The Vale of Clwyd

The historic landscape area of Dyffryn Clwyd lies at the southern end of the Vale of Clwyd, a flat lowland area formed in a down-faulted trough enclosed by hills, rising steeply up to the fault scarp of the predominantly Silurian shales of the Clwydian hills on the east and up to the ridge of Carboniferous limestone which forms a band on the west side of the valley. The floor of the valley, between about 2-5km across, rises in height from about 30m near Denbigh to about 100m at the head of the valley. The underlying geology here is of soft, red Triassic sandstones and marls which are mostly masked by later glacial and alluvial deposits but are exposed in areas of elevated ground as at Ruthin and Hirwaen.

At the present day a typical cross-section of the vale from west to east would cut through the following topographic regions: limestone hills on the west, reaching a height of about 200m; a relatively narrow band of sloping ground above the valley bottom, between about 1km wide; the flat, 1ow-lying and seasonally waterlogged land on the valley bottom, up to about 2km wide; a broad band of gently-sloping ground on the eastern side of the vale, about 2km wide, extending from the valley floor to the foot of the Clwydian hills; the more steeply sloping ground up to about 1km across, extending up to the top of the hill scarp; and finally the flatter ridge along to the top of the Clwydian hills, rising to a height of up to about 550m. This pattern is repeated again and again and broken only by the steep-sided valleys of the streams and valleys, entering the vale from the east and west. As a consequence each of the communities in the vale have their own quota of waterlogged meadows, better-drained sloping pastures and arable land, upland meadows and moorland in the relatively short transects from valley bottom to hill top.

During the last glaciation, about 18,000 years ago (dated locally by the radiocarbon age of a mammoth bone from Ffynnon Beuno Cave, near Tremeirchion), the northern ice sheets advanced up the vale to within about 5km of Denbigh, creating a terminal moraine forming a line of low hills across the vale at Trefnant. A glacial lake known as Lake Clwyd formed by meltwaters dammed up against the moraine, stretching inland about 10km, to the south of Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd. Deltas 1-3km across were built up where the eastward flowing rivers and streams from the Denbigh Moors entered the lake, in the area to the east of Denbigh by the Afon Ystrad, in the area of Llanrhaeadr by the Nant-mawr, in the area of Llanfair by the Afon Clywedog, and at Aberchwiler by the Afon Chwiler, drainage from the vale having initially been eastwards, ‘uphill’ through the valley of the Afon Chwiler. Once the moraines in the Trefnant area had been breached the drainage pattern assumed its present pattern on the floor of the vale.

The floor of the vale is generally good agricultural land, a strip of better-drained land on the eastern terrace between Llanbedr Dyffryn Clwyd on the south and Aberchwiler on the north being classed as Grade 1 land and much of the lower-lying land, often subject to seasonal waterlogging, being classed as Grade 2, the grading of the hill-side and hill-top land to the either side of the vale generally diminishing with height. The vale has less than 30 inches of rain but has a comparatively low proportion of the cropland in wheat, largely due to the nature of the soils which though rich tend to maintain a high water table, especially in winter, and discourage cereal production today. Present-day land-use is therefore predominantly pastoral, with limited cereals and fodder crops on better-drained ground and areas of woodland and forestry plantation generally limited to the steeper hill slopes and poorly drained lowland areas.

Few pollen studies have been carried out within the vale, and although our knowledge of post-glacial environmenal history is therefore limited, it is assumed that native woodland gradually extended over the whole of The Vale of Clwyd as the climate gradually ameliorated following the last glaciation, and that this was progressively felled by human activity from the prehistoric periods up to the recent past, with only relatively small areas of natural woodland surviving to the present day. It is uncertain when Lake Clwyd finally became infilled with sediment, but it seems probable that small lakes and areas of alder carr survived until at least the 5th millennium BC, when the first evidence of human activity on open sites in the vale can be detected.

The historic landscape area of The Vale of Clwyd forms the whole or part of the following communities: Aberwheeler, Bodfari, Denbigh, Efenechtyd, Llanbedr Dyffryn Clwyd, Llandyrnog, Llanelidan, Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd, Llangynhafal, Llanrhaeadr-yng-nghinmeirch, Llanynys, Ruthin (all in Denbighshire), and smaller parts of Ysceifiog, Nannerch, Cilcain and Llanarmon-yn-Iâl in Flintshire

In the early historic period the Vale of Clwyd fell on the border between the powerful kingdom of Gwynedd on the west and the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms on the east and possibly for this reason failed to develop a strong political identity of its own. This is emphasised by the fact that by the end of the 12th century the Welsh lands to the east of the Conwy, within which the vale fell, became known as Perfeddwlad, the ‘middle country’ perhaps signifying the land between Gwynedd and the kingdom of Powys to the south and south-east. The area to the east of the Afon Clwyd came under Norman influence in the late 11th century, Bodfari, within the vale, being one of the native settlements listed in the Doomsday Book of 1086.

Following the expansion of the kingdom of Gwynedd during the course of the 12th century the vale fell within the kingdom of Gwynedd Is-Conwy, Gwynedd below the river Conwy, conquered by the English crown under Henry III in the 1240s, following the death of Llywelyn Fawr. The land was retaken by Llywelyn’s grandson, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd in the 1260s, the land by then having been held by Henry’s son, Edward who had been made lord of the crown lands in Wales. Following the accession of Edward in 1272, the four cantrefs of Perfeddwlad – Rhos and Tegeingl (Englefield) in the north and Rhufoniog and Dyffryn Clwyd in the south – were retaken by the English crown, and in the period between 1277 and 1282 the two northern cantrefs were held by the English crown and the two southern cantrefs were held of the crown by Dafydd, brother of Llewelyn, who had sided with the Edward.

Following the revolt of Dafydd and Llewelyn in 1282-3, Edward finally conquered the whole of Wales, Rhos and Rhufoniog becoming the new Marcher lordship of Denbigh, conferred upon Henry de Lacy, earl of Lincoln, the cantref of Dyffryn Clwyd becoming the lordship of Ruthin and granted to Reginald de Grey, the Lord Grey who has assisted Edward in the conquest of Wales. For administrative purposes the cantrefs of Rhufoniog and Dyffryn Clwyd were each subdivided into three commotes – lordship of Ruthin, for example, between the 13th to 17th century being administered as the borough of Ruthin and the three commotes of Coelion (Colion), Dogfeilyn (Dogfeiling) and Llannerch. At the Act of Union in 1536, the two lordships, together with the lordships of Bromfield and Yale and Chirk, became constituted as the county of Denbigh. Denbighshire was transferred to the new County of Clwyd in the local government reorganisation of 1974, and following boundary changes transferred back to the county of Denbighshire in the reorganisation of 1996.

During the medieval period, for reasons which are now unclear, the ecclesiastical parishes in the lorship of Denbigh fell within the Diocese of St Asaph, whilst those of Dyffryn Clwyd, though wholly surrounded by the Diocese of St Asaph fell within the Diocese of Bangor. The deanery of Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd, including parishes of Efenechtyd, Llanbedr, Llandyrnog, Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd, Llanfwrog, Llangynhafal, Llanrhaeadr-yng-nghinmeirch, Llanrhudd (including Ruthin), Llanychan and Llanynys were finally transferred to St Asaph in 1859.

The earliest evidence of human settlement activity in The Vale of Clwyd in the post-glacial period is represented by Mesolithic flint tools found during excavations at Tandderwen, near Kilford Farm, near the confluence of the Afon Ystrad and Afon Clwyd, perhaps dating to the 5th millennium BC. The site lies on the gravel delta which formed where the Ystrad ran into Lake Clwyd, a former lake formed from the glacial meltwaters which dammed up against the ice and moraines nearer the mouth of the valley. It is uncertain how long the lake survived, before becoming infilled with sediment, but there is a possibility that this evidence of human activity represents temporary lakeside hunting camps occupied by hunter-gatherer groups as part of a seasonal migration pattern between the coastal lowlands near the mouth of the Clwyd and summer hunting grounds on Hiraethog or on the Clwydian hills. Although little further evidence has yet been found of human activity in The Vale of Clwyd in the Mesolithic or subsequent Neolithic period when settlement probably became more sedentary.

There is significant evidence of activity in The Vale of Clwyd during the Bronze Age, but this is almost entirely related to human burial, represented by lowland burial mounds identified by excavation again at Tandderwen, and near Llysfasi and Cefn-coch, for example, and by upland burials along the Clwydian hills. Some of the upland burial sites have been built of stone and where these survive the sites are still visible as mounds. The lowland sites were largely built of earth and appear to have generally been ploughed away and are generally only known from cropmarks discovered by aerial photography. The burial of the cremated remains of a young man found in a pot near Llanrhaeadr, during the course of drainage works, may for example have once been covered by a burial mound which has since been levelled by ploughing. Evidence from elsewhere in Britain suggests that it was during this period that the tribal groupings known from the later prehistoric and early historic periods began to develop and it is possible that the prominent topographical siting of Bronze Age burial mounds as for example on the summits of Foel Fenlli and Moel y Parc and at the head of the pass between Moel Llanfair and Moel Plâs, and possibly even some of the lowland burial mounds, may represent the territories occupied by different tribal or family groups.

Significant inroads were no doubt being made into the natural vegetation of The Vale of Clwyd between the Mesolithic and Bronze Age periods, but it was during the Iron Age that the first major impact of human settlement on the physical environment can be first detected, most significantly in the chain of five hillforts along the Clwydian Hills – Foel Fenlli, Moel y Gaer (Llanbedr Dyffryn Clwyd), Moel Arthur, Penycloddiau and Moel y Gaer (Bodfari). It is probable that these large and impressive sites represent tribal centres, the sheer size of the hillforts along the Clwydians indicating that a relatively large and well-organized social groupings had developed during the Iron Age. The hillforts probably belonged to a tribe known as the Deceangli, conquered by the Roman army in about AD 60, whose territory seems to have extended from the Conwy on the west and the Dee on the east. Occupation of the hillforts almost certainly ceased at the Roman conquest.

As noted below, however, it is uncertain whether the hillforts were occupied all year round and whether they represent the only form of settlement during the Iron Age. Evidence from elsewhere in Britain suggests that other elements of society may have been dispersed among smaller and less nucleated forms of settlement on the lower-lying land in the valleys. A number of certain or possible smaller ditched enclosures are known from crop-mark evidence within the vale, as for example at Llanynys, at Ty’n-y-wern south of Ruthin, Bachymbyd, and Rhewl, which may represent small enclosed settlements of Iron Age date. None of these sites have been excavated, however, and it is also possible that they belong to earlier prehistoric periods or to the subsequent Romano-British or early medieval period.

It seems probable that during the later prehistoric, Roman and early medieval periods that unenclosed forms settlement developed hand in hand with population increase to exploit the rich agricultural potential of The Vale of Clwyd. The traces of Roman settlement activity and cemetery found during the course of housing development on the eastern outskirts of Ruthin probably represents just one of a large number of contemporary agricultural settlements within the vale that still await discovery, other evidence of Roman activity being represented by chance finds and a possible temple near Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd, chance finds and possible Roman cemetery near Bodfari, and chance finds near Llanrhudd. It may be no more than coincidence, but the discovery of Roman finds at or near places where churches were established in the medieval period suggests that there may have been some continuity of settlement from the Roman times into the early medieval period. Some discontinuity of settlement is likely to have occurred as a consequence of the area forming a frontier zone between the emerging Welsh kingdoms and the expanding English kingdom of Mercia from the 7th century and Anglo-Norman expansion in the late 11th century.

The marcher lordships of Denbigh and Ruthin established by Edward I in the 1280s were superimposed, however, upon an already well-established settlement pattern and parochial structure, with medieval churches within the historic landscape area at Bodfari, Llanbedr Dyffryn Clwyd, Llanfarchell, Llanynys, Llanrhaeadr-yng-nghinmeirch, Llandyrnog, Llangynhafal, Llangwyfan, Llanfwrog, Llanrhudd, Llanychan and Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd. A range of different settlement types is likely to have existed during the earlier medieval period including bond and free settlements, small nucleated settlements and more dispersed farmsteads and holdings, but as yet there is little detailed evidence from The Vale of Clwyd of the form of these settlements. Even the nature of settlement associated with each of the medieval churches is unclear, though detailed study of Llanynys has suggested that a cluster of houses and gardens developed here around a relatively small open field composed of individually-owned strips on this island of ploughland between the Clywedog and Clwyd rivers. Similar settlements may have existed around some or all the other churches and the townships associated with them, the pattern of early settlement now being difficult to decipher due to the expansion of settlement during the later medieval period and the gradual consolidation and amalgamation of individual holdings.

Some dislocation of settlement inevitably followed the creation of the two marcher lordships in the late 13th century, the administrators of the lordships being keen to secure and exploit their economic potential. New manors on the English model were created at Denbigh and at Kilford. Some of the changes were politically motivated, land confiscated or acquired by escheat from native clans being consolidated into larger holdings and granted to immigrant English families, who would thereby show greater allegiance to the new regimes. As a result there was a tendency towards the creation of larger estates on the richer lands within the vale and the resettlement of local inhabitants in more outlying areas. New patterns of settlement developed which broadly conformed to that which had been established in the older marcher lordships in Wales that were divided into Englishries and Welshries. Englishries with centres of English settlement were thus established in the vale, around the new administrative centres of each of the lordships – the castle-boroughs established immediately after the conquest of Wales at Ruthin and Denbigh – surrounded by an area that remained essentially native in character and where the Welsh tribal landholding system persisted. The various injustices suffered by the Welsh at English hands in the region contributed to the rebellion led by Owain Glyndwr, which began with an attack on the town and castle of Ruthin in September 1400.

The decay of the Welsh clan system combined with the the trend towards money payments in lieu of customary services by bondmen and the effects of the epidemics of the Black Death, especially in the 1340s and 1360s, gave led to significant changes to the settlement pattern in The Vale of Clwyd from the 14th-century onwards, gradually giving rise to a landscape characterised by large consolidated estates within the vale and dispersed, individually owned or tenanted farms on the surrounding hill land. The process continued into the later medieval period. The boroughs of Denbigh and Ruthin with their own charters and commercial monopolies continued to flourish as commercial centres providing a market for locally-produced goods, but as settlement expanded during the later medieval and early post-medieval periods new nucleated settlements were created and some of the earlier centres were eclipsed. Bodfari, Llanynys, Llanrhaeadr-yng-nghinmeirch, Llandyrnog, and Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd perhaps all survived as small nucleated settlements, but churches at Llanbedr Dyffryn Clwyd, Llanfarchell, Llangynhafal, Llangwyfan, Llanrhudd, and Llanychan all eventually became marooned in the landscape and surrounded by little more than fields.

Many new centres of population were created as a result of population shift, particularly during the 18th and 19th centuries, at important road junctions, along the new turnpikes or associated with mills, quarries, nonconformist chapels, smithies, schools, land enclosure, and which have become a particularly important and characteristic feature of the rural landscape of The Vale of Clwyd. Examples of these new settlements include Graig-fechan, Craig-adwy-wynt, Pentre-Llanrhaeadr, the new settlements at Llangynhafal and Llanbedr Dyffryn Clwyd, Waen Aberchwiler, Hęn-efail, Rhewl, Hirwaen, Gellifor, Hendrerwydd, Ffordd-las and Aifft. The 20th century has seen the expansion of these and earlier centres of population, and has also witnessed a number of linear developments along some rural roads, as between Ruthin and Rhewl, Gellifor and Hendrerwydd, and Llandyrnog and Llangynhafal and a more recent trend towards the creation of a number of new small rural estates or conversion of farms to multiple occupation, as at Llwyn-celyn farm to the north of Llanrhaeadr.

The earliest surviving elements of the built environment of The Vale of Clwyd are the fabric of some medieval churches, the medieval castles and a number of other structures at Ruthin and Denbigh. In the case of these medieval buildings and other stone buildings of late medieval and post-medieval date the building materials appear to be principally of relatively local materials. Thus, cottages and farmhouses on the eastern slopes of the vale are predominantly of quarried local Silurian shales whilst those on the western side of the vale are predominantly of quarried Carboniferous limestone. Stone buildings towards the centre of the vale tend to be built in either shale or limestone or occasionally in Triassic and Permian red sandstone beds exposed at a number of points within the vale. On rare occasions, as in the case of Llanynys churchyard wall, early farm buildings at Dregoch Ucha south of Waen Aberwheeler, and parts of several buildings in the Clywedog valley to the west of Rhewl, rounded boulders from stream beds or glacial erratics from field clearance were used. Where poorer stone was used there is a tendency for the buildings to be rendered, as in the case of numerous farmhouses and the churches at Llandyrnog, Llangwyfan and Llangynhafal – all on the eastern side of the vale.

A high proportion of early town houses, farmhouses and farm buildings were probably of timber, only a small proportion of which have survived, generally only in the case of some of the larger and grander houses, including for example the probably late 15th/early 16th-century cruck-built barns at Bachymbyd, and cruck-framed halls at Hendre’r ywydd-uchaf (now reconstructed at St Fagan’s museum), Hendre’r ywydd, and Plas Iago, and the late 16th/early 17th-century timber-framed houses at Eyarth Hall, Caerfallen, Llwyn-ynn (now largely demolished), Plas Coch, Plas-yn-llan, Plâs-yn-rhôs, Glan Clwyd, Rhydonen, Rhyd-y-cilgwyn and Ffynnogion, though timber-framing with brick infill survives in the case of a number of farm buildings, as at Fron-vox and Plâs Draw.

Stone appears to become the preferred building material from about the mid 17th century onwards. The first use of brick appears in the 17th-century, as in the case of the brick-built house belonging to the Salusburys at Bachymbyd Fawr, becoming used with increasing frequency for houses, cottages, farm-buildings and walls from the early to mid 18th century onwards, a barn at Dre Gôch Ganol, for example, having a date of 1752 set out in the brickwork. Present-day roofing on traditional and pre-modern buildings is almost invariably of slate, but this probably a trend since the late 16th century onwards. Before that date a majority of buildings were probably either thatched or roofed with wooden shingles. The use of stone tiles appears to be unknown in the region, probably due to the lack of suitable stone in the region.

One of the principal characteristics of The Vale of Clwyd the quality of its farmland, a feature for which it has been famed since at least the 16th century. The present-day agricultural landscapes in the vale are the result of continuous and human activity since earliest times – the felling of native woodland, cultivation and stone clearance, drainage of the wetter ground and the enclosure of land with banks, hedges and walls – all undertaken with the intention exploiting of the wide range of resources stretching from the hilltop to the floor of the vale – the meadow land on the wetter, lower-lying ground on the floor of the valley, the pasture and arable on the more elevated ground towards the floor of the valley, and the moorland summer grazing on the hilltops.

The essential character of the modern landscape had undoubtedly already emerged by some time during the later 18th century, if not earlier, and can be clearly recognised in Sir Richard Colt Hoare’s description at the very beginning of the 19th century.

This vale is reckoned the finest in the principality; by fineness is meant richness of soil and fertility . . . . The ground is generally cultivated as high as the sides of the mountains will admit; the country thickly dotted with gentlemen’s seats, villages etc, etc and the whole well woodedColt Hoare, 6 June 1801

The general processes by which this landscape came into being can be appreciated, even though further work will be neede to provide a detailed landscape history of the vale and to establish the origins of individual farms or particular field systems. The nature of agricultural production has changed significantly over the course of time, which will by itself have had an impact on the appearance of the countryside. The production of wool became important during the medieval period, Ruthin becoming important cloth producing centre with its own guild of fullers and weavers. In the 18th century the vale became well known for the production of grain which was exported to other regions. Beef and dairy production became important during the 19th century, and at the present day the predominant land-use is pasture and fodder crops, with limited corn production.

Substantial areas of woodland evidently still existed in the vale during the medieval period, forests and reserved woodland belonging to the lordship of Ruthin being recorded in the area of Cae’r Fedwen, to the north of Llandyrnog, at Hirwaen, Coed Marchan, to the south of Ruthin, Eyarth and in the township of Llysfasi. Groves are recorded at Gellifor and between Rhydonen and Llanychan, to the east of Llanynys. Other areas of common woodland would also have been available and exploited as a source for building materials and fuel as well as a wide range of other purposes. Areas of native woodland will gradually have diminished on a piecemeal basis in line with increasing demands for timber and additional farmland, the distinctive strips of woodland and farmland in the southern part of the Eyarth character area appear to indicate the process of assarting.

Only a small proportion of the ancient woodland of the vale still survives to the present day, though a number of areas ancient or semi-natural woodland still survive on steeper ground, particularly on the sides of the hills on the southern and western sides of the vale, to the south of Ruthin, in the Chwiler and Clywedog valleys. Other smaller remants of ancient woodland undoubtedly survive as the lines of trees along many of the stream valleys and in a number of the more ancient hedges in the vale. Relatively little modern woodland has been planted in the vale, and is largely confined to a number of small areas of conifers on the eastern side of the Clwydians, to the south of Llanbedr and in the valley to the east of Llangwyfan, with a number of small deciduous plantations on wetter ground to the east of Llanrhaeadr and to the south of Lleweni.

Little is yet known about farming methods in the vale during the later prehistoric and Roman periods, though by the early medieval period systems of land-use had undoubtedly developed according to the Welsh systems of land tenure, by which a number of free or bonded households, perhaps each with their own gardens and paddocks, were grouped together around one or more relatively small areas of open field arable, divided into individually-owned cultivation strips. These tribal groupings, surrounded by areas of common meadow, pasture and woodland, would form the basis of the medieval townships into which each of the administrative units were divided, a number of the townships eventually having a church attached to them and becoming the focus of an ecclesiastical parish.

These earlier medieval patterns of settlement and land-use and now often difficult to identify in the landscape because of later changes, though areas of early open field arable can sometimes be identified from distinctive field patterns or place-name evidence. A clear example of this were the two large arable fields, known as Maes isa and Maes ucha, divided into individually owned strips or quillets which survived in the village of Llanynys until the early 1970s – the field-names denoting lower and upper open fields. Farmland would have been much more open, though ring-fences or hedges would have been erected around the open arable fields and common meadows and pasture in order to control stock at different times of year. In looking for similar evidence of medieval ploughlands elsewhere in The Vale of Clwyd it is significant that no trace of these quillets is not to be seen in the Llanynys historic landscape area apart from the field boundaries encircling the two large arable fields.

Disruptions to this pattern no doubt occurred in certain areas as a result of incursions by the English kingdom of Mercia from the 7th century AD and Anglo-Norman conquests in the late 11th and 12th centuries. The largest disturbances will no doubt have occurred as a result of the creation of the lordships of Denbigh and Ruthin in the later 13th century, the creation of new manors at Denbigh and Kilford, and the settlement of English immigrants within the new castle-boroughs and in the countryside around them. Consolidated blocks of land confiscated from indigenous family groups, resettled elsewhere, were awarded to English families, thereby ensuring that the administrative centre of each lordship was settled by families that were sympathetic to the new regime. Arable land around each borough was no doubt initially worked from properties within the towns, the location of town fields probably being represented in the concentric field pattern in the Felin-ysguboriau character area on the south-east side of Ruthin and in the radial field pattern in the Meusydd-brwyn character area to the north-east of Denbigh.

By the early 14th century this had resulted in the creation of a number of large estates in the Englishries on the more fertile land in and around the vale with indigenous forms of land tenure and land-use generally being restricted to the surrounding Welshries. Large estates in the vicinity of Denbigh were thus held by families such as the Duckworths, the Salusburys, the Pigots and the Pontefracts, and those around Ruthin by the Thelwalls, the Goodmans and the Alsbels, the name of the latter being preserved in the name Plâs Ashpool, north of Llandyrnog. A number of these families, like the Salusburys of Lleweni and Bachymbyd and the Thelwalls of Plas-y-ward were to remain prominent until well into the 16th and 17th centuries.

As noted above, the Welsh tribal system was fast disappearing during the later 14th century, and between the 15th-17th centuries there was an increasing trend towards the amalgamation and consolidation of landholdings and the creation of individually owned or tenanted farms within their own ring-fences, together with a scattering of tenements and smallholdings, leading to the gradual disappearance of former open fields and the private enclosure of common grassland to create the large fields ideal for sheep grazing, to support the burgeoning local woollen industry. Significant land improvements were made during the second half of the 16th century, as in the case of the former medieval hunting park at Bathafarn, described as having formerly been ‘overgrown with woods and thorns and some part of it was marshground so that no cattle in winter time could pasture there without danger of drowning’. Here, between the 1550s and 1590s, the Thelwalls were reported to have

not only erected and made fair buildings upon the said park . . . but also bestowed great changes in ditching and trenching the said marsh grounds and bogs whereby they converted the unprofitable woods growing upon the same they converted the same to be arable and meadow whereas before it was barren and unprofitable and divided the same in sundry parcels by ditching and quicksetting of the said several parcels

The distintive modern landscape of Bathafarn character area, composed of relatively large rectangular fields with robust hawthorn hedges and drainage ditches, laid out in a reasonably regular pattern, would therefore appear to date from about the middle of the 16th century. A similar pattern is also evident in the Llanbedr Dyffryn Clwyd character area immediately to the north. A number of other distinctive early field patterns are evident in The Vale of Clwyd whose dating has not yet been clearly established but which appear to have their origins in the period between perhaps the 16th century and the mid 18th century.

The distinctive grid of small to medium-sized fields, roads, footpaths and trackways in the Llandyrnog character area appears to have been well established before about the 18th century since the basic field pattern appears to be cut diagonally by a number of roads joining a later settlements such as Hendrerwydd and Gellifor. It therefore seems likely that the field pattern in this area represents a combination of the piecemeal enclosure of medieval open fields associated with a number of older medieval centres such as Llandyrnog, Llangwyfan, Llanychan and Llangynhafal, together with the early enclosure of areas of common grazing belonging to the townships in these parishes.

Distinctive patterns of strip fields in the Llandyrnog character area near Ffordd-las and in the Esgairlygain character area again appear to represent early private enclosure, possibly in the period between the early 17th and early 18th centuries. The 18th-century in particular witnessed an increase in the rate of enclosure and in some instances the subdivision of existing fields. Improvements in farming methods such as the development of selective animal breeding and the introduction of seed-drills and mechanised weeding sometimes increased the desirability of smaller fields. Larger fields formerly used for sheep grazing were sometimes subdivided into small arable fields, following the introduction of cotton weaving during the Industrial Revolution. Additional land was taken into cultivation because of increases in wheat prices in the later 18th century.

Characteristic patterns of small irregular fields on the slopes and valleys on the western side of the Clwydian hills, in the Tyddyn Ucha, Fron-gelyn, Rhiwbebyll and Coed Draw character areas for example, appear to represent the piecemeal woodland clearance and enclosure of improved pasture between the late medieval and early post-medieval periods, enclosure often extending to a distinct boundary defining the contemporary moorland edge and often running about along the 250m contour, and representing expansion away from the medieval centres of population and occasionally involving encroachment upon the upland commons. The resulting field patterns can be clearly distinguished from the early 19th-century Parliamentary enclosures, characterised by large rectangular fields in the Fron-heulog, Bryn-isaf, Fron-dyffryn character areas. Present-day field patterns in all the character areas had become fully established the middle of the 19th century and have remained fairly stable ever since, except for the loss of a proportion of field boundaries.

Most of the field boundaries in The Vale of Clwyd are formed by hedges. Preliminary studies suggest that the form and species content of these hedges probably have a considerable contribution to make to landscape history of the vale, since there are clear distinctions to be drawn between older and more mature hedges composed of up to six or seven different species and single species hedges belonging the Parliamentary enclosures of the early 19th-century, for example, which are generally only single species, normally hawthorn. The use of ‘quicksetting’ for the creation of new field boundaries at Bathafarn, noted above, between about 1550-90, indicates that hedges up to 400 years old may nonetheless still be composed of single-species. Mixed species hedges may either represent relict woodland, surrounding areas which have now been cleared, but might result from the deliberate plainting of mixed species hedges.

The juxtaposition of mixed and single species hedges in some areas suggests that they warrant further study. Roadside holly hedges are a characteristic feature of a number of a number of areas of The Vale of Clwyd, as for example in the Bachymbyd, Tyddyn Ucha, Llanrhaeadr, Hirwaen and Ystrad character areas. This may be due to the selective exploitation of different species of tree and shrub, but might represent deliberate planting: Plymley’s General view of the agriculture of the county of Shropshire of 1803, for example, recommends holly as well as hawthorn and blackthorn as suitable hedging plants.

The form of the hedges is also likely to be significant. In some areas there are irregular and slightly wandering hedges which may, for example, represent scrub growth along previously unhedges boundaries later managed to form hedges. In most areas the hedges either occur in isolation or are only associated with low and relatively insignificant field banks. Exceptions to this are a number of hedges in more steeply sloping, marginal areas, such as Bachymbyd, Fron-dyffryn, and Fron-gelyn, where there are a number of larger banks, sometimes containing boulders, which appear to have been constructed during initial land clearance and improvement. In these and a number of other areas with steeply sloping ground, particularly on the sides of the vale, hedges overlie lynchets which have been created as a result of soil erosion, and showing that the extent of arable land was once much greater than it is today.

A majority of hedges are now cut low by machine, including a proportion which show evidence of having been laid traditionally in the past, the proportion of laid hedges now being very small. A significant proportion of hedges in some areas are now no longer fully maintained, having become overgrown or now represented by no more than an intermittent line of trees or shrubs. Once this has happened there is a tendency for the hedges to disappear altogether as older trees die and fail to be replaced. A number of new hedges have been planted in some areas, generally as part of grant-aided countryside stewardship schemes. In some areas the hedges have a relatively high proportion of tall, mature trees, giving a parkland quality to the landscape.

Drystone walling is only rarely used for field boundaries in The Vale of Clwyd, being largely confined to axial parish boundaries along the Clwydian hills, for example, or along the boundary between the enclosed land and the upland common in some areas. Drystone walling is used more frequently, however, for farmyard walls and along the roadside entrances to farms and at some field entrances, where a robust, stock-proof barrier is needed.

Stone gateposts, appearing either singly or in pairs, are characteristic of field and farm entrances in many character areas. They are made in a variety of different materials and styles, and probably largely dating from the 18th to the late 19th century. Forms include relatively slender, rectangular limestone pillars, flat slatey slabs with square or rounded tops, massive rectangular blocks, and carefully shaped pillars with shaped tops and rusticated sides. The field gateposts are normally only to be seen along public roads but are to be seen away from the roadside in some areas of former parkland or in areas near to former quarries. A more recent feature of the agricultural landscape are the modern but now disused milk stand to be seen at many farm entrances, built of brick, concrete, concrete blocks, or of wood.

Post and wire stock-proof fencing is fast becoming the most widely used type of boundary in The Vale of Clwyd, being either used in isolation or in addition or in replacement of hedges and drystone walls. In some areas post and wire fencing is used to subdivide otherwide large pasture fields into a number of smaller paddocks.

Due to topography, routes within The Vale of Clwyd since early times have probably tended to run either north to south, along the axis of the vale, or at right-angles to this up the stream valleys leading onto or over the hills to either side, giving rise to a loosely gridded network of roads, tracks and footpaths. Because of the more poorly-drained ground along the valley separate north-south routes have also tended to develop linking communities on the slightly more elevated ground to either side of the vale, with only a limited number of river crossings joining the east and west sides of the valley.

Little is known about the earliest roads and paths in the vale. It is assumed that a major Roman road ran the length The Vale of Clwyd, linking military sites at Caer Gai near Bala and an assumed fort in the Corwen area with sites in the neighbourhood of Ruthin and St Asaph. The course of this road and its relationship with Roman settlements and possible military activity in the vale will no doubt be discovered in the future. Much of the basic network of modern roads, tracks and footpaths no doubt gradually developed linking early medieval and medieval nucleated settlements and urban centres, and no doubt become more and more complex during the later medieval and early post-medieval periods as the number of dispersed farmsteads and tenements multiplied. Again, relatively little is know of the early roads and bridges of these periods in the vale. Many of these early routes would have been unpaved and difficult to pass at certain seasons of the year, though several occurrences of the Welsh place-name element palmant (‘pavement’) may indicate early made-up roads.

Many of the modern roads and tracks on either side of the vale run in hollow-ways worn into the hillside, particularly those reaching farms and communities up the steeper slopes onto more elevated ground. Some of the hollow-ways are of considerable size and antiquity, the present road surfaces often reaching a depth of between 3-5m from the ground surface to either side, resulting from the erosion of many thousands of tons of soil and subsoil washed away further downhill by surface water over the course of many centuries. Even some of the roads on some of the flatter, lower-lying ground on the floor of the vale can be seen to be formed in hollow-ways, possibly in these cases partly dug out by hand. Many of these early routes have now become fossilized, having been paved and provided with road drains, though others still survive as green lanes.

Considerable improvements were made to road transport in the late 18th and particularly in early 19th century when new turnpike roads and numerous new stone bridges were built across rivers and streams, assisting trade as well as opening up the countryside to visitors. In 1801, Sir Richard Colt Hoare, the antiquarian, noted the construction of a new road through the vale ‘now rendered passable for carriages . . . . by which many steep hills and much dreary country will be avoided’. The work was still not complete, however, and with some regret he noted that ‘had I known so much of it had remained undone I should not have attempted it in my chaise, for I found the latter part of it as bad as the beginning was good’.

Road improvements continued throughout the late 18th and 19th-centuries, arched stone bridges replacing earlier timber bridges or fords and carried out hand in hand with drainage schemes and the construction of causeways across some of the wetter, lower-lying ground, all of which provide distinctive historic landscape elements throughout The Vale of Clwyd. A number of new main roads were created such as the new Wrexham to Ruthin road via the Nant y Garth, Llysfasi and Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd, superseding the old road which ran through Graig-fechan, on the eastern side of the valley. In places this road, like a number of new or improved roads elsewhere in the vale, is superimposed upon earlier field systems. In some cases, as near Lleweni and Bachymbyd, bridges were built by private landowners in order to gain access to farmland on the opposite side of one of the major streams or rivers within the vale. New roads were built to meet the needs of the rapidly expanding urban centres at Ruthin and Denbigh and as late as the 1850s the course of the Corwen to Ruthin road was diverted around Castle Park at Ruthin, leaving the former road bridge across the Clywedog as a distinctive feature of the parkland.

The export of agricultural produce and minerals, the movement of passengers, and the importing of a wide range of commodities was greatly enhanced by the construction of the Corwen-Rhyl railway in the 1850s, with stations at Eyarth, Ruthin, Llanrhaeadr, and Denbigh. Connections were added to Mold by means of the Mold & Denbigh Junction Railway 1869 with a station at Bodfari and sidings for the Partington Steel & Iron Company at Bodfari in 1924. Though abandoned in the 1960s the railway still has a significant impact on the landscape in a number of historic landscape character areas, including the embankments and bridge abutments to the west of Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd, the railway cuttings bounding the housing estates on the eastern sides of Ruthin and Denbigh, and the prominent embankment and bridge across the Clwyd near Pontruffydd Farm, to the north-east of Denbigh, as well as a number of former station buildings and gate-keepers cottages. Even where there are no earthworks survive, the course of the former railway is marked by the distinctive boundaries of the fields it once crossed or by the tracks which now run along it.

Few major changes were made to the rural road network in the 20th century, though improvements to the Denbigh to Ruthin road saw the creation of a number of lay-byes, the construction of the Llanrhaeadr bypass in 1971, cutting through the parkland around Llanrhaeadr Hall, giving rise to the demolition of the former lodge and the resiting of the lodge gates of the 1840s. One of the most distinctive changes, as elsewhere in Denbighshire, were the white-painted iron railings erected at numerous rural crossroads during the course of road widening schemes, which enhance the parkland character of a number of areas of the vale.

The visual impact of other 20th-century service industries, including telecommunications, water, sewerage and gas pipelines, has been relatively slight within the The Vale of Clwyd historic landscape areas, though significant valley-bottom palaeoenvironmental deposits were partly disturbed during pipeline construction in the early 1990s to the east of Denbigh.

Offa’s Dyke Path, the national long-distance path runs for a considerable distance along the summit of the Clwydian hills along the eastern side of the historic landscape area. The footpath was created partly by the amalgamation of existing footpaths, crosses or runs close to a number of ancient monuments along the summit of the hill, including the Iron Age hillforts on Foel Fenlli, Moel Arthur and Penycloddiau. Erosion resulting from the large numbers of walkers, and more recently by mountain bikes, has resulted in repair works and diversions to the path in a number of areas, particularly where the path crosses steeper ground.

The historic landscape of the vale has essentially been fashioned by agriculture and woodland management rather than by industry or commerce. The industries which did emerge were generally small in scale and sometimes of limited duration, and were generally based on the exploitation of natural mineral resources, the processing of agricultural produce, or on service or craft industries such as smithing.

Most of the quarries in Dyffyn Clwyd are now disused. The Clwydian hills in the Dyffryn Clwyd area have been relatively little affected by quarrying, largely since the underlying geology is predominantly of soft and friable shales. However, small medieval or post-medieval roadside and trackside quarries, probably for house and wall building and road maintenance, can be seen on the southern slopes of Moel Arthur in the Moel Famau character area, in the Fron-heulog, Bryn-isaf and Pen-yr-allt character areas. There is a larger quarry at Bodfari, one of the few areas on where limestone outcrops on the eastern side of the vale, and where there were formerly a number of limekilns. Other limestone quarries and disused limekilns are known in the limestone areas on the western side of the vale, as at Craig-y-ddywart to the north-west of Ruthin, on the hills to the west of Llanrhaeadr, scattered throughout the southern part of the Eyarth character area at Pen-y-graig, Ty’n Llanfair and Craig-adwy-wynt, and at Bryn Robyn and Penllwyn on the limestone outcrop at Craig-fechan.

Some mining activity took place during the 19th-century in a number of areas on the Clwydian hills, including small 19th-century gold mine on the western slopes of Moel Arthur, a number of abandoned small-scale mining enterprises for lead and barytes of the 1890s on Moel Dywyll. A quarry and shaft near Pen-llwyn, to the north of Llangwyfan appear to represent small-scale 19th-century lead trials or workings. A haematite mine was worked at Coed Llan, just to the north of the Bodfari between 1877-1909, visible remains being represented by a number of converted buildings including the former agent’s house and workshop, together with mine shaft and possible horse whim now obscured in woodland. The iron ore here occurred in fissures between the Silurian shales and the Carboniferous limestone.

An important corn mill was established in what became Mill Street in Ruthin during the 13th-century, the leat which fed the mill with water from the Clwyd in later centuries still surviving as an earthwork in the grounds of Castle Park. Ruthin became an important cloth producing centre during the medieval period with its own guild of fullers and weavers. Other corn mills and fulling mills were established on other streams and rivers throughout Dyffryn Clwyd during the course of the medieval and post-medieval periods, including those at Felin-ysguboriau also on the Clwyd, Melin Garthgynan and Llanrhudd Mill on the Dwr Iâl, Melin Meredydd on the Afon Clywedog to the west of Rhewl, Candy Mill (for extracting clover seed) and Geinas Mill on the Afon Chwiler, a mill on the Nant-y-ne near Hirwaen, and mills at Felin-isaf and Pentre’r-felin on the stream to the south of Llandyrnog. Some of buildings belonging to these mills still survive, and in a number of cases, such as at Brookhouse Mill, Geinas Mill and Candy Mill, evidence of the mill leats still survives.

Other former industries include the Partington Steel & Iron Company at Bodfari which was provided with sidings from the Mold & Denbigh Junction in 1924, the site of the former works being still visible to the south of the village. The most remarkable industrial workings in the area were the former Lleweni Bleach Works built by Thomas Fitzmaurice in 1785 for treating linen produced on his Irish estates and probably demolished between about 1816-18. The site of these remarkable Palladian buildings, described by Thomas Pennant as having ‘a beautiful arcade four hundred feet in extent’ are visible as earthworks at Coed y Plain, and were probably approached by the causeway known as Hen Ffôs, to the east of Aberchwiler.

Defended landscapes within The Vale of Clwyd fall into two distinct groups having no connection with each other – the group of prehistoric hillforts along the summit of the Clwydian hills on the one hand and the medieval castles at Ruthin and Denbigh on the other, all the sites being scheduled ancient monuments.

Five of the remarkable chain of six hillforts along the Clwydian hills fall within the The Vale of Clwyd historic landscape area – Foel Fenlli, Moel y Gaer (Llanbedr Dyffryn Clwyd), Moel Arthur, Penycloddiau and Moel y Gaer (Bodfari) – forming the most prominent and yet the most enigmatic group of archaeological monuments in the area. Two of the sites – Foel Fenlli and Penycloddiau – are vast, Penycloddiau alone enclosing an area of about 21ha, and being one of the largest hillforts Wales the country. Small-scale excavations were carried out at Foel Fenlli, Moel y Gaer (Llanbedr) and Moel Arthur in 1849 and at Moel y Gaer (Bodfari) in 1908, and yet what is known about them is strictly limited, apart from the fact that they probably begun during the pre-Roman Iron Age and were clearly intended to be defensive.

Each of the monuments has multiple banks and ditches around at least part of their circuit, and each of the sites has evidence that the defences were constructed during more than one period. Scooped out platforms in a number of the sites probably indicate the position of wooden roundhouses or storage buildings, but whether they were permanently or seasonally occupied, and over what duration, is a matter of speculation. Each of the sites represent a formidable feat of civil engineering and though we know little about their function the sheer scale of their earthworks provides some evidence about the society that created them: the contemporary population was clearly of some size and must have been organized in a way which permitted concerted action. The monuments themselves are an expression of society in action and have an intimate relationship with the particular landscapes in which they are found. In all probability each hillfort probably would have been the focal point of a well-defined tribal territory extending across the lower ground within the vale below, each controlling access to a similar range of natural resources.

The defended landscapes represented by the medieval castles at Ruthin and Denbigh had an entirely different origin and function. Prominent outcrops were chosen for both works but in this case the sites lay within the vale and were much smaller in size and designed to house a more compact military force. The castle at Ruthin was started as part of a royal building programme in 1277, during the reign of Edward I, being designed to secure the cantref of Dyffryn Clwyd, then held of the crown by Dafydd, against the threat of incursion by his brother, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd. Following the revolt of Dafydd in 1282, the cantref was granted to Edward de Grey., and building work was on the castle was resumed. The castle and town together formed the capital of the new marcher lordship of Ruthin, providing a means of defending, administering, and exploiting the lordship. The ruins of the medieval castle, which run along the crest of the hill on the southern side of the town, were severely damaged during the Civil War, the present castellated buildings, now a hotel, having been built during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Denbigh has a similar history. It was again held by Dafydd before his revolt in 1282, in this instance as the capital of the cantref of Rhufoniog. Following the Edwardian conquest it was granted to Henry de Lacy, and like Ruthin the construction of the castle and borough commenced soon afterwards, in this instance to secure and exploit the new lordship of Denbigh, the early town in this case also being provided with substantial town walls.

Parkland forms a distinctive visual and physical element of the historic landscape of The Vale of Clwyd, medium to small-sized areas of parkland, former parkland or land of parkland character being fairly widely distributed throughout the vale, at intervals of between about 1-3km. One or more areas of parkland occur in most of the character areas with the exception of the wetter ground along the major rivers and streams and the higher hill land along and towards the summit of the Clwydians. Most of the parkland is of fairly simple character and normally taking the form of flat or gently sloping pasture land, sometimes subdivided into a few large fields with post and wire fencing, the principal remnants of landscaping being large, isolated deciduous trees – generally oak, beech, chestnut, or lime with occasional plantations for screening or shelter.

A total of over 25 parkland landscapes can be identified in The Vale of Clwyd, mostly associated with the larger halls and farms, some of which have since been converted to schools or nursing homes or divided into flats. The parkland areas vary greatly in size, from between about 4-5ha at Garthgynan and Kilford, and 12-20ha in the case of Plâs-newydd, Eyarth House, Plas Gwyn and Lleweni Hall, to between about 20-40ha at Pontruffydd Hall, Llanrhaeadr Hall, Plâs Ashpool and Glan-y-wern. The largest is Castle Park just to the south of Ruthin, which is over 50ha in extent.

A number of the parks, including Bathafarn and Castle Park have their origin in the deer parks created following the establishment of the lordships of Denbigh and of Dyffryn Clwyd in the 13th and 14th centuries. Others were created as an adjunct to the private estates created by a number of major landowners during the course of the 14th to 16th centuries, as in the case of Lleweni. Most of the more visible aspects of the parkland in the vale belong to the 18th and early 19th centuries, when the tree planting at parks such as Plâs-newydd, Llanrhaeadr Hall, and Plâs Ashpool was undertaken. Other parks and large wooded gardens were created during the second half of the 19th-century, a period when lodges and entrance gates were added to many existing parks.

A number of the parkland areas lie in close proximity to each other, two of the character areas being defined on the juxtaposition of a number of different parkland areas – the Fron Yw character area on the basis of the parkland associated with Vron Yw hall and the grounds of the former Edwardian sanitorium at Llangwyfan, and the Plâs Ashpool character area on the basis of the conjunction of the grounds of Plâs Ffordd-ddwr, Glan-y-wern, Pentre-mawr, and Plâs Ashpool itself, both of these character areas lying on the eastern side of the vale, to the north and east of Llandyrnog.

Several of the parkland areas are associated with or take advantage of associated woodland areas, as in the case of Eyarth House, west of Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd, or the partly ornamental woodland encircling Warren House in the Aberchwiler valley. Individual trees are sometimes of importance, as in the case of the group of sweet chestnuts at Bachymbyd, planted in the late 17th century by the three daughters of Sir William Salusbury, and still marked prominently as the Three Sisters on most modern editions of the Ordnance Survey.

Ancillary components of parkland landscapes comprise stone or brick roadside walls and railings, as at Plas y Dyffryn (formerly Claremont and Clwyd Hall School) and Brondyffryn School, entrances, lodges and drives, as at Glan-y-wern, Llwyn-ynn Hall, Eyarth Hall, and other more elaborate features such as the ha-ha at Plas-newydd, the avenue, iron railings, stone-revetted ditches and stone stile at Llanrhaeadr, and the gothic stone archway at Pontruffydd, or the former road and road-bridge across the Clywedog incorporated into the Castle Park, Ruthin. Field boundaries were occasionally altered to enhance the landscape, as in the case of the curving boundaries to the south of Bathafarn Hall.

A number of the more formal gardens form small but important historic landscape elements within the vale. These notably include the terraced garden, ornamental spring and pond of late 16th- to early 17th-century date onwards at Eyarth Hall, the late 16th- to 18th-century walled gardens at Bachymbyd, Garthgynan, both associated with bee boles, and at Plas-newydd and Llanrhaeadr Hall, the mid 19th-century gardens at Ruthin Castle and the 1930s rock gardens at Eyarth House.

Other types of ornamental landscape are to be found in the vale. Lady Bagot’s Drive, a picturesque Edwardian carriage drive, now forming a footpath, alongside the wooded gorge of the Afon Clywedog, running eastwards from Rhyd-y-cilgwyn, near Rhewl, which was part of Lord Bagot’s estate. Ffynnon Dyfnog, Llanrhaeadr-yng-nghinmeirch, is a similarly picturesque creation, probably of the early 18th century. The holy well, with stone-lined tank and formerly decorated by carved figures, is fed by a cascading spring and approached by a woodland path, beginning at the churchyard, which crosses several ornamental stone bridges.

Most of the parkland areas in the vale are extremely vulnerable to disappearance, their effect being almost wholly dependent on the survival of isolated and already mature trees and large expanses of flat unbroken grassland. Little new tree planting is evident, and some parkland areas shown on earlier editions of Ordnance Survey maps have either been lost or their impact severely reduced in recent years due to no more than the loss of a proportion of parkland trees. Many of the other important elements of the parkland landscapes in the vale are also vulnerable, such as boundary walls, lodges, gates and railings.

Aesthetic appreciation of the landscape of the The Vale of Clwyd has a long tradition stretching back to at least the late 16th century, the earliest descriptions, such as in the following verse by Michael Drayton, contrasting the lushness and fertility of the valley, its meadows and cornfields with the ‘hills whose hoarie heads seeme in the clouds to dwell’.

The North-wind (calme become) forgets his Ire to wreake,
And the delicious Vale thus mildly doth bespeake;
Deere Cluyd, th’aboundant sweets, that from thy bosome flowe,
When with my active wings into the ayre I throwe,
Those Hills whose hoarie heads seeme in the clouds to dwell,
Of aged become young, enamor’d with the smell
Of th’odiferous flowers in thy most precious lap:
Within whose velvit leaves, when I my self enwrap,
Thy suffocate with sents; that (from my native kind)
I seeme some slowe perfume, and not the swiftest wind.
With joy, my Dyffren Cluyd, I see the bravely spred,
Survaying every part, from foote up to thy head;
Thy full and youthfull breasts, which in their meadowy pride,
Are brancht with rivery veines, Meander-like that glide.
I further note in thee, more excellent than these
(Were there a thing that more the amorous eye might please)
Thy plumpe and swelling wombe, whose mellowy gleabe doth beare
The yellow ripened sheafe, that bendeth with the eare.Michael Drayton, The Poly-Olbion, 1598-1622

The proportion of unenclosed common land and probably also woodland were much greater than the present day, but by this it is probable that a considerable amount of enclosure, land improvement and drainage had taken place, as evident in the accounts, noted above, of improvement works carried out in the former medieval park at Bathafarn between the 1550s and 1590s. Similar aspects of the landscape are again evident from Edward Lhuyd in Camden’s Britannia, published in 1722.

We are now come to the heart of the County, where nature, having remov’d the Mountains on all hands (to shew us what she could do in a rugged Country) hath spread out a most pleasant Vale; extended from south to north seventeen miles and about five in breadth. It lies open only to the Ocean, and to the clearing North-wind; being elsewhere guarded with high mountains, which (towards the east especially) are like battlements or turrets; for by admirable contrivance of nature, the tops of these mountains seem to resemble the turrets of walls. Among them, the highest is call’d Moel Enlhi [Foel Fenlli]: at the top whereof I observ’d a military fence or rampire, and a very clear Spring. This Vale is exceeding healthy, fruitful, and pleasant: the complexion of the Inhabitants is bright and cheerful; their heads of a sound constitution; their sight is very lively, and even their old age vigorous and lasting. The green Meadows, the Corn-fields, and the numerous Villages and Churches in this Vale, afford us the most pleasant prospect imaginable. The river Clwyd, from the very fountain-head runs through the midst of it, receiving on each side a great number of rivulets. And from hence it has been formerly call’d Ystrad Klwyd, i.e. the Vale of Cluid.’Edward Lhuyd, Camden’s Britannia, 1722

The 18th and early 19th centuries were very much the age of the topographical writer. Again, in Daniel Defoe’s Tour published a few year’s later, the emphasis is upon the contrast between the tamed and fertile farmland in the vale and the rugged and inhospitable hills which enclose it.

We have but little remarkable in the road from Conway to Hollywell, but crags and rocks all along the [north shore], till we come to Denbeigh town. This is the country town, and is a large populous place, which carries something in its countenance of its neighbourhood to England, but that which was most surprising, after such a tiresome and fatiguing journey, over the unhospitable mountains of Merioneth, and Carnarvonshire, was, that descending now from the hills, we came into a most pleasant, fruitful, populous, and delicious vale, full of villages and towns, the fields shining with corn, just ready for the reapers, the meadows green and flowery, and a fine river, with a mild and gentle river running through it; nor is it a small or casual intermission, but we had a prospect of the country open before us, for above 20 miles in length, and from 5 to 7 miles in breadth, all smiling with the same kind of complexion, which made us think our selves in England again, all on a sudden.Daniel Defoe, A Tour through the whole Island of Great Britain, 1725

Towards the end of the 18th century, Thomas Pennant provides a similar description of the vale from the north-west of Llanrhaeadr

On an eminence to the north-west of the church, called Cader Gwladus . . . is an extremely beautiful view of the vale between Denbigh and Ruthin, and the whole breadth chequered with wood, meadows, and corn-fields; and almost the whole range of the eastern limits soaring far above it.Pennant, A Tour in Wales, 1793

The publication of a number of works such as Gilpin’s Essays on the Picturesque in 1792 were to have a considerable impact on the aesthetic value of landscape at this time. Wordworth, staying with friends at Llangynhafal on several occasions in the 1790s, describes it as lying in the ‘most delicious of all Vales, the Vale of Clwyd’. For Sir Richard Colt Hoare, the antiquarian, at the beginning of the 19th century, the contrast was again between the richness of the vale with the surrounding countryside: ‘after passing over another dreary common the beautiful Vale of Clwyd bursts unexpectedly on the. His main concerns were literally the picturesque or drawable view. Thus, Denbigh could be considered ‘a rich picturesque scene, worthy [of] the pencil of Poussin’, but the Vale of Clwyd itself proved to be less satisfactory in this respect.

With regard to its picturesque beauty I was rather disappointed. Its mountainous boundaries to the east are well formed and finely broken, but the Vale is in general too wide to furnish good subjects for the pencil. The views however which its different parts present are truly pleasing and the views from its heights are very grand.Colt Hoare, 6 June 1801

Present-day appreciation of the landscape value of The Vale of Clwyd has a long tradition, one of its essential qualities still being the juxtaposition of the natural and artificial landscapes – the contrast between the ‘meadows green and flowery’ of the vale and the ‘crags and rocks’ of the surrounding hills.