The Rock of Penmaenmawr

Pageant type

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Performances

Place: Unknown (Llanfairfechan) (Llanfairfechan, Carnarvonshire, Wales)

Year: 1928

Indoors/outdoors: Unknown

Number of performances: 1

Notes

13 December 1928

  • It seems likely that it was indoors, considering the time of year.
  • Details are lacking, but the press reports would suggest only one performance.

Name of pageant master and other named staff

Names of executive committee or equivalent

n/a

Names of script-writer(s) and other credited author(s)

  • North, H.L.

Names of composers

  • Tallis, Thomas

Numbers of performers

Financial information

Object of any funds raised

n/a

Linked occasion

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Audience information

  • Grandstand: Not Known
  • Grandstand capacity: n/a
  • Total audience: n/a

Prices of admission and seats: highest–lowest

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Associated events

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Pageant outline

Prelude

The text in the synopsis is taken verbatim from the pageant programme.

We now come to the prelude, in which we impersonate the Spirit of Imagination, and she, the Spirit of Imagination, first lifts us up on her magic carpet to an aerial panorama of the whole Snowdon range and then leaves us on the summit of Penmaenmawr. She is surrounded by the Children of Fancy and supported by History and Nature. The view that is opened to us is that from the top of Penmaenmawr looking towards Drum, Foel Fras, Lwydmor and the basin of Llyn Anafon or Aber Lake.

Scene I. Druids and Romans, AD 60

The Romans had arrived in the country and had found, like every other invader, that Snowdonia could not be taken without first cutting off the supply of food from Anglesey, ‘the Mother of Wales’ as it was called, and to do that they had to conquer the Druids who had taken refuge there. So in this year AD 60 Suetonius the Roman General advanced to attack the Druids, crossing the Straits just near Port Dinorwic. The Druids lit great fires, probably sacrificial, along the coast and stood in front of them uttering incantations and curses. They were accompanied by numbers of women with long black hair, rushing up and down in front. For a moment this spectacle appalled the Romans, but, discipline prevailing, they advanced on them and drove them back into their own fires to perish in the flames. Druidism as a system was broken up. Our scene shews two Druids who are supposed to have escaped destruction and got across the marsh and forest where the Straits are now, and climbed up to the great fort of Braich y Dinas, the summit of Penmaenmawr, and we see them there, the elder one bewailing the overthrow of Druidism, and the younger thinking more of having saved his skin. Presently along the Roman road, still visible, from Conovium to Segontium (that is Caerhuun to Caernarvon), are seen the Roman legions marching, appearing on our scene through Bwlch y Ddeufaen, the Pass of the Two Stones, and the attention of the two Druids being drawn to them, the Elder Druid curses them with all his might.

Scene II. Seiriol and his Gweli, c. AD 530

[Depicted is] Seiriol, of the Royal Family of Cunedda, which had arrived in the fifth century from the North—the great family of Wales, of whom practically all the great Welshmen, from Saint David to Llywelyn the Great, belonged. Seirol was at first a solitary hermit in his cell on Priestholme; later he may have been the head of a religious house. The scene shows a spur of Penmaenmawr, and Seiriol, descending from his Gweli, meets a small family journeying from Caergybi to Maelgwyn’s court at Deganwy.

Scene III. Helig ap Glannog and the Inundation.

The great flood. The scene shows Helig, his six sons, and his people rushing up the rocky spur by night, to escape the flood. The second half of this scene shows the rest of the tradition which states that his six sons Celynin, Rhychwn, Brothen, Bodvan, Boda, and Gwynan, having as Sir John Wyn puts it ‘lost their patrimony decided to devote their lives to religion,’ in other words they went about the country and founded the various churches named after them.

Scene IV. Gruffyd ap Cynan and the Normans, AD 1098

[Depicted is] Gruffyd ap Cynan, born in the Scananavian colony of Dublin and educated at Christ Church in that city. His people had fled there from Wales and he came across to claim his patrimony as Prince of Gwynedd, on the death of the usurper Bleddyn. He is driven back to Ireland by the Normans, but again returns on the occasion of our episode, to attack them at Aberileiniog. The scene shows Gruffyd, who had collected his forces in Lleyn, now on this side of the Straits, and we see him and his friends on Penmaenmawr taking a survey of the position. The second part of the episode shows the advance to the night attack, and we hear of the overthrow of the Normans in the absence of their chief (1094). Alas, this was not successful immediately, for the Normans returned and Gruffydd was driven back to Ireland. But when the Normans’ departed, Gruffyd returned home and formed an excellent ruler of his country.

Scene V. The Birthday of Llanfairfechan; Consecration of Church; Llywelyn the Great, 8 September c. AD 1200

The day on which the parish received its name—meaning the little church of Mary. The Gwylmabsant or festival day is 8 September, the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, and it was doubtless on that day somewhere about the year 1200 that the church was founded here. In our scene we shew Llewelyn the Great and Princess Joan and accompanying them his chamberlain Gwyn ap Ednywain. We also shew of course the Bishop of Bangor who would say the first Mass and so consecrate the church. We also have present the Abbot of Conwy for the time being, the Bishop’s chaplain, clerks, cross bearer, thurifer, and a crowd of the inhabitants. We represent the first part of the ritual, the blessing of the incense, and the censing of all present in due order as an act of preparation, before the procession round the outside of the building begins. The clerks then start the singing of that grand old hymn ‘Urbs Beata’ to the contemporary plainsong (translated by John Mason Neale ‘Blessed City, Heavenly Salem’). The procession forms and we see them going round the building preparatory to the Bishop demanding entrance by striking on the door with his pastoral staff.

Scene VI. Edward I and Queen Eleanor on the Way to Caernarfon, AD 1284

They must have passed under Penmaenmawr, and so we show our scene of the spur of Penmaenmawr and Edward I walking by the Queen’s chair, with attendant ladies and knights, etc. He looks up and sees his horses and grooms passing across the road above, high on the rock, led by the Hermit of that date.

Scene VII. Some Local Worthies; Enlargement of Church, AD 1500

Our next scene advances another 20 years to the end of the 15th century. The country has become much more prosperous. The Wars of the Roses and the incursions of the inhabitants of Ysbyty Ivan and the disturbances of Owen Glyndwr had terribly impoverished the country, but now all have passed away and the Tudors, whose family originated in Anglesey and were partly Welsh, were on the throne. In our scene we introduce you to Thomas Wynn, Robert Owen and Robert ap Richard. Wynn is very keen about the improvement in the church and describes them in the way the poets of the period did, with special reference, as the poets did, to the large new 15th-century rood screen with its images above. Robert ap Richard, a skinflint farmer, and lastly, Owen, a poet farmer, not wishing to quarrel with either, but clearly agreeing with Wynn, talking about the beauty of the prospect of Llanfair from Bodsilin. At the end we see passing across the church yard the earliest known Rector and Curate, that is in the year 1504 to 1512, Dom John Phillips and Dom Lewis ap Ieuan respectively.

Scene VIII. Gwylmabsant Nativity, c. AD 1500

Our friends of the last scene, Wynn, Owen and Robert and their wives and children, are present, and we have pennillion singing by Thomas Wynn’s bard (every large house kept a bard in those days), dancing and other amusements, and also a Mystery Play representing the Nativity of our Lord and other Gospel subjects.

Scene IX. Local Cromwellian and Restoration Events, AD 1650 and 1665

Our scene shows the people just come out of the church with Parson Vaughan and the Churchwarden, when up comes the hermit of Penmaenmawr, to whom we have referred before, to say that he sees the Ironsides coming along the shore. The captain, a decent sort of man, evidently does not like his job, and tries to shew that, as he has been told to say, he is doing it for their good, and that he only does what he has been told to do by law. Parson Vaughan is much affected and the Churchwarden very angry. Our next half of the scene is five years after the Restoration of the King and the Church, namely in 1665. Parson Griffith Pearce meets his parishioners outside the renovated building and describes the work that has been done. Going into the church, Psalm CXXII is sung, ‘I was Glad when they Said unto me we will Go into the House of the Lord’, to a contemporary chant by Tallis, one of the earliest so-called Anglican chants, for before that time the old devotional plain song was used.

Scene X. The Rev. John Wesley Passes by, 15 August 1756

We show John Wesley passing across the mountain behind the road wall, and we put into his mouth what he says in his diary (‘The road from Bangor to Llanfair is more beautiful than any garden’), together with a sentiment he might well have expressed.

Finale. A Hymn of Thankfulness

The principal characters reappear grouped in front of the 13th-century parish church, with the Gweli Seiriol and Braich y Ddinas in the background, and with Seiriol as the central figure. The Spirit of Imagination, who started us on our journey, will ask us all to join in a hymn of thankfulness for all the mercies of the past, and for all the beauty and romance of our marvellous country.

Key historical figures mentioned

  • Seiriol [St Seiriol] (fl. 6th cent.) holy man
  • Gruffudd ap Cynan (1054/5–1137) king of Gwynedd
  • Llywelyn ab Iorwerth [called Llywelyn Fawr] (c.1173–1240) prince of Gwynedd
  • Joan [Siwan] (d. 1237) princess of Gwynedd, wife of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth
  • Edward I (1239–1307) king of England and lord of Ireland, and duke of Aquitaine
  • Eleanor [Eleanor of Castile] (1241–1290) queen of England, consort of Edward I
  • Wesley [Westley], John (1703–1791) Church of England clergyman and a founder of Methodism

Musical production

n/a

Newspaper coverage of pageant

Liverpool Post and Mercury

Book of words

n/a

Other primary published materials

  • Concerning the Pageant of the Rock of Penmaenmawr, Presented at Llanfairfechan, 1928. Bangor, 1928.

Price: 6d. Copy in National Library of Wales.

References in secondary literature

n/a

Archival holdings connected to pageant

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Sources used in preparation of pageant

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Summary

The Rock of Penmaenmawr was a pageant performed in 1928 in the small town of Llanfairfechan. Its title referred to the North East extremity of the great crescent of mountains known as ‘Eryi’ (the mountains of the Eagles), dominated by Y Wyfddfa Fawr (Snowdon) and terminated at its North West extremity by the triple peaks of Yr Eifl. Little detail has survived beyond the scanty souvenir programme, and it seems likely that it was a very minor event. We do know that the pageant was written and produced by Herbert Luck North—an architect born in Leicester and educated at Uppingham School and Jesus College, Cambridge. He had lived in Llanfairfechan with his family, and returned there at the turn of the century, when he was about thirty, to establish a practice. His grandfather, Richard Luck, had been a Leicester lawyer but also the owner of an estate in Llanfairfechan, where he was Chairman of the Local Government Board, one of the first trustees of the National School, and a churchwarden. His father, Thomas North, had contributed to the building of the village Girls School and the organ in Christ Church in Llanfairfechan.2 Herbert also had an interest in the region and in churches; he designed the Church Institute and the adjacent Churchmen’s Snooker Club. He also wrote The Old Churches of Arllechwedd (Bangor, 1900) and, in collaboration with Harold Hughes, The Old Cottages of Snowdonia (Bangor, 1908) and The Old Churches of Snowdonia (Bangor, 1924).3 Information provided to the website historypoints.org by his granddaughter Pam Phillips describes how Herbert was aided in his staging of pageants by his local Welsh wife, Ida Maude Luck (nee Davies), who took responsibility for music and costumes.4

It was, in a sense, a pageant of Snowdonia, and of how the geography of the Rock was involved in Welsh history. In the prelude a Spirit of Imagination, along with History and Nature, introduced the crowd (though it is unclear how!) to an aerial panorama of the whole Snowdon range, leaving the spectator on the summit of Penmaenmawr. The first episode then showed how the Romans arrived and conquered the Druids in order to take Snowdonia, the Druids cursing the Romans from the Rock. The third episode showed Helig ap Glannog (a legendary Prince of the 6th century) escaping a fabled flood by rushing up the Rock at night. The fourth scene showed Gruffyd ap Cynan, Prince of Gwynedd, on the Rock surveying the landscape while trying to defend the region from the Normans. The sixth episode showed Edward I and Queen Eleanor on their way to Caernarfon in 1284, passing under Penmaenmawr.

Religious sentiment and history was particularly strong in the pageant, and in several episodes the focus was explicitly on the history of the church of Llanfairfechan. The fifth scene showed the consecration of the church around 1200. The long seventh scene showed the enlargement of the Church in 1500, with three ‘local worthies’ (Thomas Wynn, Robert Owen and Robert ap Richard) engaged in discussing the church. At the end of this episode the earliest known Rector and Curate (Dom John Phillips and Dom Lewis ap Ieuan) pass across the scene. The eighth scene, though unclear whether set in the Church or not, featured a Mystery play ‘representing the Nativity of our Lord and other Gospel subjects’. Even in scenes dealing with events of national importance (such as the Restoration), and figures of national importance (such as Gruffyd ap Cynan and Llywelyn the Great), the Church and its officials played a leading role. The final episode simply showed the Methodist preacher John Wesley passing by and praising the area: ‘The road from Bangor to Llanfair is more beautiful than any garden’. The pageant unsurprisingly finished on the Church. A ‘Hymn of Thankfulness’ was sung as the principal characters from previous episodes reappeared and grouped themselves in front of the building, and The Spirit of Imagination asked all to join in for ‘all the mercies of the past, and for all the beauty and romance of our marvellous country’.5

The lack of press coverage (no details were found in the North Wales Observer, for example) would suggest that this was a very minor pageant. It is not even clear where the pageant took place and whether it was indoors or outdoors—though the heavy focus on the Church of Llanfairfechan, the involvement of Luck, the small cast, and its December staging would suggest that it was actually within the Church Institute and performed by the parishioners, as some of Luck’s other pageants were.6 Certainly the programme gave away very few details, suggesting that there was not a lot of organisation behind the event. More generally, the souvenir seemed to operate as a history of both the area and the church, beginning with a description of the geography, before showing how the area was affected by social and political change. 

The Liverpool Post and Mercury, at least, published a very enthusiastic report before the pageant, describing how the play would ‘delight any Welshman possessing a spark of national pride’, including ‘everyone born under the shadow of the Rock of Penmaenmawr.’7 It is possible that there are other short reports in some newspapers. But, at the least, the Rock of Penmaenmawr Pageant is an example of one of the thousands of small pageants that were staged across Britain by enthusiastic local volunteers, joining their own interests in local history to larger histories of identity and nationhood.

Footnotes

  1. ^ Concerning the Pageant of the Rock of Penmaenmawr, Presented at Llanfairfechan, 1928. Bangor, 1928.
  2. ^ ‘Herbert Luck North’s Family’, History Points.Org, accessed 24 February 2015, http://historypoints.org/index.php?page=herbert-luck-north-s-family.
  3. ^ ‘Herbert Luck North’, Llanfairfechan Tourism and Amenities Association, accessed 24 February 2015, http://www.llanfairfechan.org.uk/newsite/about-llanfairfechan/history/herbert-luck-north/.
  4. ^ ‘Herbert Luck North’s Family’.
  5. ^ Description taken from Concerning the Pageant of the Rock of Penmaenmawr, Presented at Llanfairfechan, 1928 (Bangor, 1928). Copy in National Library of Wales.
  6. ^ Adam Voelcker, ‘The Churches of Herbert Luck North’, Ecclesiology Today 44 (July 2011): 52.
  7. ^ ‘The Rock of Penmaenmawr’, Liverpool Post and Mercury, 13 December 1928, in Miscellaneous Pageants, Durrant's press cuttings, 1895x1939, Box 10, National Library of Wales.

How to cite this entry

Angela Bartie, Linda Fleming, Mark Freeman, Tom Hulme, Alex Hutton, Paul Readman, ‘The Rock of Penmaenmawr’, The Redress of the Past, http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/1159/