Letter from Betws-y-Coed

Molly Stubbs

Sleep-deprived and squeamish, I set off for the Gogledd on a bright Tuesday morning.

I am so envious of those in the north of our country, and the feeling percolates as the signs for Porthmadog appear. Yes, yes, Cymru is a gem in her entirety. But no matter how much I tell myself Ponty’s terraced rows and pit wheels poking over treetops are the stunning vestiges of a rich history, I still taste the jealousy as I swing twice round Tremadog’s roundabout to get a second glimpse of snow-bonneted peaks.

“Why doesn’t my corner of the world look like something out of National Geographic?” I give a bitter whisper in the direction of a few footballers.

The standard summer greens may have become burnished browns, but who cares when everything is cast in gold? Even Trawsfynydd perched quietly at the edge of her lake, ponderous and gleaming in the winter sunshine, is a buxom beauty.

At least now, with my little sister Florence studying zoology at Bangor University, I have an excuse to undertake the trek north. She’s certainly never coming back down south, what with the significant amount of work she has to do in her free time, writing reports on owls, identifying bird calls, keeping field journals.

Floss’s preoccupation with the natural world means she’s visited just about every sanctuary, rare breeds centre, farm park and zoo west of Chester, making it exceedingly difficult for us to find activities for our days together.

As we walk to Marks and Sparks for some salmon salads (and a pistachio cookie to calm my car sickness), we give up almost entirely on any semblance of a plan and decide simply to pick a road, follow it, and see where we end up.

Clambering out of Sally the Suzuki and into Felix the Fiat 500, this is how after rounding a few reservoirs we end up coming across, completely by serendipitous surprise, Betws-y-Coed.

“This is nice,” I say to Floss as we skirt down a narrow road, boxed comfortingly by cottages strung up with festive lights.

“It’s like a fairytale,” she replies, our heads snapping left to a curved and cobbled bridge, high above rocky torrents. Even at midday, the iron streetlamps’ orbs are glowing a crisp silver.

“Like something from the Alps.”

That does it for Floss, who pulls a sharp corner into the car park.

“We’re stopping here.” She nods definitively while I crick my neck.

“I assumed.”

Histories

Now, Floss might have inherited the scientific gene from our mother but, presumably from some deep and far-removed branch in our ancestry of microbiologists and pharmacists, I ended up with a historian’s bent. Allow me here to relay for you a brief history of Betws-y-Coed.

As its translation to prayerhouse-in-the-woods hints, Betws is named for a church. Although St Michaels no longer exists, his replacement by St Mary was completed in 1869 alongside the village’s railway station, both designed by Owen Gethin Jones.

With the popularity of rail travel in the 19th century, many visitors did just what Floss and I have done hundreds of years later, and fell in love at first sight with Betws’s undeniable charm.

Steam trains brought workers from Lancashire for well-earned days out, paddle steamers docked at Trefriw quay side for a trip to the spa, while horse-drawn carriages ferried tourists on excursions to nearby beauty spots.

Nowadays, Betws seems to serve much the same whims. Locked firmly in Eryri’s centre, this ‘gateway to the mountains’ hosts ramblers, amblers, trudgers, plodders, hikers and more outdoor stores than you can shake a muddy walking pole at.

Being but feeble women, Floss and I quickly give into our magpie instincts and start spending money. She indulges in a patriotic bobble hat from Craft Cymru, while I wander across the Pont-y-Pair. Thought to have been built in the 16th century, it is the oldest existing crossing in the village.

Bridge of the cauldron indeed. Beneath my feet, a fresh overflow from rains of days past eddies around smooth rocks, launching itself downstream before flattening out to bend around fields.

“You’d have a hard time playing Pooh Sticks in that,” I shout to Floss over the river’s roar.

“Fastest game ever!”

Clearly, the rush takes Floss by surprise, and she skips away to the public toilets while I venture into Cunningham’s.

I quickly fixate on an eggshell blue cross-body bag and fluffy pullover printed with mountain scene that I would’ve loathed to find under the Christmas tree as a child, for surely they heralded another ‘staycation’ in Bannau Brycheiniog.

As an adult, however, I can’t get them in my basket fast enough.

“You folded it so nicely…” I say to the lady behind the counter as I willingly wither away my bank account ever further. “It’ll never look like that again.”

“Well,” she eyes me up and down but her smile is fond, “we at least like them to leave the shop looking nice.”

I bound down the steps as Floss rounds the corner. “Don’t I look like a proper hiker?” I squeal excitedly, but my bird-bladdered sister is still knock-kneed.

“Fifty p for a pee.” She scowls. We quickly set off toward the village’s other toilets.

Connections

While my home town yn y De might not have the same quaint quiet as Betws-y-Coed, I am connected to my Cymry here by mountains and, of course, mines.

Betws’s buildings are constructed almost entirely from the spoils of two nearby slate quarries, Hafod Las and Rhiwddolion, giving the village a distinctive but not unwelcoming shadow. Characterful as they come, even fashioned from the same stone each cottage, pub, shop, and station has its own personality.

An ivy-covered wall here, a window seat jutting out over the river there, a chimney stack steaming to mingle with the trees’ respiration – the village seems to have grown from stones thrown into the riverbed.

There are parts, too, returning to nature. Aberllyn zinc mine, which produced 2,500 tons of zinc in the 18th century, has been left to the elements since its closure in 1921. And as we pass under the arched entrance to the railway station, I spot another abandoned beauty.

Well, technically the cream carriages and green coach that stand proud opposite us aren’t abandoned. They’re part of the Conwy Valley Railway Museum.

“It’s a Pullman coach,” the elderly gent on a bench next to us explains, as if we young whipper snappers will know exactly what that means. “Beautiful in the ’70s it was. They said they were renovating it, but…”

Despite our age that look, mocking eyebrows and a hand thrown to the wind in resigned exasperation, we know all too well. But the gent quickly readjusts his wool check coat, and his warmth returns. “If you go round the back there’s a few carriages from the Orient Express!”

I take a moment beside a small fountain, a lion’s head cast in what I presume is bronze but might easily just be rusted steel spouting a thin stream into the grate below. A sign next to it reads ‘Make a wish to help save the apes.’

It’s an ongoing appeal by the Hangin’ Pizzeria and Alpine Coffee Shop and Gallery next door, who since 2014 have raised over £60,000 to help save endangered apes via Orangutan Appeal UK. I point to the pizzeria, which has just opened its doors, but Floss is running past me. Ahhh, the public toilet. This time, the man behind the tiny glass window doesn’t make her pay the small fine for oncoming incontinence.

“That was very nice of him,” she breathes contentedly, looking up to the surrounding mountains.

The sun is setting by the time we drift up the road to Rhaeadr y Graig Lwyd, giving us just enough leeway to skitter down the steep steps to its base, and finger flakes of salmon and a few boiled potatoes into our gob before we start the journey back to Bangor.

“Can’t believe we found that just by picking a random road,” Floss says. “I think I’ll come back to Betws-y-Coed.”