WGS Wales Trip May 10-15, 2006 Page Nineteen Home|Previous Page|1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 |Next Page

The Laburnum Arch as we saw it in May, 2006.	The Laburnum Arch in late May, we missed the blooming of the arch by being there mid May.
Outside the Gardens in the parking area, there were a pair of Peacocks. A male and a female. This is the Male they are the one's that have all the color.
	Just as we were loading the van to leave, the Male got protective of the female and started showing off. The next pictures were caught of him doing his show.
	Alice Neff's family leaving the gardens.
Conway Castle Saturday, May 13th, 2006 Mayor Phillip planned for us to stop and just take a glander at the outside of this castle. But he was not in the parking lot at the time I made the decision that we should go in and see it, but not take a long time. I appologize to Mayor Phillip because I had messed up his tour schedule. But I don't regret us going, I think it showed us a great castle in its natural state of age, not having been redone and brought to modern specs. I am not going to make a lot of commentary of the castle so I will give you the history here. The Conwy Castle stand astride a small rocky promontory jutting out into the river Conway and its adjoined by a small but busy town complete with its circuit of medieval town walls. Following the death of the Welsh Prince, Llewelyn ap Gruffudd, in 1282, Conway was one of a series of castles established in north Wales by King Edward I to secure the newly conquered principality. The castle was begun in May 1283 and finished in 1287. By 1321 the castle was already in disrepair and in 1332 it was reported as unfit to accommodate the king. Major repair works were then undertaken about 1347 and included the great hall, which was remodeled to support a newly leaded roof. Although supporters of Owain Glyn Dwr took the Castle in 1401, further renovation seems to have been minor until Archbishop John Williams fortified Conwy for King Charles I during the Civil War. The Castle and town walls remain remarkably intact and from the eighteenth century began to attract the attention and interest of topographical artists. With the construction of Thomas Telford’s road bridge and the Chester and Holyhead Railway in the nineteenth century, visitors to Conwy increased and so the preservation and restoration of the castle and town walls gained impetus. Since 1984 the castle has been maintained by Cadw and in 1987 Conwy – together with Beaumaris, Caernarfon and Harlech – was inscribed on the World Heritage List as a historic site of outstanding universal value. We are not not directly related to Llewelyn ap Gruffudd, but we are related to his sister Gwladus verch Gruffydd, there are 15 generations between Llewelyn ap Gruffudd’s father and Dr. Thomas Wynne.