Wales on the Web A flash movie about the city/town of St Asaph in Denbighsire North Wales. Including St Asaph Catherdral, Owain Glyndwr, Oliver Cromwell, Princess Of Wales, William Mathias, River Elwy, Roe Plas and more. Part of the largest collection of movies on any culture anywhere on the Web.
Wales on the Web St Asaph - wales flash movie The small city of St Asaph, dominated by its ancient cathedral, sits between two rivers on a rise in the Vale of Clwyd. The lower town is approached via the seventeenth century bridge, which today still carries traffic over the River Elwy. It flows through the riverside park of Roe Plas with its group of rare black poplar trees. The cathedral is the smallest in Britain and one of the oldest in Wales. The site was first documented in 560 AD and the building has survived the ravages of war at the hands of Owain Glyndwr and Oliver Cromwell, amongst others. Its present simple beauty comes from its restoration in 1870 by Gilbert Scott. Inside are fifteenth century canopied choir stalls, unique in Wales, and set into a pillar in the Lady Chapel is the Spanish Madonna, a small carving said to be taken from the Spanish Armada. A plaque and window commemorate the author of one of the once most admired, and later derided, lines in English literature who lived in the city between 1809 and 1828. “The boy stood on the burning deck”, was the opening of the poem ‘Casabianca’ by Felicia Dorothea Hemans. This simple gravestone at the cathedral commemorates William Mathias, world famous composer and musician who founded the North Wales Music Festival. He wrote an anthem for the wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1981. More popularly remembered is the wry war song, “Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag”, written in 1914 by two Powell brothers, born in St Asaph. In front of the cathedral is the Translators Memorial commemorating the work of Welsh translators, particularly Bishop Morgan who translated the Bible into Welsh in 1588. He was Bishop of St Asaph Cathedral from 1601 until his death in 1604. Kept here is one of 800 bibles printed in 1588. In the high street a row of cottages, built in 1686 for Bishop Barrow, were designated almshouses for use by eight widows from adjoining parishes. They were rebuilt in 1795 and are now used as a restaurant. The parish churchyard contains the grave of the wandering bard Dic Aberdaron, (real name Richard Jones), an expert linguist who compiled a Welsh-Greek-Hebrew dictionary, which although approved by experts, was never published. He spent his last few months in St Asaph, where he died in 1843. This place – the former workhouse – held unhappy memories for another wanderer, John Rowlands, who was sent here aged five in 1847 and ran away in 1856 to seek his fame and fortune. Changing his name in America to Henry Morton Stanley, it was he who uttered the famous words, “Dr Livingstone, I presume”. For such a small place St Asaph has produced and influenced a remarkable range of notable individuals.