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Llanrwst takes its name from Saint Grwst, a 6th-century saint. The first church dedicated to him at Llanrwst was on a site now occupied by Seion Methodist Chapel, between Station Road and Cae Llan. A second church of St Grwst was built on a new site a short distance south of its predecessor, on the banks of the Conwy. The site was donated for the purpose in about 1170 by Rhun ap Nefydd Hardd, a member of the royal family of Gwynedd. The second church was replaced by the current building on the same site in the late 15th century.
St Grwst's Church
Llanrwst developed around the wool trade, and for a long time the price of wool for the whole of Britain was set here. The growth of the village in the 13th century was considerably aided by an edict by Edward I of England (who built Conwy Castle) prohibiting any Welshman from trading within 10 miles (16 km) of the town of Conwy. Llanrwst, located some 13 miles (21 km) from that town, was strategically placed to benefit from this.
During the 13th century wars between the Welsh and English rulers, Llanrwst was for a time a border town, with the River Conwy serving as a boundary between English and Welsh rule in the 1240s and 1250s, and again in the 1270s and 1280s. The town's ambiguous status during this time gave rise to the local saying "Cymru, Lloegr a Llanrwst" (Wales, England and Llanrwst). The saying was used as the title of a 1989 song by local band, Y Cyrff.
The parish was also contested between different ecclesiastical jurisdictions; whilst the Conwy was generally the boundary between the dioceses of Bangor and St Asaph, the parish of Llanrwst straddled the river. In 1276, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Prince of Wales, claimed the whole parish for the Bangor diocese as part of trying to assert Welsh rule over the area. This was disputed by the bishop of St Asaph, who appealed to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope. Matters resolved after Llywelyn's death in 1282 and the subsequent conquest of the Welsh territories by the English crown. The parish of Llanrwst was thereafter allowed to straddle the two dioceses, with the part east of the Conwy (including the town and parish church) being in the diocese of St Asaph, and the part west of the Conwy (including Gwydir Forest) being in the diocese of Bangor.
Ancaster Square in the town centre
In a survey in 1334, Llanrwst was described as one of three boroughs in the Lordship of Denbigh, with the others being Denbigh and Abergele. Boroughs were towns with certain trading rights and judicial powers. Some boroughs were subordinate only to the monarch rather than any intervening lord of the manor; these were sometimes termed 'free boroughs', and included places such as Caernarfon and Conwy. Modern writers sometimes claim that Llanrwst was a free borough. The origins and extent of Llanrwst's claim to borough status are unclear, but it appears to have been already in decline by the time of the 1334 survey, and Llanrwst's borough status did not endure.
In 1610 Sir John Wynn of Gwydir had the historic Llanrwst Almshouses built to house poor people of the parish. These closed in 1976, but were restored in 1996 with the aid of Heritage Lottery funding, reopening as a museum of local history and community focal point. It held a collection of over 100 items relating largely to the rural Conwy valley, and a number associated with the renowned Llanrwst Bards of the late 19th century. It closed as a museum in 2011.
The Grade I-listed Pont Fawr, a narrow, three-arched stone bridge said to have been designed by Inigo Jones, was built in 1636 by Sir Richard Wynn (son of Sir John Wynn) of Gwydir Castle. It links the town with Gwydir, a manor house dating from 1492, a 15th-century courthouse known as Tu Hwnt i'r Bont, and a road from nearby Trefriw. North of the village is the site of a house, Plas Madoc, which was the home of Colonel John Higson. A friend of Henry Pochin of Bodnant, Higson developed a garden at Plas Madoc which may have had input from, or been influenced by, Henry Ernest Milner. The house has been demolished but the garden remain and are listed at Grade II on the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales.
Llanrwst hosted the National Eisteddfod in 1951, 1989 and 2019.
It is sometimes said that Llanrwst sought to join the United Nations in 1946 or 1947 as an independent state. No contemporary evidence confirming such a bid has been found. The earliest published version found of the story is a mention in a newspaper article from 1992, which gave no dates or further detail, but mentioned that Llanrwst "once discussed applying for membership of the United Nations". Various versions of the claim have been made since 1992. At the 2019 Eisteddfod, a local arts group handed out mock passports for the "Free Borough of Llanrwst" to visitors.
