Reflections on Llangollen's first 'grand' Eisteddfod 168 years ago

* The area next to the Ponsonby Arms, now a car park, which may have been the site of the Llangollen Fawr Eisteddfod in 1858.

Llangollen will soon be alive with the fantastic sights and sounds of its 79^th 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 15^th century.

* The front cover of the Clwyd County Council booklet.

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.