Thursday 16 January 2014

A River Walk at Llanrwst


It might seem a bad time of year to recommend a river walk in Wales. However, this walk has a good hard surface, a  free car park, lots of things of interest and can be done between the showers, as it is of modest length. These photographs date from early December, and it is astonishing to see how much foliage was still on the trees. It would all have gone now!

To view the route in Google Maps, click here.

The best car park to access this route is the free car park behind Glasdir, just off the main road heading north.

The route is well marked with good hard standing and regular seats.

This house is the remains of a leather tanning factory, which apparently stank to high heaven. People often don't realise how, in some ways, life in small towns has improved so remarkably in the last century. Imagine the stink from all the privies and these small factories.

This is Pont Fawr bridge, with its three beautifully proportioned arches. It is dated 1636. At the far end of the bridge is Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge in Welsh) a 17th century court house, now a tea rooms and gift shop owned by the National Trust. 
Tu Hwnt in all its glory on an early autumn day. A mark by the door of the oak beamed parlour records the hight of Conwy river floods in the past. Flooding is not a modern phenomenon! Nearby is the stone Gorsedd circle commemorating the holding of the National Eisteddfod in Llanrwst in 1951.
This is a short walk and it could easily be extended by following the Llanrwst Town Trail walk which takes you along Bridge Street and on to Station Road, which neatly takes you back to Glasdir car park, near the library.

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