Excursions in North Wales

A Victorian portal into the wild heart of North Wales, this guide takes travelers back to an era when journeying to Snowdonia meant bone-shaking carriage rides through mountain passes and overnight stops in village inns. John Hicklin begins at Chester, the ancient Roman gateway, then leads readers onward through a landscape of thundering waterfalls, ruined castles perched on crags, and the newly miraculous Menai Bridge. His prose captures a Wales still touched by the old ways, slate mines humming, bards singing in valley farmhouses, and the great mountains rising unbroken by modern development. This isn't mere practical advice for the Victorian tourist; it's a passionate argument for why this rugged corner of Britain deserves to be seen, understood, and wondered at. For readers today, it offers the rare pleasure of encountering a landscape both familiar and lost, where the bones of history still protrude from the hillsides.