Cardinal Spins 8: West – Day 2

Chester was a great diversion for a day’s entertainment and history lesson. It is Britain’s only completely walled city where you can walk around the whole 2.2 miles uninterrupted. Even York, which has slightly longer city walls, has a section missing. This perambulation gives you a great view of the Roman street layout from above, and gets you familiar with a lot of what it contains. The whole place is built with red sandstone, which is nowhere more evident than its massive, square towered cathedral, which sits in the north east corner of the walled city.

We managed to spend a lot of our time there because, as well as being a beautiful mediaeval building, it contained two unexpected exhibitions. The first was a display of unusual glass animals that were placed all around the beautiful garden inside the peaceful cathedral cloisters. The second, which had us enthralled for ages, was occupying much of the nave. Unlikely as it sounds, there was the biggest model railway layout I have ever seen, all belonging to a certain Pete Waterman (yes, he of the awful 80s and 90s pop music), who was in attendance, along with several members of his club of enthusiasts. Anyone could have a free go at driving a train, and they had live digital departure boards for all their locomotive movements!

The icing on the cake for me was a large and incredibly detailed Lego model of Chester cathedral that had taken many people several months to make. Even the inside of the Lego building was accurate. I love things like this.

We went for a boat trip up the River Dee and had a lovely Greek meal outside in the upper tier of Chester’s famous double decker “Rows” shops, in the heart of the old city. We missed out on climbing the cathedral tower and seeing inside ancient St John’s church, so there is more to go back for next time. But Chester gave us plenty to enjoy this time around.

The next morning I had to get away straight after an early breakfast, because I had over 90 miles to cycle along the North Wales coast to reach Holyhead, on the far side of Anglesey, to catch my train home. I don’t really like racing against the clock, especially when the race begins before you even start riding! I knew it was doable; but the weather forecast was showing a strong chance of rain in the afternoon, and I wanted to leave time to sit that out if it came. But I left along the banks of the River Dee in fine weather, with a southerly wind pushing me along very nicely.

I entered Wales on the riverside bike path in the first couple of miles and managed to avoid traffic altogether until I reached Fflint. I knew that would not be possible all the way; but there is an excellent bike route, NCN 5, that hugs the coast all the way to Bangor and it was the obvious choice, so I was willing to ride a few miles of road to get there as soon as I could. In the event, it was indeed only a few miles of main road, as far as Talacre, where the Dee becomes the sea opposite the end of the Wirral, and it not very busy at all. And after that, I was riding though sand dunes and along bracing sea walls and promenades all the way.

The excellent cycle route along the coast, almost entirely beyond the reach of cars, takes you through the coastal parts of Prestatyn, Rhyl, Abergele, Colwyn Bay and Rhos-on-Sea. I have nostalgic connections to this area, because it was home to my grandparents throughout my childhood, and my great auntie Lilian for some years beyond that. My grandparents lived in a bungalow in Rhos-on-Sea, and from their living room you had views of the sea, the cliffs of the Little Orme above Llandudno, and the Snowdonian mountains. Not bad. Auntie Lilian lived in a bungalow in Abergele, within sight of Gwrych Castle, a Victorian faux castle on a mountainside overlooking the town. It was made famous recently as the venue for I’m A Celebrity… during the Covid pandemic when Australia was off limits. But to us it was, and always will be, Auntie Lilian’s castle and Auntie Lilian’s mountain.

I enjoyed reliving my childhood memories. It was a great place to have family, really. We spent time on the beach, and when we got older my Dad took us up mountains. I remember the two of us climbing Snowdon together, which was my first time. It felt very special.

On the coast at Rhos-on-Sea there is evidence of much recent investment and improvement. The promenade bike path is a thing to admire and enjoy as it sweeps along the wide bay for several miles. There is new landscaping, including attractive planting and public sculpture. The place is looking nice. Even the public paddling pool, where we played in the summer as small children, is still open, although I don’t think it has had a facelift in the intervening fifty years! 

Built into the promenade at Rhos is reputedly Britain’s smallest church, the chapel of St Trillo. It has seating for six people inside and a small altar with a candle burning away to itself. It is quite an unusual and moving little place, surrounded by protective stone walls and flowers. Maybe, in my case, I was reliving the past just a touch. Inside the little chapel were small sheets of paper on which you could write a message and pin it to a board on the altar. I felt I should leave a thought behind, so I wrote something I could imagine my Grandparents saying to one another, for the benefit of anyone who might see it after I left. It said “We liked it here, didn’t we Stanley? Yes, Luv.”

I later shared that with my two brothers, who would hold similar memories to me. They remarked that it’s sad there are so very few people in the world who would understand what it meant. And it is. I guess that’s the natural progression of life and death. But it feels good to keep these memories alive as long as you can.

Anyway, I had other places to be. My next stop was in the beautiful and historic town of Conwy, with its justly celebrated castle. It sits overlooking the Conwy estuary in a very picturesque setting and it must be one of the very best castles anywhere, remarkably well preserved and many towered. The whole town is walled, although not on Chester’s scale, and you have to pass through narrow gateways to get from one side to the other (except for the traffic on the A55 expressway that luckily stays swell out of the way by passing through a tunnel). It is altogether a special place and I had always planned to make it my lunch stop. In the dry, warm weather that was still holding good, I was happy to enjoy a fresh crab roll in the harbour, with a fine castle view, before pushing on to the most spectacular part of the cycle route.

The coast road to Bangor has to pass along a thin strip of flat land between the sea and the purple, heather clad Conway Mountain. In the first few miles there are two more tunnels that motor traffic has to negotiate, through precipitous headlands. My dad always used to pip his horn in the old tunnels. The road has now been upgraded, and you can’t cycle through, but you can follow the cycle path up and over the main road in a most unlikely series of twists and turns. It is a memorable ride, not least because of the sweeping views you get back towards the Great Orme and Llandudno looking east, and out across the sea to Puffin Island, off the south east tip of Anglesey. Inland, to the south, the land rears up steeply in a combination of mountain scenery and quarries, near Penmaenmawr. High up on the side of the mountain here is a large clock, which was presumably to keep the quarry workers on time.

The cycle route changes in nature as it gets closer to Bangor, following a narrow winding country lane. That was about where the rain began. I’d done well to get this far. I just about made it in a dryish state to the entrance to Victorian Bangor Pier, a period timepiece and a gem that extends half way across the Menai Straits. But in this weather I was more attracted to the pub-cum-chip shop over the road, where I indulged in a pint of the local Snowdonia Ale and a generous serving of cheesy chips, that turned out to be a timely intervention. The rain abated and I realised I had to get moving. 

I had a train to catch home from Holyhead, two hours away at least across Anglesey, that would depart at 6.38pm. I couldn’t afford to miss it if I wanted to get home tonight. So now it was a case of getting there the best way I could. My first task was to cross the Menai Bridge. Thomas Telford’s graceful suspension bridge was once the longest in the world. That seems hard to believe now, but it remains an architectural masterpiece and a vital transport link. There were queues to get across because one of the two lanes was closed for repairs, but I was able to queue jump and keep myself moving along Telford’s old highway, the A5, which delivered me in a couple of miles to the village of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyndrobwyllllantysiliogogogoch. It is a made up name that means something like “The Volvo garage with the long name by the temporary traffic lights that is also an Esso station and a post office”, or words to that effect. Probably.

The A5 still links Ireland, via Holyhead, to London. It is something of a backwater here these days because there is now a much faster dual carriageway, the A55, across Anglesey. But today, in the now rather grey conditions, I was surprised by the volume of traffic. The reason, I discovered, was the Anglesey Show, which looked like a pretty big affair. Lots of vehicles pulling trailers containing livestock passed me on their way home from the large show grounds, where I could make out a whole village of tents and marquees.

Finally, I crossed the causeway over to Holy Island and Holyhead. It is a major port and important gateway to the country; but the town itself has to be one of the most drab and depressing places I know. For starters, it is a very grey place, with lots of pebble dash houses and not much to lift the tone. The whole town, at least the parts I have seen, feels like terminal decay has set in. The only item of note beyond the railway station and ferry terminal is the Celtic Gateway Bridge, a clever, twisting steel construction that takes pedestrians and cycles directly over the inner harbour from the station to the Main Street. Not that it’s worth the trouble. There was a cafe open in the passenger terminal and I grabbed a coffee and a sausage roll. It was a good move. My next opportunity came in Crewe, three hours later.

It may have felt like an anticlimax, but I knew to expect it. At least the weather was now improving again. It had been an excellent day of cycling across a superb and familiar stretch of coastline. Anglesey has much better to offer, but that would have to wait for another trip. Today, it was about getting there, and I did. And back again, all the way home, before 11pm, which was a very acceptable outcome.