Cribyn & N escarpment
from Pen y Fan98 The Great OutdoorsAugust 2019
Snowdon’s venerable head,
That rose amid his
mountains.
Some years later, exiled
from his Yorkshire homeland
after being dismissed by
his employer, Rev. Edmund
Robinson – ostensibly for
having had an affair with
the reverend’s wife – the
much-maligned Branwell
Brontë sought refuge with
his friend and companion
John Brown in the town of
Liverpool. Perhaps in an
attempt to distract Branwell
from the despondency that
had possessed him, Brown
arranged a trip on a steamer
from Liverpool along the
North Wales coast. From
the boat Branwell made a
sketch of Penmaenmawr
Mountain and some months
later, inspired by the grandeur
of the coastline, penned the
poem Penmaenmawr, a thinly
veiled declaration of love to
the estranged Lydia Robinson.
The poem, which was
published in the Halifax
Guardian, contains the
following lines:
Oh soul! that draw’st yon
mighty hill and me
Into communion of vague
unity,
That fronts the storm, as
much unbroken now
As when it once upheld the
fortress proud,
Now gone, like its own
morning cap of cloud?
The line “As when it once
upheld the fortress proud”
refers to the destruction of the
Iron Age hill fort of Braich-
y-Dinas, a consequence of
extensive quarrying for diorite
rock, which began in 1830 and
was thus well advanced by the
time Branwell made his voyage.
Prior to quarrying, Braich-
y-Dinas was considered to beone of the largest and best-
preserved Iron Age hill forts
in Europe. Evidence given
to the Royal Commission on
the Ancient and Historical
Monuments of Wales in
February 1912 did nothing to
deter the Darbishire family,
who owned the quarry, from
obliterating every trace of the
fort by the 1930s, undoubtedly
one of the most heinous acts of
vandalism perpetrated on the
people of Wales.
In his play Under Milk
Wood, Dylan Thomas makes
reference to the defiance of
Penmaenmawr in the words of
the Rev. Eli Jenkins, who every
morning recites his poetry
aloud to the awakening town.
Defiant Penmaenmawr still
stands above the waters of the
Menai Strait, notwithstanding
the wanton destruction levied
against it by the industrialists
of the 19th Century.Further information
Maps: OS 1:25,000
Explorer sheet OL17
(Snowdon/Yr Wyddfa)Transport: Regular train
and bus services to Conwyi
Information: Conwy TIC,
01492 577566,
visitllandudno.org.uk[Captions clockwise from top]
View from Castell Caer Seion
looking south towards the Vale
of Conwy; Pen-pyra settlement
below Allt Wen; Bronze Age
stone circle on Cefn Coch, below
Tal y Fan