Fabulous Walking Festival at CorwenRhug

Over 200 people attended Corwen Walking Festival last weekend. There was a huge variety of walks - a town trail, a hill fort walk, and some really challenging walks along the Berwyn Way. There were skills lectures and kit demonstrations. Also of course, our own geocaching walk. On Sunday afternoon, I chose the Rhug Estate Historical Walk. The Rhug Estate comprises 2500 acres and has been in the same family for many hundreds of years, and this was an opportunity to get to see historic places which are not normally open to the public. 

There was a lot of local interest and 21 people went on this walk.

This walks was professionally led by Sarah Jones, who has lived all her life in the Corwen area, and is now a Green Badge Tourist Guide, trading as Dee Valley Heritage Tours. Here we are being told about the Corwen Creamery that closed in the 1960s. It had been built by Sarah's father during the war.

This is a wooden sculpture formed from a dead tree.

Which one is Iago Prydderch?

This is Sarah explaining the stone (which is marked as a memorial to some dearly loved family horses) and the mound behind her which is now an active rabbit warren. 3000 years ago it was created by Bronze Age builders and used as a burial site.

This is the same mound seen from the north. The apparent entrance was made in Victorian times when it was decided to convert the mound into an ice house - a particularly brutal piece of archaeological vandalism, because it destroyed all the contents.

Rhug Hall, now lived in by Jenny, Lady Newborough. It was once twice the size and with a large conservatory at one end. The last Lord Newborough, Mickey Wynn, cut it down to size in the 1950s to try to make a more manageable property.