From Edinburgh, we traveled nearly straight south across the Scottish Lowlands to the border town of Gretna Green. This was where English couples who wanted to marry, but were underage, could get hitched at the blacksmith shop. This was because England had laws regarding age and parental permission while, in Scotland, a boy could marry at 14 and a girl at 12, with or without parental permission. Since Gretna Green was the most easily accessed town directly across the border, it became a popular place for elopement from the 1700s on. It’s still a popular place for weddings because of the romantic idea of the place.
From Gretna Green, we crossed into England, skirted Carlisle, and headed for the Lake District. Our destination was Lake Windermere for lunch and a boat ride. It was a beautiful day, so we had a great time tooling around the lake (which is the largest natural lake in England) and then having some lunch at a café on its shore. Then we were off to Chester, taking the M6 down in between Liverpool and Manchester. My maternal grandmother’s father’s family came from Oldham, which is now a suburb of Manchester. But we were heading for where my maternal grandmother’s mother was from – Caernarfon, Wales.
Before we got there, we spent some time in Chester, which was founded as a Roman fort in roughly 79AD. With a wealth of medieval buildings, Chester is one of the best preserved walled cities in Britain. After the Romans left, it became a Saxon city and the walls were strengthened. A walk along the walls shows the medieval parts of town as well as some of the Roman ruins. It takes quite some time to get around the entire walled in part of the city, so we only walked along a portion of the walls. Another thing about Chester is that the main medieval shopping area of the city has galleries up one level from the street that people can use to travel from shop to shop without ever going back down to street level. A forerunner of the skyway system we have in Minneapolis called “The Rows”. We spent the night across the Welsh border in Wrexham.
The next day, our Tour Director let Mom (whose name was a very Welsh “Gwendolyn”) and I sit up front in the tour coach so we could see everything as we entered Caernarfon. The town was originally Roman and became part of the Kingdom of Gwynedd in 382 after the Romans left. In the 13th century, King Edward I conquered Wales and built Caernarfon Castle.
Our Tour Director told us that the Welsh dragon was originally the standard of one of the Roman Legions. But when the Welsh defeated that particular legion, they took the standard and incorporated the dragon as their own. Of course when King Edward I conquered Wales, he liberally used the image of St George (patron saint of England) slaying the dragon.
Mom and I toured the castle before getting lunch at a café not too far from the castle. Although the castle is a ruin and parts of it were never completed, the walls are pretty much intact and the entire place is quite large. There are parts of the walls that can still be explored, including a couple of the towers. We explored every part of it we could.
In 1969, the Investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales took place at Caernarfon Castle. The large, black disc upon which this ceremony took place is still there and can be seen not too far from where Mom and I are posing for a photo together.
After our lunch, we still had some time, so we explored the town a little more and found a shop where we could buy a large Welsh flag (which currently hangs in my enclosed porch, along with a Scottish flag and a Union Jack). We were tickled to hear several people speaking in Welsh. Had no clue what they were saying, but loved the musicality of the language. My grandmother had said that she used to hear one phrase a lot as a girl. This was “cau eich ceg” which means “shut your mouth”. She also knew “Siarad Cymraeg?” which means “Speak Welsh?” But I wasn’t going to use either one while we were there. The one would be insulting and the other I wouldn’t be able to respond if someone answered in the affirmative. So I kept that tiny bit of Welsh language to myself.
After rejoining our tour, we traveled onto the Isle of Anglesey where we stopped off in a town called Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. I cannot even begin to try to pronounce that one – far too many consonants and nowhere near enough vowels. It involves a lot of clearing of the throat and a certain amount of spitting. What it means, though, is “St Mary’s Church in the Hollow of the White Hazel Near to the Rapid Whirlpool of Llantysilio of the Red Cave”. Got that? Good. There will be a quiz later.
We traveled across the Isle of Anglesey, took a bridge to the Holy Island to Holyhead and there took a very large ferry, called the Jonathan Swift to Dublin. That is where the story continues the next time.
