LLANGEDWYN HALL, 



DENBIGHSHIRE. 



Rl s l\(i in the mountainous region of North- 

 Wcst Montgomeryshire as docs also the 

 V\rtiwy, whose artificial lake is Liverpool's 

 supply the river I ati.it, on its way to the 

 Severn, trusses that southernmost slip of Denbigh- 

 shire which contains the parish of Llangedwyn. Its 

 valley is of that sub-mountainous kind whose base 

 is occupied by lush meadows, through which the 

 rushing, limpid stream winds ; the hilltops are 

 crowned with wood and waste, an.l their steep side- 

 are given up to mixed agriculture and dotted o^.i 

 sionally with the habitations of men. Of the larger 

 sort of these is the old manor house which we illus- 

 trate, admirably set and planned to give value to the 

 characteristics of its site, and which forms part of 

 that greit territory in North Wales acquired and 

 owned in the early part of the eighteenth century 

 by the first Sir \Vatkin Williams - Wynn, whose 



names and estates have e\er SMKC i.mtinued in his 



line. The story of the acquisition of this larut 



,--... . ' . 



estate, aiul of its administration with a view to its 



i. interring the utmost political and social intiueiue 

 upon its lords, is a bit of local, merging into national, 

 history of the most engaging kind. If unrecognised 

 in the " Almanach de (totha," this principality wa- 

 nevertheless ruled by a descendant of primes ; for, 

 though the first Sir Watkin's paternal great-yrand- 

 father had been but a quiet country parson, his 

 maternal ancestor one degree further back had clearly 

 established himself as thirteenth in direct lineal 

 descent from Owain dwvnedd, I'tince of North 

 Wales and a descendant ot Roderick the (ireat. Sir 

 John Wynn of (iwydir, born in I 55.1, the author of 

 the " History of the dwydir 1-amily " and the framer 

 of this romantic, but not necessarily imaginative, 

 pedigree, did not, however, confine his attention to 



//C()\7 f.\ /A.I.U /:. 



