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Holywell

This attractive town, with two market days on Thursday and Saturday, boasts more than 60 listed buildings dating from Georgian and Victorian times, as well as one of the Seven Wonders of Wales, St Winefride’s Well, sometimes referred to as the ‘Lourdes of Wales’. According to tradition, Winefride, the niece of St Beuno, was beheaded by Prince Caradoc after she rebuffed his advances. Caradoc was struck dead by lightning on
the spot.

It is claimed that a spring gushed from the place where Winefride’s head fell and that she returned to life after her uncle replaced her head. The well has been visited by pilgrims since the 7th century and still is, particularly on St Winefride’s Day, the nearest Saturday to 22 June. People can bathe in the chilly waters as they have for centuries. When Dr Johnson visited in 1774 he was shocked by the lack of privacy – “the bath is completely and indecently open” he noted. “A woman bathed as we all looked on”. Today, the well is housed in the imposing St Winefride’s Chapel, which was built by Margaret Beaufort (the mother of Henry VII) in around 1500 to enclose three sides of the well. The Victorian statue of St Winefride has a thin line round the neck showing where her head was cut off. To accommodate pilgrims visiting the well, the former Pilgrim’s Hospice has been converted into St Winefride’s Guesthouse and is run by an order of nuns.

St Winefride’sWell, and the Vale of Clwyd, were beloved of the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. He trained as a priest at St Beuno’s College, Tremeirchion, and the area inspired him to write a verse tragedy, which contains many beautiful, evocative lines:

The dry dene, now no longer dry nor dumb, but moist and musical.
With the uproll and downcarol of day and night delivering water.

On Wales in general he was equally lyrical:

Lovely the woods, water, meadows, combes, vales,
All the air things wear that build this world of Wales.

Basingwerk Abbey, to the east of Holywell, was built by Cistercian monks in 1132. The abbey functioned as a self-sufficient community, as the Cistercians lay great emphasis upon agricultural labour. Although this was an English house, Basingwerk absorbed Welsh culture and the Welsh bard, Gutun Owain, was associated with the abbey from where he wrote The Chronicle of Princes, which is also known as the Black Book of Basingwerk.

The abbey survived until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century. In a tranquil setting that contrasts with the busy roads not far away, this magnificent ruin contains an arch that, despite weather-beaten columns and a faded ‘message of love’, is a fine example of Norman ecclesiastical architecture.

Linking Holywell with the ruins of the abbey is the Greenfield Valley Heritage and Country Park (see panel above), a 70-acre area of pleasant woodland and lakeside walks with a wealth of monuments and agricultural and industrial history. There are animals to feed, an adventure playground and picnic areas.