphurous, and chalybeate,—and a pump-room, frequently attended by a numerous company.
From a hill above the town is obtained a fine view of the Llynsyraddon, the largest lake in Wales except Bala. The country people believe that its bed was formerly the site of a city; and, as in Ireland, Brittany, and other places where a similar tradition prevails, they still see the towers of old “’neath the calm, cold wave reclining.” Giraldus calls the lake Clamosam, from the “terrible thundering noise it makes upon the breaking up of the ice in winter.”
The valley of the Wye is less wild after passing Builth, but more beautiful. After the fourth milestone, there is a magnificent specimen of a formation of the hills which may be said to be the grand peculiarity of this district. It consists of a massive range on the opposite bank, laid out in square terraces, such as Martin delights to heap on each other in his pictures. But here, where Nature is the builder, these masses of architecture are of rough, disjointed stones, hoary with age, and sometimes overgrown with moss and lichens. On the right bank where we stood, a small house is built just above the road, as if to enjoy the picture; and, a little further on, another of more aristocratic pretensions. A view, including a portion of the latter—the green, smooth-shaven pastures which answer for a lawn and extend to the water’s edge—the Wye foaming and brawling at the bottom, half hidden by trees of the deepest shadow—with the castellated mount beyond, and the sweep of the valley closed in by hills to the left—would form a whole, which Gilpin, with the dogmatism of art, might call “correctly picturesque.”
A little further on, we had an opportunity of inspecting these rocks more closely, which are only remarkable from the forms they assume. In the instance before us, they were two immense cubes of stone, as precise as if ruled by the square, and cut with the chisel. They stood exactly horizontal with the ground, and the upper was of smaller proportions than the lower. No other rock or even stone was near. At some distance another entirely insulated mass presented itself, as large as a cottage of two stories, with walls as perpendicular, and secluded like a cottage by trees.
The small village of Glasbury presents a view well worth notice. This is particularly the case at Maeslough Hall, where Gilpin characterises the scenery as “wonderfully amusing,” declaring that the situation is one of the finest in Wales. On passing the seventh milestone, the valley spreads out into a wide plain bounded by an amphitheatre of hills; and as we proceed, numerous villas peeping through the trees, show that we have now left entirely behind us the peculiarities of Welsh scenery, and are again on the borders of merry England. As we approach the Hay, the aristocratical buildings become more numerous, and the romance of the scene diminishes, till at length we enter a small, but neat and comfortable-looking town.
The Hay has some historical associations of the doings of Llewellin and King John, by the latter of whom its castle was destroyed in 1216; but with the exception of a Gothic gateway there are no remains to interest the antiquarian. There are said, indeed, to be the fragments of some Roman fortifications; but we are something like Sir Walter Scott in this respect, who had seen so many ghosts, that at last he found it difficult to believe in them. Tradition relates that the castle was built in one night by the celebrated Maud de Saint Wallery, alias Maud de Hain, alias Moll Walbee. “She built (say the gossips),” as we find in Jones’s Brecknock, “the castle of Hay in one night: the stones for which she carried in her apron. While she was thus employed, a small pebble, of about nine feet long, and one foot thick, dropped into her shoe. This she did not at first regard; but in a short time, finding it troublesome, she indignantly threw it over the river Wye into Llowes churchyard in Radnorshire (about three miles off), where it remains to this day, precisely in the position it fell, a stubborn memorial of the historical fact, to the utter confusion of all sceptics and unbelievers.”
Between Builth and the Hay ends one series of the beauties of the Wye. The stream hitherto is a mountain rivulet, sometimes almost a torrent, and its characteristics are wildness and simplicity. Its course is impeded by rocks, amidst which it runs brawling and foaming; and, generally speaking, it depends upon itself, and upon the nature of its own bed for the picturesque, the hills around forming only the back ground. We shall see, as we get on, the manner in which this will change, till the banks become the objects of admiration, and the stream itself, although much increased in volume, is considered a mere adjunct, and its bosom a convenient site from which to view them.
Gilpin’s observations on this point are very judicious, although he had not the advantage of seeing with his own eyes the upper part of the Wye. “It is possible, I think,” says he, “the Wye may in this place (alluding to the country between Builth and the Hay) be more beautiful than in any other part of its course. Between Ross and Chepstow, the grandeur and beauty of its banks are its chief praise. The river itself has no other merit than that of a winding surface of smooth water. But here, added to the same decoration from its banks, the Wye itself assumes a more beautiful character; pouring over shelving rocks, and forming itself into eddies and cascades, which a solemn parading stream through a flat channel cannot exhibit. An additional merit also accrues to such a river from the different forms it assumes according to the fulness or emptiness of the stream. There are rocks of all shapes and sizes, which continually vary the appearance of the water, as it rushes over or plays among them; so that such a river, to a picturesque eye, is a continued fund of new entertainment.”
CHAPTER III.
