Seven Wonders of Wales

The Seven Wonders of Wales (Welsh: Saith Rhyfeddod Cymru) is a traditional list of notable landmarks in north Wales, commemorated in an anonymously written rhyme:

Pistyll Rhaeadr and Wrexham steeple,
Snowdon's mountain without its people,
Overton yew trees, St Winefride's well,
Llangollen bridge and Gresford bells.
This article is about Wales' Wonders. For other Seven Wonders, see Wonders of the World (disambiguation).
Snowdon
Pistyll Rhaeadr
Wrexham
Overton
St Winefride's Well
Llangollen
Gresford
The Seven Wonders of Wales

The rhyme is usually supposed to have been written sometime in the late 18th or early 19th century by an English visitor to North Wales.[1] The specific number of wonders may have varied over the years: the antiquary Daines Barrington, in a letter written in 1770, refers to Llangollen Bridge as one of the "five wonders of Wales, though like the seven wonders of Dauphiny, they turn out to be no wonders at all out of the Principality".[2]

The seven wonders comprise:

Image Wonder Location Date Notable Features
Pistyll Rhaeadr Near Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant, Powys n/a A tall waterfall, falling 240 ft (73 m) in three stages
St Giles' Church
Eglwys San Silyn		 Wrexham 16th-century The 16th-century tower of St Giles' Church in Wrexham can be seen for miles
Overton yew trees
Coed ywen Owrtyn		 Overton-on-Dee, Wrexham County Borough Planted at different times, ~3rd–12th century 21 yew trees at St Mary's Church
St Winefride's Well
Ffynnon Wenffrewi		 Holywell, Flintshire AD 660 (as pilgrimage site), constructions date to medieval. Historically claimed to have healing waters
Llangollen Bridge
Pont Llangollen		 Llangollen, Denbighshire Current construction dates from around 1500 Site of the first stone bridge to span the Dee
Bells of All Saints' Church, Gresford
Clychau Gresffordd		 Gresford, Wrexham County Borough 13th-century The church bells are listed for their purity and tone
Snowdon
Yr Wyddfa		 Snowdonia, Gwynedd n/a Highest mountain in Wales at 3,560 ft (1,085 m)

Notes and references
  1. Wales on Britannia: Seven Wonders of Wales, britannia.com
  2. Letter to Mr. Gough, July 20, 1770, in Illustrations of the literary history of the eighteenth century, v.5, Nichols, Son, and Bentley, 1828, p.583

See also
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