History
In the late 18th century, Richard Pennant, 1st Baron Penrhyn, built a road from Bangor through the Nant Ffrancon and Dyffryn Ogwen to Betws-y-Coed, and eventually through to Shrewsbury (in use by 1798). In 1801, Lord Penrhyn built the then named Capel Curig Inn. In 1808 the Mail coach which ran from Holyhead to Shrewsbury began running via Capel Curig. The Mail coach ceased operation in 1848 following the opening of the Chester and Holyhead Railway. The inn wasn't built on the road (now the A5), but some distance from it on the present site to facilitate enjoyment of the superb view of Llynnau Mymbyr (the lakes) and the Snowdon horseshoe. Sometime between 1869 and 1871 the building's name was changed yet again from the Capel Curig Hotel to the Royal Hotel. Since its opening in 1801 the famous guests over the years were Queen Victoria, and Kings Edward VII, George V, and Edward VIII. Other well-known people who visited included Charles Lennox, 4th Duke of Richmond on September 6, 1807 (there is still a plaque commemorating his visit, which is still there to this day), Sir Joseph Paxton (1856) (designer of The Crystal Palace), Bishop Samuel Wilberforce (1858), Lord Byron (1913) and Sir Walter Scott (1818). Some distinguished visitors to the hotel etched their names into the windows of the then cocktail bar (now the reception area): these were still in place into the 1970s.
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“The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records between the material and the moral nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)