Say, ivy’d Valle Crucis; time decay’d Dim on the brink of Deva’s wandering floods, Your ivy’d arch glittering through the tangled shade, Your gray hills towering o’er your night of woods; Deep in the vale recesses as you stand, And, desolately great, the rising sigh command: Say, lonely ruin’d pile, when former years Saw your pale train at midnight altars bow, Saw superstition frown upon the tears That mourn’d the rash, irrevocable vow, Were one young lip gay Eleanora’s { 77} smile? Did “Zara’s look serene one tedious hour beguile?”
The foundation of the Cistercian Abbey of Valle Crucis is attributed to Gryffydd ap Madoc Maelor, Lord of Bromfield and Yale, about the year 1200; considerable parts of both church and abbey still remain. The former was cruciformed, and exhibits several styles of architecture. The eastern end is the most ancient; it is adorned by three lancet slips, forming one grand window. The entrance was in the west beneath a broad and beautifully ornamented window, above which is a smaller one of a marigold form, decorated with tracery and fret work, and under it may be discovered the following inscription:
A.D.A.M. D.N.S.—fecit hoc opus, pace beatâ quiescat. Amen.
The abbey and cloisters are more imperfect, the latter evidently built in a rich and ornamental style of architecture, well calculated to shed a “dim religious light,” but now desecrated into a farm house and offices.
RHUTHYN, or (Rhudd-Din, the red fort), is placed upon a gentle eminence on the south side of the vale of Clwyd, backed by wooded hills, and is one of the best and most agreeable towns in North Wales. It has undergone much modern improvement, and is possessed of several ancient endowments and privileges. The great sessions for the county are held here in a very elegant modern hall, faced with cut stone, and accurately finished in the interior. The church is spacious and architectural, designed and finished in an excellent style. A range of alms houses surround the churchyard, and represent the ancient hospital; and adjacent to the mansion of the warden is the free school, richly endowed by Gabriel Goodman, D.D. whose monument is set up against the north wall of the church.
Some doubt appears to exist as to the foundation of a castle here anciently, the Welsh name “Castell gôch yn gwernfor,” indicating a fortress of earlier date than any erected by the Saxons. The general belief, however, is, that Reginald de Grey, second son of Lord Grey de Wilton, had a grant of the lordship of Rhuthyn, then embracing nearly the whole vale of Clwyd, as a reward for his services in reducing the ancient Britons. This great captain built the noble castle and enclosed the town, and, to secure the quiet enjoyment of his grant, did homage to Edward the Second at Chester in the year 1301. A drawing preserved amongst the manuscripts in the British Museum exhibits the magnitude and stateliness of De Grey’s castle, and fully justifies the wordy description of the honest Churchyard: