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Above is our new motto, despite having been to Chirk Castle many times when we lived in Glyn Ceiriog we could not resist the chance to save another £34 with our new membership as we were driving past on our way to Ruthin. It is a fine house with nice furnishings and well laid out gardens and was surprisingly busy for a cloudy Monday out of season, perhaps every NT member does the same as us. We then drove on to Ruthin which for some reason is pronounced Rithin and had an enjoyable hour in prison. Ruthin Gaol is built along the same lines as Pentonville Prison in London and designed such that the warders have a clear view of the whole prison. It had a good audio tour which was easy to use and explained the different aspects and history of being a prisoner.
Much to our surprise only one prisoner was ever executed at the gaol and we also discovered that before convicts were sent to Australia we used to send them to America. As well as the gaol Ruthin has two court houses, perhaps the locals were not law abiding citizens.
We are now in a room at the very top of the Castle Hotel, three floors up so hard on our knees when returning from a night out. There are only two places to eat in Ruthin on a Monday (and not many on subsequent nights) so as we are staying in the Castle Hotel, which isn’t a castle we walked round to the Castle itself which is also a hotel and has a restaurant – very confusing and not great food.
This morning we did the Ruthin town trail, it took a couple of hours, there are some nice old houses in the town, the one pictured is supposedly the oldest timber famed town house in Wales built in 1435, this did no seem very old to me and a quick search on the internet found older town houses in Wales. Good job the guidebook was free otherwise I would want my money back! The most interesting things were the old Courthouse and the craft centre with an art gallery. The current exhibition featured the work of Susan Halls who showed a great many sculptures of cats, pigs and wart hogs. Her wart hogs were nowhere as good as ours in the garden which emphasises how good an artist Roj Williams was.
As we had done Ruthin by lunchtime we drove the eight miles up the road to Denbigh whose town trail took even less time despite quite a climb to the castle. Their claim to fame is that Henry Morton Stanley was born in the town (Livingstone I presume), I always thought he was American but apparently he was born to an 18 year old unmarried girl in Denbigh, spent a great deal of his childhood in the workhouse and emigrated to America as soon as he could at the age of 18. Not a great advert for the town so why the statue of him shaking hands? So two towns explored in no time at all, this might explain why we have not been before and although enjoying ourselves will probably not come back. The most exciting thing that happens in the towns is on dustbin day - they have the most complex arrangement of 7 bins for recycling, perhaps this is why they need the courthouses and a prison to punish those who fail to use the correct bin on the right day!,
We returned to our hotel via Moel Arthur Hill Fort, a small iron age hill fort with great views over the Dee estuary with an invigorating climb to the summit. We were intending to visit an interesting Chapel tomorrow but have discovered it is closed so we may come home via Glyn Ceiriog instead.
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