Llangollen will soon be alive with the fantastic sights and sounds of its 79th International Musical Eisteddfod, filling the town with visitors from far and wide and housing its many musical and artistic competitions in a big tent.
But a slim volume in the proud ownership of a long-time
volunteer with the world-famous festival tells the remarkable tale of how the
Eisteddfod we have known since 1947 isn’t the first time all this
has been done.
Myron Lloyd loves to leaf through a 52-page A3
publication entitled The Eisteddfod – a living Clwyd tradition, which
was produced by the former Clwyd County Council, forerunner authority of today’s
Denbighshire, in the early 1990s.
Written by Hedd ap Emlyn and Kevin Mathias, it celebrates
the long and interesting history of the tradition of Eisteddfod which goes back
at least eight centuries, with Clwyd being able to boast close and important
connections with its development from the 15th century.
But it’s a little more recently that Llangollen hosted its
first Eisteddfod Fawr, or grand, when in September 1858 a group of people with a shared passion for
the preservation of traditional Welsh culture organised a
four-day event with its base on a piece of land adjacent to the Ponsonby Arms on Mill Street which could be the area now occupied by a car park.
The plot was owned by a man named John Allen who first
wanted to charge them a then-enormous £30 in rent but was eventually talked
into doing it free of charge on the basis of the extra business it would bring
in to the pub.
Myron’s carefully preserved booklet, with a foreword by both
the then-chairman and chief executive of Clwyd, describes in fascinating detail
over nine pages how this first big local Eisteddfod almost 170 years ago came
together and played out.
First it was advertised, not on social media as today, but
in Welsh and English language periodicals and newspapers at home and also abroad in the USA,
clearly in the hope that Welsh ex-pats living across the Atlantic would be
interested.
It is also said to have been advertised in large posters “at
least two yards long” plastered on walls and on “monster placards” on railway
stations.
On the opening day of September 21 thousands came flocking
to Llangollen from all parts of the country and canal transport was laid on for
those from Cefn Mawr, Acrefair, Fron and Chirk. Excursion trains headed in from
south and north Wales, Liverpool and Manchester. Many simply came on foot.
One of those making their way to the event recalled: “As we
were nearing Llangollen we were met with the bad news that the town was crammed
and that beds were a guinea a night.”
Another relates: “When we reached Llangollen the whole town
came out to meet us.”
The booklet records how the town was decorated with
colourful flowers and flags for the great occasion and swarming with people.
The Gorsedd was accorded the greatest prominence, with
members wearing robes according to their status of white, blue and green marching
along the streets of the town from the
Gorsedd stone to the Eisteddfod field.
The enormous tent housing all this frenetic activity was
large enough to hold 5,000 people and was built by Henry Hughes of Wrexham for the
grand sum of £200 – on the condition that the timber was returned to him
afterwards. It was 180 feet long by 144 feet wide and constructed in the form
of three spans. Nearby were three tents specially for refreshments.
The waterproof ability of the main tent was tested on the
Wednesday and Thursday by a big storm and was found wanting when the rain
started to pour through the canvas. People had to put up umbrellas inside,
only to be greeted by cries of, “sit down in the front, nothing can be heard
from the platform!”
The Eisteddfod’s competitions attracted eminent poets,
literary figures and musicians from over a wide area. But the booklet records
how squabbling broke out amongst the adjudicators themselves and themselves and
members of the committee over prizes.
A competitor named Eben Fardd won the star prize of the
Eisteddfod Chair for his poem The Battle of Bosworth which landed him a
medal plus £30 - equivalent to about £4,500 today.
It is recorded that uproar erupted over one competition – an essay on the
discovery of America – which at one point became so heated that the band had to
be called upon to play loud enough to drown out the noise being made. This row
continued after the event with one side threatening to take it to court.
Another point of note is that the competition for a
collection of unpublished Welsh airs saw the first outing of the tune which in
modified form eventually became the Welsh national anthem, Hen Wlad fy
Nhadau.
So that was Llangollen’s first grand Eisteddfod, with one
contemporary summing up of the event describes as: “ … an excellent Eisteddfod
– a large and lively one.” It certainly sounds like it was.
