Tug of war over iconic monument dedicated to North Wales hero and coveted by others

A controversial call has been made to move one of the most important monuments in North Wales. A petition from Senedd has demanded that the Eliseg Pillar in Denbighshire be placed in a museum so it can be saved from further decay in the open air.

People in the area have angrily rejected what many see as a cultural coup by South Wales. The idea has been labeled “ridiculous” and compared to “moving Hadrian’s Wall to the British Museum”.

Eliseg’s Pillar is located near Valle Crucis Abbey, Llangollen. It is a truncated version of a large stone cross, built in the first half of the 9th century. According to Cadw, the Welsh heritage organization that looks after it, the inscribed column tells “an epic story of Wales’s former rulers”.

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There are more than 500 early medieval carved stones in Wales, of which the Eliseg Pillar is considered one of the most valuable. It was founded by Cyngen ap Cadell, King of Powys, in honor of his great-grandfather Elisedd ap Gwylog who drove the Anglo-Saxons out of North-East Wales “with sword and with fire”. King Offa of Mercia may have built his spectacular 280 kilometer long dike as a direct result.

Moves to house the pillar in a museum are being led by Karl-James Langford, an actor from Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan. His Senedd petition is supported by YouTube and TikTok videos in which he decries: “Local people are letting vital history decay in a field so they can walk their dogs over to it and pee on it.”

Mr Langford’s views on the issue have been collected in a live show he is staging at the Welfare Arts Center in Ystradgynlais, Swansea, next year. His exhibition Exposed History aims to show how the people of Llangollen allowed 1,150 years of history to be ‘destroyed’.

In his petition he called for the Pillar of Eliseg to be moved to one of seven sites managed by Amgueddfa Cymru (National Museum Wales). With the exception of the National Slate Museum in Llanberis, Gwynedd, all sites are in South Wales. The North Wales Live WhatsApp community for top stories and breaking news is now live. Here’s how to sign up

Mr Langford said the carved letters on the pillar are rapidly eroding. “It is the most important early medieval stone in Cymru,” he wrote. “Yet it sits out in the open, eroding again, and should be placed in a museum before the last details are lost forever. A specimen should be placed where it is now in a field.”

By the time the petition closed on April 16, only 54 signatures had been collected and no further progress will be made. Of these, five came from Wrexham and three from Clwyd South, the constituency in which Llangollen lies.

For the most part, however, locals are not amused by the idea. On social media, a Llangollen Museum staff member noted that the facility already has a good cast of the pillar. She added: “The monument has survived in situ for over a thousand years. There is no reason to remove the pillar from its location and it is well protected by Cadw. This is nonsense.”

Others believe Cardiff should keep its hands off the cultural assets of North Wales. “How can this be a serious discussion?” a woman asked. “It can be protected on site or even moved locally in the worst case. But Cardiff? Historically, we have lost far too many historical finds to Cardiff and London.”

Originally the monument would have stood almost six meters high, with a transverse shaft on top. It was partly destroyed by Puritan Roundheads during the English Civil War, when the cross was possibly lost. The lower half was rebuilt some 120 years later.

It is thought that the pillar was a statement of power: the inscriptions were intended to be read aloud. One theory is that the monument not only lorded it over the Mercians, but was also a declaration of independence from the Kingdom of Gwynedd, the other major power in Wales at the time.

Mr Langford said the Eliseg Pillar is an “important and vital piece of our heritage” that is being destroyed by the “vanity” of the people of Denbighshire. “It doesn’t belong to the people of Llangollen, it belongs to all of us,” he said. Sign up for the North Wales Live newsletter, sent to your inbox twice a day

The idea of ​​protecting the monument on site by building some sort of structure around it has received some support, even locally. However, this is considered difficult because the pillar rests on complex archaeology.

The original platform cairn, dated to around 2000 BC, was increased in height in the Early Bronze Age. Both phases of construction contained burial grounds, the latter for countless adults, children and infants.

By the time Valle Crucis Abbey was built, less than a mile away, Eliseg’s Pillar was already 350 years old. As the name translates as “Valley of the Cross,” the inspiration was clear. The pillar is a reminder of the historic treasures of north-east Wales, which have not always been appreciated as much as those further west and south.

A Wrexham man believes the great Norman castles of North Wales dominate the region’s historical narrative. He said: “I truly believe more needs to be done in this area to preserve and explain our history.”

“I passionately believe that the centuries-old history of the North – and especially the North East – will be preserved here and given the necessary recognition it deserves. Without this, Wales’ history as a nation is only partial.”

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