Seven Wonders of Wales

Snowdon

Pistyll Rhaeadr

Wrexham

Overton

St Winefride's Well

Llangollen

Gresford

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The 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.

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:

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

^ Wales on Britannia: Seven Wonders of Wales, britannia.com
^ 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