I have before stated that the river Ceiriog runs through part of the domain; and it is made to contribute much to its beauty. It passes through a deep and thickly wooded dingle, and a rural and shady walk winds along the glen to another entrance lodge, about half a mile from Chirk. The way is enlivened by game springing before you at every step, and rousing the attention from that soothing melancholy which the umbrageous solemnity of the walk is calculated to inspire.
There are four lodges, or gates of entrance into the domain, inhabited by some of his Lordship’s dependents. They are all built in an ornamental and romantic style; but about them, though so varied in design, there are no disjointed or distorted features to offend the most fastidious.
“And that which all fair work doth much aggrace, The art which wrought it all appeareth in no place.”
Brynkinallt, as well as Chirk, is on the English side of Offa’s Dyke, to which I shall now return on my way to the Berwyn Mountains; observing by the bye, that although this part of the country is called Wales, yet that Offa’s Dyke, made in the year 776, cut it off from the Principality, and John of Salisbury, in his Polycraticon, writeth thus:—“Harold ordained a law, that what Welchman soever should be found with a weapon on this side the limit which he had set them (that is to say, Offa’s Dyke,) he should have his right hand cut off by the King’s officers.” { 24} So, as Harold II. reigned nearly three hundred years after the Dyke was cut, it is plain, by this law, that it continued to be considered the line of demarcation at that time; and even to this day the bell of vassalage, the curfew, is rung every night at Chirk, that is, on the English side the Dyke; but is never heard at Llangollen, which is on the Welch side. This goes far to prove that William’s English law reached Chirk, and no farther. Leaving the Dyke, I now return to the Berwyn Mountains.
“Clouds rest on the hills: spirits fly, and travellers fear.
“Where are our chiefs of old? Where our Kings of mighty name? The fields of their battle are silent: scarce their mossy tombs remain.”
Returning towards Llangollen by the old road near Chirk Castle, called Oswestry way, the Berwyn Mountains begin to raise their lofty summits. { 25} These Mountains occupy the eastern side of Merionethshire, and branch into the counties of Denbigh and Montgomery. Their southern boundary is the river Tannant; their northern the Dee. Their length from north to south is about sixteen miles; their breadth from east to west varying from five to ten miles. { 26a} Their highest tops are Cader Fronwen, or the Whitebreast, and Cader Ferwyn. On the summit of the former a large quantity of stones, collected from a distance, and brought here with much labour and difficulty, are cast round a stone pillar, marking the burial-place of some chief, whose very name is now forgotten.