Llewelyn ap Iorwerth in Lancaster Square, Conwy

From the Welcome to Conwy site:

Lancaster Square is the town square in the centre of Conwy. It hosts several festivals and events each and every year. In 2013 it held the start of the famous Wales Rally GB. 

In the centre of Lancaster Square is a statue of Llewelyn ap Iorwerth (or Llewelyn the Great) who stands proudly above a fountain painted in his heritage colours. 

The writing that is in scripted on the fountain says that Llewelyn founded Aberconwy Abbey in 1186, some even say that Llewellyn founded the town himself. 

The bronze statue was created by a man named E.O Griffith in 1898 and was commemorated to introduce the towns water supply. 

Llewelyn was said to be born in Dolwyddelan Castle in 1173 and raised in Powys. By the age of 10, Llewelyn had begun his military career and in 1201 he had successfully conquered Gwynedd. 

In 1209, Llewelyn became the first Welsh leader to join an English King on a campaign outside Wales, they would join together and try to defeat William I of Scotland.

I took this photograph of the statue on holiday in 2010.

Llandudno Junction: The end of my holiday

What with it being December and there being snow on the ground, it is time I finished my What I Did On My Holidays posts.

Conwy station has the shortest platforms I have ever seen and few trains, so it was easier to get a taxi over the bridge to Llandudno Junction to start my journey home from there. When I arrived, this steam locomotive was shunting in the station.

And so home to Market Harborough.

Plas Mawr, Conwy

This is Plas Mawr in Conwy, whose guidebook tells you it has been described is the finest Elizabethan townhouse in Britain.

It has recently been restored by Cadw, and the interior plaster work is spectacular. The guided tour gives you the impression that the whole thing was built in the latest style. In fact, it was ever so slightly nouveau riche.

The newsreel I posted the other day has a glimpse of Plas Mawr before the brick frontage was rendered.

Another photo of Conwy's town walls

British Pathe visits Conwy in 1941

In 1941 British Pathe visited Conwy, where I finished my holiday last summer. Click on the picture above to see the newsreel.

Of particular interest is the Tudor house Plas Mawr, which I shall show you another day. It has been restored and the outside walls have been rendered, as they would have been when it was first built, making it look very different from how it appeared in 1941.

The mock Tudor front (brick rather than black and white) the town's Castle Hotel was given in the 19th century to match Plas Mawr now looks quite out of place.

Conwy

From Blaenau Ffestiniog I took the railway to Conwy, a perfect walled town with a huge Medieval castle:

The first time that visitors catch sight of the castle, commanding a rock above the Conwy Estuary and demanding as much attention as the dramatic Snowdonia skyline behind it, they know they are in the presence of a historic site which still casts a powerful spell.

Conwy, constructed by the English monarch Edward I between 1283 and 1289 as one of the key fortresses in his 'iron ring' of castles to contain the Welsh, was built to prompt such a humbling reaction.

It is equally impressive glimpsed across the river as the train takes you to Llandudno Junction.