This cache has been researched by Denbighshire Countryside services in conjuntion with the church warden. Many thanks to the church for permission for this cache.
Welcome to Llantysilio Church – the church of the 7th century saint, Tysilio. Originally this was probably a wooden church sited on a pre-Christian, pagan place of worship. The building you see now dates from 1180, but has been extended and remodelled many times, most notably in 1580, 1718 and 1869. If you look carefully at the stones in the building, you can see evidence of these changes.
Multi-Cache Trail
From the lych gate, turn right down the steps towards the church – just in front of you, you can see the back of a double, slate headstone. There are many examples of slate gravestones here, much of it from the local area. The quarrying of slate was a major local industry in the 19th Century when the building of the Llangollen canal and then the railway made it much easier to transport goods. However, the local slate is only around 420 million years old, and is not as compressed as slate from further west in Snowdonia. It is therefore more friable and prone to erosion. You can see how the slate on the headstone here has split.
Follow the trail round in order and find the numbers as you go. These are all in order for North and then West coordinates.
At the given coordinates Elizabeth Evans of Fron Newydd was buried here when she died at 20 years old. Find the year of her death, and use the last 2 digits minus 1
Look under the yew tree by the tall wall that is near you – can you find the headstone for the fantastically named “Exuperious Pickering”? He was an importance local businessman who built the first chain bridge across the River Dee just a third of a mile downstream from here. He built it to avoid the tolls on the Llangollen Bridge so that his goods could be transferred onto the London – Holyhead Road from the canal. The headstone is made from fine sandstone, with uniform grain size which can be carved and cut in any direction.
There are many other examples of sandstone, both on headstones and on the church itself. Much would have been taken from the quarries in Cefn near Wrexham. The soft nature of sandstone lends it to ornate carving, although it also makes it susceptible to erosion. As you walk through the grave yard you can see some well-worn sandstone headstones, where the writing is now illegible.
Exuperious’ wife Amelia Ann is also buried here. Find the year of her death and use the last 2 digits plus 1
Continue westwards with the tall wall to your right. You will soon find yourself among a groups of slate headstones with intricate carvings on, that, although they as old as the first slate headstone, are much better preserved. This is because they are made from older slate, probably from Bethesda/Llanberis. They are around 540 million year old and lend themselves to much finer detail in the stone masonry.
Find the headstone of Edward Jones. His wife (“wraig” in the Welsh here), Harriet died nearly 20 years later. Find the year of her death and use the last 3 digits plus 3
You should now have the northings of the final cache location.
Head back to the church and find the narrow window by the corner on the north wall. This is a “leper window” which allowed those with leprosy to participate in the service from a safe distance. The ornately carved sandstones around it were brought from the ruins of Valle Crucis Abbey, just a mile away.
Follow the church wall around to your right.
Externally, you can see the difference in stone work where this was constructed. There are three main groups of rocks used in the construction of the walls of the church.
- The cornerstones (around the windows, doors and the corner of the buildings) are made of sandstone. The sandstone used here is a type of freestone which means that it can be cut and carved in any direction. These sandstones are Carboniferous in age?
- The grey/black rock that makes-up the rubble-fill for the majority of the church walls is local Silurian mudstone.
- The third type of rock found in the walls is a variety of boulders which have been carried by glaciers during the last Ice Age, and later by the River Dee, often from the hills of Snowdonia. One of these near the front door of the church is a porphyritic basalt. In a porphyritic texture larger, well-shaped crystals are set in a finer matrix. The larger crystals are likely to be olivine. They crystallised slowly in a magma chamber below the surface. When the magma was erupted onto the surface, the rest of the melt crystallised much more rapidly, forming interlocking crystals in the matrix that cannot be distinguished to the naked eye.
Find the porphyritic basalt and count how many arches are in the window above. This is the beginning on the westings.
The church is usually open during the day time, and you are very welcome to look around.
Medieval features include the roof, the carved oak lectern in the form of a raven, a stone font and most of the west wall. The stained glass in the north Saints window was created around 1465 and depicts St James, the patron saint of pilgrims, particularly fitting as the church was part of a medieval pilgrim route.
The west window, created in 1895, is a stunning example of pre-Raphaelite form, with flesh tones that come to life in the late afternoon sun, especially the faces of the cherubs in the rose at the top.
From the church door, head west towards the back of the graveyard. Stop at the opening in the original, low boundary wall, and look for a grave with a red granite slab laid over grey granite. This is the grave of Charles Frederick Beyer, a railway entrepreneur who bought the original Llantysilio Hall and rebuilt the current Hall in the 1860’s using German stonemasons. He was an engineer who had his own locomotive building works in Gorton, Manchester which became Beyer-Peacock. The built locomotives that were exported all over the world, pioneering very heavy duty machines capable of pulling heavy loads. The lych gates of the church (stolen some 5 years ago) were cast in Gorton and stamped accordingly.
He was godfather to his friend and co- investor in the Ruabon – Barmouth railway, Henry Robertson, and he passed the Llantysilio Estate to his godson on his death.
Find the year Beyer was born and use the last 2 digits minus 2
Continue north along the old boundary wall and look out for 2 First World War graves. Most war graves are given headstones of white Portland stone, but in Wales the option is given to use slate.
Find the grave of Private W H Davies, who died in 1916 at the age of 22. Use the fourth, then third, then last digits of his number to get the last co-ordinates for the final cache.