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Llanrwst b&b, guesthouse and hotel accommodation

Visit Llanrwst and the surrounding villages and stay in bed & breakfast accommodation:

Llanrwst, Conwy. is a smallish market town on the Conway river, it is supposedly dedicated to St Restitutus, under a Welsh form of his name, Grwst. The church, in the dominating position inevitable throughout this land of early sainthood, is of comparatively Late Perpendicular form, owing much to the expansion of ecclesiastical architecture in Wales that followed the accession of Henry Tudor to the English throne. But it contains, from earlier times, the great stone coffin holding the stone effigy of the Llywelyn known as the son of Iorwerth, a prince who wrested control of the province of Gwynedd — or, as the 18^th century began to call it, Snowdonia — from all competitors and asserted himself equally in the politics of England. He married the daughter of the unlucky King John, and set his signature on Magna Carta in 1215; for that document established the rights of Welshmen and Scotsmen no less than those of English barons, burghers, and freemen, under the doctrine of the natural justice they were all entitled to claim. The Gwydir Chapel, built under the direction of the Wynn family in 1633, has monuments of its distinguished members, but is of greater importance through being attributed to the great Welsh architect, Inigo Jones. To him also is attributed the bridge that spans the Conway and is dated 1636; it has an unusually bold and balanced structure. It rises sharply, almost to a point at the centre height, as was customary in his day, and yet the harmony between its length and the span of its three arches is too striking to be assigned to some merely competent designer.

The attribution has, as sometimes happens, no more than traditional support. The same tradition insists that he came either from Llanrwst or its immediate district. Much of his early life is obscure. Born in 1573 and dying in 1652, he is first mentioned in a document of 1603 as an artist; his earliest employment seems to have been as a man skilled in antiquities, for he acted as adviser to the Earl of Arundel, and his journeys in France, Italy, and Germany to discover and buy objects of the sort seem to have laid the foundation for his achievement as an architect. The Banqueting House at Whitehall, the recasing of the nave and transepts of Old St Paul's in London, the Queen's House at Greenwich, and the town-planning designs for Covent Garden and Lincoln's Inn Fields are some of his better-known works. But, before these, he designed the settings for the production of Ben Jonson's Masque of Hymen in 1606. His importance as the first and perhaps the greatest British architect is recognized; he is less well appreciated as the earliest practitioner of stage design, moving from the bare boards of Shakespeare's “wooden O” to the re-creation of the living world within the theatre.

On the opposite bank of the river, what was once the Tudor mansion of Gwydir Castle (1555), burnt out in the 1920s, stands restored. The Gwydir Uchaf chapel has a painted ceiling.

About 2 miles to the West of Llanrwst is another church, that of Llanrhychwyn. It has some connection with Llanrwst, since its church is called Llywelyn's Old Church. It is of very early type, and relates to the earliest of Christian foundations in this area. But its font, a square tub set on a pair of stone steps, dates it to a period shortly after the Norman conquest of England when such things first began to be used.

Nearby towns: Bethesda, Colwyn Bay, Conwy, Corwen, Denbigh, Penmaenmawr

Nearby villages: Aber, Betws-y-Coed, Betws-yn-Rhos, Caerhun, Capel Garmon, Capel Curig, Cerrigydrudion, Colwyn, Dalgarrog, Dinorben, Dolwyddelan, Eglwysbach, Gwytherin, Llanbedr-y-Cennin, Llanddoged, Llanelian-yn-Rhos, Llanfair Talhaiarn, Llanfairfechan, Llangelynin, Llangernyw, Llansannan, Llysfaen, Penmachno, Pentrefoelas, Tal-y-Cafn, Trefriw

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