‘Giants, it would appear, were in days of yore pretty plentiful in this neighbourhood.’
S. Baring-Gould, A Book of North Wales, 1903, p.152
The Elizabethan hall of Plas Newydd is impressive in its own right. A rather wonderful example of a stylish and sophisticated vernacular north Walian gentry house, it remains largely unaltered, other than the replacement of the original newel staircase with a later 17th century affair. The house was built in 1583 for Foulk ap Robert (1540-1607) and his wife Grace Holland (d.1624). It was said to be one of the first houses in Wales to be roofed entirely with slates. With its prominent end chimneys, together with a lateral chimney servicing the upper parlour, Plas Newydd shows its ambitions of grandeur with its large stone mullioned and transomed windows and the gabled dormer to the attic.
Plas Newydd appears in the Gwtta Cyfarwydd, the chronicle written by Peter Roberts (1607-1646), a notary public of St Asaph, in which he relates a clandestine family marriage in February 1631. Despite the use of the term clandestine, there was nothing illegal about the practice of marrying outside of the usual church setting and without banns being read in the parish church. Indeed the nearby chapel at Ffynnon Fair was known to have been the site of several such marriages.
Curiously, Cefn Meiriadog seems to have been an area which had more than its fair share of giants. One such individual known by the name of Cawr Rhufoniog was said to visit at Plas Newydd, and to have hung his hat upon a crook placed some nine feet high upon the original oaken post and panel screen in the house. The crook is said to still be there, upon the screen, though said screen has long been removed to St Fagan’s National Museum of History.(1) Another giant, one Edward Shôn Dafydd, also known as Cawr y Ddôl was said to have lived nearby and owned a walking stick fashioned from the axle of a cart with a bent over crowbar hammered into the stump as a handle. Edward and John Salusbury (d.1578), otherwise known as Sion y Bodiau, owner of two thumbs on each hand and slayer of the fabled Denbigh Dragon, were said to have wrestled and uprooted tree trunks together. A nearby promontory hillfort bears the name Bedd y Cawr, which some believe to have been the burial site of one of the giants of Cefn Meiriadog.
Why giants should be so common within Cefn Meiriadog is entirely unknown. Act accordingly...
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* Please note, that Plas Newydd is a private residence. The house can be viewed from the road.
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Footnote
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(1) The panel was sold to The National Museum Wales in 1915 by an antique dealer by the name of H. Stuart Page at the not inconsiderable cost of £250. I am indebted to Dafydd Wiliam, Principal Curator Historic Buildings at Amgueddfa Cymru for this information.
Further Reading
S. Baring-Gould, A Book of North Wales, London, (1903)
A.G. Bradley, Highways and Byways in North Wales, London, (1898)
P. Roberts, Y Cwtta Cyfarwydd, London, (1883)
RCAHMC, An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments in Wales and Monmouthshire, Denbigh, London, (1914)
J. Williams, Ancient and Modern Denbigh, Denbigh, (1856)
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