North Wales
Old Bulls Head Hotel. Looking to the future, a new project to extend the pier and introduce fast-track water-taxi services across the Menai Strait is also mooted for 2011. If realised, this will offer superb views of the iconic twin bridges that connect the island to the Welsh mainland. One of these is Telford’s elegant iron suspension bridge, the first of its kind, from 1826, and the second is Robert Stephenson’s Britannia Tubular Bridge, built in 1850. For schoolchildren across Britain, though, Beaumaris is
associated with one thing alone: its UNESCO World Heritage castle. The fairy-tale, 13th-century construction was built as a lynchpin of King Edwards I’s iron ring of castles to quell the Welsh rebellion. It is a textbook classic of an Edwardian castle, with four successive lines of fortifi- cations and concentric walls within walls, making it the most technically perfect castle from this period in Britain today. Walking around the fortifications, with views across the Menai Straits to Snowdonia, evokes a real sense of living history, while the imposing main gates with their murder holes (used to pour boiling oil on invaders) hint at the darker side of its tumultuous past. The North Wales coast, stretching away from Anglesey
towards the Welsh border just before Chester, has traditionally suffered from something of a bawdy, kiss-me- quick image. The pockets of caravan parks and little-loved
www.britain-magazine.com
resorts still cling to the outdated 1970s image of Wales, but this region is also home to some hidden-gem boltholes that highlight the resurgent North at grass-roots level. None more so than Llandudno, a Victorian holiday
town which today combines 19th-century grandeur with chic new places to stay and two major new Welsh cultural spaces. No wonder the American travel writer Bill Bryson was moved to describe Llandudno as his “favourite seaside resort.” The twin mountains, Great Orme and Little Orme, still loom over the graceful Victorian wedding-cake architecture of the seafront buildings that line the sweeping prom. But it’s places like Escape, the design-led boutique guesthouse, and The Seahorse, a local stalwart for ocean-fresh fish, that stand testament to Llandudno’s capacity to reinvent itself for new generations of visitors. The resort also marked a major anniversary in 2010 when the Codman family, who set up Llandudno’s Punch
Top left: A farmstead dwarfed by the mountains in Snowdonia. Top centre: Caernarfon Castle, built by Edward I to resemble the walls of Constantinople. Above: The village of Portmeirion, designed and built by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis. Bottom left: A steam engine on the Ffestiniog Railway
“Llandudno is always bustling and definitely moving with the times. But it also retains its
genteel Victorian ambiance.” Jacqueline Milliband codMan of codMan punch and Judy theatre
BRITAIN 17
PHOTO: VISIT BRITAIN IMAGES/ROBIN WEAVER/ALAN NOVELLI
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100