The bridge that carries the road from Holt to Farndon over the Dee is one of the oldest in the region, a line of red sandstone arches built in the 14th century. For most of its history it has been a border crossing, with Wales on the Holt bank and England on the Farndon side, and it was fought over in the Civil War.
The legend attached to it is dark. Two small boys, sons of a Welsh prince, were put into the care of English lords as wards after their father's fall. Their guardians, named in the story as John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, and Roger Mortimer of Chirk, wanted them out of the way, and one night brought them down to the river at Holt and drowned them. On quiet nights, people say, the children's cries can still be heard near the bridge.
The boys are usually taken to be the sons of Dafydd ap Gruffudd, the last Welsh prince to hold out against Edward I, who was executed in 1283. But the records show what actually happened to them. Llywelyn ap Dafydd died in prison in Bristol Castle in 1287 or 1288, and his brother Owain was kept in a cage there and was still alive in 1325. Neither was drowned at Holt. Warenne and Mortimer were real Marcher lords of this border, which may be why their names were drawn into the tale. The story is best read as a legend that has fastened onto the wrong historical figures, and the ghostly cries as local tradition.
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