Category Archives: Ceredigion past

Dafydd ap Gwilym’s Kestrel

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by The Curious Scribbler

There is a celebrated yew at Strata Florida.  It is certainly old, and by tradition is deemed to be the yew under which the fourteenth century poet Dafydd ap Gwilym is buried.    Its status was marked by a painted stone bearing  his dates which lay in the undergrowth at its foot, and was then further established with an inscribed slab installed by the Honorable Society of Cymmrodorion in 1951.  To further advertising the poet they at the same time installed an even larger inscribed slab within the adjoining abbey ruins.    Walking through the footings  of the north transept one cannot miss the huge commemorative slate rectangle, like an outsized gravestone, officiously engraved in Welsh and Latin,  which is affixed to the wall by iron cramps.

Current scholarship is a little less emphatic. The excellent little book, The Poetry of Strata Florida, by Dafydd Johnston examines the evidence and exposes the assertion to a measure of doubt.  The antiquary John Leland writing in 1540 stated that there were 39 vast yews in the cemetery, while by 1874 there were only three.  Statistically, Dafydd ap Gwilym could have been under any one of these trees!

Johnston further points out that he may not be buried there at all.  A substantial strand of evidence for the grave under the tree has been a poem by ap Gwilym’s contemporary poet Gruffud Gryg.  The poem is addressed to the yew tree above Dafydd ap Gwilym’s grave.  However I now learn that writing marwnadau ffug  – mock elegies –  was a popular pastime for fourteenth century poets.  There are several known instances of pairs of poets writing reciprocal elegies for one another – obviously at least one in each of these pairs must have been alive at the time, and possibly both were.  These elegies were complimentary, as were the praise poems which poets composed about the homes of the the princes and landowners they visited.

Dafydd ap Gwilym was a native of Llanbadarn Fawr and may have learnt to write at the abbey scriptorium.  He was not just a professional sycophant turning out eulogies about broad acres, fat cows, and fine houses.  Much of his work celebrates nature, love and indeed lust.  He sounds like a cheerful chap, addressing his love poems to Dyddgu  or Morfudd or indeed improper suggestions to the Cistercian nuns of Llanllugan in Montgomeryshire.  He depicts woodland as a church and bird as clergy, or holly as a lover’s bower.

So irrespective of the exact truth it seems very apposite that he should have a tree as his memorial.  When I visited it today,  the silence of this deeply rural spot was only broken by a party of screaming swifts  flying low over the ruins and the intermittent  clamour of baby birds from the top of the yew.   I discovered that  pair of kestrels have chosen to rear their nestlings in the top of Dafydd ap Gwilym’s tree.   This is surprising, for kestrels barely build a nest and typically nest in crags or old buildings.  Perhaps an old crow’s nest has provided a sufficient platform for their eggs.  I feel sure Dafydd ap Gwilym would have approved.

St Mary’s church Strata Florida and Dafydd ap Gwilym’s yew

 

An alternative stratagem for remembrance  is represented by the huge black marble memorial situated between the church and the abbey wall.  Sir David and Lady Grace James died in the 1967 and 1965 respectively.   His business interests had expanded  from his father’s  London dairy business to foodstuffs and cinemas.  He acquired a country estate, Sutton Hall, Barcombe,  and a knighthood. His roots were at Pantyfedwen and the couple  were justly proud of their wealth  and their worth as  philanthropists and patrons of Welsh culture.  Bold capitals on six faces of the column assert their names, their charitable trusts, their characters and their  claims to fame in considerable detail.   Will this massive memorial outlast the reputation of the poet, or vice versa?

The memorial to Sir David and Lady Grace James.

 

 

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Curating Nature

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by The Curious Scribbler

The School of Art has selected gardens and gardening as the theme of this year’s long running summer exhibition.  The exhibition forms a part of the undergraduate course in which students act as curators – selecting the works, mounting, framing and displaying them in the gallery.  For this they sifted through the substantial collections belonging to the School of Art, bringing various long-unseen artworks into the light. The result is an intriguing collection on the general theme, including paintings, etchings, prints,photographs, decoupage and even ceramics spanning a time frame of 150 years. There is also a cabinet to explore.

Each drawer in this cabinet was compiled by an individual student. Here the page is open at Phallus impudicus,  the Stinkhorn fungus.

My eye was first caught by two exquisite botanical illustrations by Mildred Eldridge, wife of the poet R.S.Thomas.  The first is of Sanguisorba canadensis growing in 1959 at Eglwysfach, possibly in their garden, or in the collections of Mr Mappin at Ynyshir Hall.

Sanguinaria canadensis by Mildred Eldridge

A second painting dated 1960 shows the delicate pastel shades of a bicoloured Camellia japonica.  Mildred’s illustrations appeared in several books in the 1940s and others were published as art cards by Medici Society.

Camellia japonica by Mildred Eldridge

 

I was also arrested by a powerful winter scene by Belgian artist Maurice Langaskens, showing a man with secateurs mounting a ladder to prune a tree, dark birds whirling overhead.  He spent much of the first world war in captivity in Germany.  How did this picture find its way to Aberystwyth?  Was he perhaps a friend of our better-known Belgian refugee Valerius de Sadeleer, who spent those years living at Tyn Lon, Rhydyfein, painting local landscape scenes?

An etching by Maurice Langaskens

This rummage through the archive makes serendipitous connections.  Who knew that George Cruikshank had a cartoonist great nephew whose wood engraving in the magazine The Leisure Hour pokes fun at the Aesthetic Movement of the late 19th century?  The tiny print shows the industrial production of serried rows of sunflowers, along with people, bees, gnats and savoy cabbages.

Woodcut by Cruikshank’s great nephew Cruikshank Jnr

Sunflowers get a grittier treatment in a lithograph by kitchen sink realist John Bratby from the 1960s.

Sunflowers II by John Bratby

Several more recent artists in the collection have close ties with Aberystwyth and I was pleased to see two of Jenny Fell’s calendar linocuts from 1989 on the walls.  I am an early investor in Jenny’s work, four other months have adorned my kitchen walls since 1991.  Hung here is October ( a bonfire) and April ( Violets and Primroses).  The captioning has a very modern slant:  burning autumn leaves now brings a homily about carbon dioxide and global warming.

 

October by Jenny Fell

Works by Art School staff are also to be found.  Prof John Harvey’s small spikey drawing evokes the steep hill and neat gardens  of Elysian Grove while Prof Catrin Webster’s huge colourful canvas dominates the room.

Elysian Grove by John Harvey

The very same evening I was at the Arts Centre for the launch of John Hedley’s exhibition in the upstairs gallery.  John paints and burnishes slices of tree trunk, many of them from Bodnant or from Anthony Tavernor’s amazing garden at Plas Cadnant on Anglesey.  When at his alternative home in Crete ancient olive boles provide his canvasses. The designs develop in the studio, suggested to him by the grain and form of the pieces of timber.  The combined rich colours and metallic finishes of copper and gold leaf are bright and vibrant.  We read a lot about mental health and well-being in relation to nature these days.  This exhibition though has no subtext, it is just unapologetically cheerful.

Trees trunks felled by Storm Arwen are canvasses for John Hedley

 

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Bridal gowns at Eglwysfach

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by The Curious Scribbler,

I called in at St Michael’s Eglwysfach this afternoon to view their latest exhibition – of historic and recent Bridal and Baptismal Gowns.  The exhibits are provided by people who are local to the area, some who were born in the parish, others who migrated from elsewhere bringing their memorabilia with them.   First impressions are of an airy whitewashed church interior with simple dark brown box pews.  Each pew gives access to a wooden mannequin clothed in wedding gown, and a short description of the gown, its wearer and its day of glory.   Curated by Lynda Thomas, the exhibition casts fascinating light on not just the fluctuations of fashion but on the social history of the last century or so.  Accompanying material include wedding photographs and the wearer’s memories.  It is much more personal than just an exhibition of gowns.

 

St Michael’s Eglwsfach adorned with wedding gowns

 

 

The oldest gown on display went up the aisle in 1928 fashionably exposing  Sue Billingsley’s grandmother’s ankles.  Muriel Mary Richards made the dress herself in fine silk velvet with appliqued velvet flowers and embroidery and beads.  She must have been a talented seamstress.  Possibly age has discoloured it.  In the accompanying photograph is looks to be white.

The oldest gown worn in 1928 in West Bridgford, Nottingham

Next in antiquity was a heavy figured satin gown with long fitted sleeves and a broad divided collar.  Alison Swanson’s auntie wore it to her wedding at St Matthew’s Church, Borth in 1957.   A prestigious dress from Roecliff and Chapman of Grosvenor Street, London, couturiers to Princess Grace Kelly.   Eleven years later Alison wore it to her own wedding at the same church.  Flanking this mighty dress are those of her two daughters-in-law who were married this century.  The contemporary take on the formal white dress involves bare arms and shoulders which would have surprised the great aunt.  The other bride wore a pretty informal floral gown.

Alison Swanson married in 1968 wearing her auntie’s vintage 1957 gown. Her two daughters in laws’ dresses on either side.

Had Alison been buying anew, she might instead have considered a statuesque flowing  dress like the one worn by Mary Andrews when she married Keith Fletcher at St Bride’s Church, Cwmdauddwr Rhayader.  From Marshall and Snelgrove’s grand London store, it was of floaty rayon georgette fabric suspended from a  bodice and sleeves of Guipure lace with pearl droplets.  The groom must have had to take care not to tread on her train.

1967 gown with a long train from up-market department store Marshall and Snelgrove

Another mother and daughter trio was provided by Celia Boorman whose wedding to Russell Davies took place in 1972 at St Petroc’s Church, South Brent, in Devon.  Graduate students at Oxford at the time, they were on their way to buy tyres for his Mini when she spotted this flamboyant dress in a shop window in Cowley.

Celia Boorman married in 1972 in this flamboyant dress, her daughters’ dresses are on either side .

Her daughter Imogen married at Gregynog Hall in 2014 wearing another white bare shouldered  dress, while in 2018 daughter Tamsin had two wedding outfits, one for her wedding at St Michael’s Eglwysfach and the other for her Hindu wedding in Bradford. The sari is displayed like a tent behind the mannequin.

Sheila Cuthbert wore a pale blue Laura Ashley ‘Prairie’ dress when she married Mervyn Lloyd in Wombourne Registry Office in 1979.  Sleeves were long and necks were high in the 1970s.  It put me in mind of a similar dress I wore to my wedding in 1973.  My mother-in-law forbade a white wedding because she knew we had already shared a tent!  These were dresses which could come out on other occasions: Sheila wore hers at a Millenium party.

A blue Laura Ashley gown for Sheila Cuthbert and Mervyn Lloyd’s registry office wedding in 1979

Lynda Warren was married twice in the 1980s, both times wearing a hat.  Her second wedding, to Barry Thomas, was in a Registry Office and a chic Mothercare maternity gown.  It was touch and go whether the nuptuals would precede the baby.

Two 1980s gowns worn by Lynda Warren

The collection of baptismal gowns is less varied that the bridal ones, and also older, with several Victorian or Edwardian gowns which have attended numerous  family christenings.  The main fashion trend seems to have been that they have got a little shorter over the decades.  They are displayed in the enclosure around the font alongside  glowering images of RS Thomas.

Baptism Gowns displayed  around the font

Many families have carefully preserved their baptismal gowns, but Joy Neal must be congratulated on also  retaining the box.

Trouseaux and layettes from Steinmann & Co of Piccadilly

The Exhibition is open till the end of the month 10am-4pm with the option of tea and cake for a modest £2.00 a head.  Donations support local charities   Hospice at Home   ( HAHAV) and Riding for the Disabled (RDA).  I reccommend it.

 

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A walk round Pendinas

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by The Curious Scribbler

I was one of thirty people who joined Beca Davies, Project Community Outreach Officer for the Pendinas Hillfort Archaeology Project, on a relaxed evening stroll around the lower slopes of Pendinas yesterday evening.

We met at the gate in Parc Dinas, traversed the middle path across the flank of the hill and returned on the lower path past the horse field and across the former rubbish dump.  Stopping at intervals along the route Beca  and Richard Suggett contributed their knowledge and further insights emerged from the group.

The Wellington monument, which stands within the iron age hill fort, was the brainchild of William Eardley Richardes of Bryneithin.  Richard Suggett reminded us that public subscription had been limited and  as a result the proposed equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington was never placed on top of the gun barrel column.  This is perhaps not surprising in view of the fact that it was not constructed until 1856, forty years after the  battle of Waterloo!  William E Richardes had, as a young officer, served in the army of occupation after the victory, but this was a monument stimulated by the death of the Duke of Wellington aged 83 in 1852.  Possibly local interest in him had considerably waned by this time. More significantly the monument was sited such as to form a splendid eyecatcher when viewed from William’s home at Bryneithin!   Today it would be considered very poor taste to erect a modern monument on top of such an important ancient site!

We looked out, across the Tanybwlch flats and its palimpsest of the trotting races etched on the grass, towards the tree-fringed hill top which is the site of the original Aberystwyth castle.  This was Gilbert de Clare’s ring and bailey castle with a wooden stockade, built in about 1110 AD and repeatedly fought over by the Welsh and the Norman invaders.  Llywelyn Fawr took it back in 1221 and later built a stronger fortification on the stony headland to the north.   In 1277 after more than 150 years of skirmishing Edward I massive stone castle was built there, north of the mouth of the Rheidol but the name was never changed.  Perhaps to the King and his strategists In London the geographic niceties of Aberrheidol Castle seemed unimportant.  Prof Fred Long brought us a similar story from the 1940s.  Two war time radar stations were to be built in Ceredigion, one at Llanrhystud and one at Tanybwlch.  The Tanybwlch site was soon deemed unsuitable, probably because of the risk of flooding.  So the radar station was installed on Constitution Hill instead,  but was always known in the army documentation as Tanybwlch!

Our outward path then led us past the foundations of a two storey farmhouse which stood beside a natural spring adjoining the path.  Beca showed us a black and white photograph  where the farm was occupied and the farmer stands surrounded by chickens outside his front door.  A barn stood at right angles to the house.  The image is thought to have been made around 1930.

I’ve since looked out a much earlier picture, in the collections of the National Library of Wales. Drawing Volume  56  contains  twenty two North Ceredigion scenes  described as the work of  ‘Welsh Primitive’  c.1830-1853 .  Pendinas seems a little taller lumpier than it looks today and the foreground shows fishermen apparently below a weir on the river.  But the divisions of the fields on the slope, the farmhouse, and the track we walked along seem accurately represented.  The monument is depicted on the top, so the picture cannot be before 1856.

The primitive painter’s view of Pendinas ( NLW Vol 56)

The fishermen’s costumes may give further indication of the date.

Another view entitled  Pendinas and the River Ystwyth shows the farm on the hill and  a rider fording the river near a watermill below the south slopes.  Here too the monument is shown.

Pendinas and the river Ystwyth ( NLW Vol 56)

We learnt about the common lizards and slow worms which are numerous on the Pendinas.  Chloe Griffith’s Nature of our Village project has led to a much wider understanding of the importance of the site.  The spring is home to palmate newts.  This water source was presumably also important to the iron age inhabitants, for without it they would have had  to carry water all the way up from the river Ystwyth at sea level.

A third picture in the volume is captioned  Tanycastell Bridge Perhaps it was painted a few years earlier, for the monument is not to be seen.

The bridge at Tanycastell ( NLW Vol 56)

One of the Welsh cobs at Spencer’s sheds entered into the spirit of the evening by trying to nibble Beca’s backpack. Frustrated in this endeavour it rhythmically and noisily kicked a big galvanised box until we all moved on.

The return journey was on a less historic path which was created after the old town rubbish dump had been covered with soil and re-vegetated in the 1990s.  Willow scrub, gorse, brambles and nettles form an impenetrable undergrowth.  Here the path cuts down through the reclaimed ground and fragments of bottles and polythene appear at the surface where they have been excavated by the rabbits, foxes and badgers whose paths run through the brambles and bushes.

In the 1980s I remember when the wire fences on the Tanybwlch flats were festooned with tattered polythene bags whipped away from the dump by the wind.   We should be proud that Pendinas now looks almost as pristine as it did in these old paintings.

Pendinas in May 2020. The middle path traces the historic route across the flank of Pendinas

 

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Tanybwlch Beach in the next decade?

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by The Curious Scribbler,

There are few places more beautiful than Tanybwlch beach on a fine spring day like today. It is pristine, almost empty, wild and picturesque. It also has an ancient resonance, for more than a thousand years (about 800BC to 1200 AD) the people of the  Pendinas hillfort will have foraged along this shore.

Alltwen at the south of Tanybwlch Beach

 

At the south end below Alltwen the wheatears are back, preparing to nest in the holes amongst the tumbled stones which form the bank.  Small parties of swallows hawk northwards following the shore line, still on their way to their summer homes.  Parties of linnets pause chattering on the wire fence and the indefatigable chiffchaffs shout ceaselessly in the wood beyond.    The thrift and sea campion are in bloom.

Sea Campion

This is  a place dear to the hearts of many local people, beloved of dog walkers and naturalists alike.  It has taken the brunt of ferocious storms and rising sea level which have, in the last few years caused  drastic changes in the shape of the strand.  The Tanycastell field below Alltwen  has long tended to become a shallow lake during winter time but is now well on the way to becoming salt marsh.  Here the waves don’t so much wash over as percolate through the pebble bank and the species composition of  grasses and sedges in the field is changing to a salt-tolerant flora.

Along the sandy middle section of the strand the  shore is eaten back every year now, and much of the stabilizing vegetation on the sloping sand bank facing the sea has been washed away.  The most recent rock sea defences, big stones placed to break the waves, now lie irrelevant yards down the beach.

The concrete barrage half way along is no longer passable to vehicles.  Near here the sea floods over with  great force carrying big cobbles off the beach and depositing them in the river Ystwyth beyond.  The riverside path is disappearing in several places.

Pebbles spill over into the Ystwyth river

But the greatest threat to public enjoyment is the erosion in the car park.  Three years ago during Storm Ciara a small hole opened up allowing storm water to drain through rather than over the hard standing behind the tall buttressing wall which extends from the bridge.  Sadly it was not blocked with concrete right away.

In February 2020 Storm Ciara excavated the first sink hole.

Some security fencing was erected around it and nothing was done. During lockdown and beyond, it grew and grew, and the original fencing collapsed into the hole.  Wider and wider areas have been fenced off as the tall wall continues to collapse.   And the potholes where cars enter the car park have now deepened so far that soon it will be impassable to all but all-terrain vehicles.

The retaining wall supporting the car park undergoing collapse

A huge void has been excavated by successive storms

If the car park is lost the nature reserve will benefit.  With lesser footfall we may get more breeding birds, like the common sandpipers I saw today which seemed to be hoping to establish a territory close to  the bridge, and eager to lead me away.  Otters, kingfishers and goosanders already frequent this part of the river.   As long as the bridge remains, walkers will be able to follow the coastal path but without a car park public usage will change.

A new hole has recently appeared and is currently garnered with a red plastic fence..  The water which has rushed down this sinkhole has already excavated the mortar from another stretch of the riverside wall.  The rate of collapse shows no sign of slowing down. Will the future of Tanybwlch Nature Reserve be determined purposely or by neglect?

Who cares?  and indeed which agencies are responsible for this wall?

The new hole. Tanybwlch

Masonry has  already been eroded by water gushing through the new hole

 

 

 

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Poets, Eccentrics and Great Gloops of Jelly

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by The Curious Scribbler

I enjoyed an invigorating winter walk around Llyn Eiddwen, the natural upland lake which lies between a grassy windswept ridge and the  wooded Mynydd Bach.  Sometimes migratory swans  Whoopers or Bewick Swans can be seen there in winter, though none were to be seen when I visited on 30 December.

Last march I saw five migratory swans on Llyn Eiddwen

We began our walk at the monument to four local poets which stands above the dispersed community of Trefenter.  Here  the wind whistles in from the west and the land drops away to the distant sea.   One of the four poets lived in Llanrhystud, the village visible from this altitude nestled close amongst the patchwork of fields and hedges, another grew up in Blaenpennal, and a third in Trefenter.   Their names are J.M. Edwards 1903-1978, B.T. Hopkins 1897-1981, F. Prosser Rees 1901 -1945 and T. Hughes Jones 1895-1966.  I must learn more of their work.

The plaque on the monument

There are ruined cottages along the western shore of the lake and broad stone walls topped with gnarled beeches and sycamores which outline the former gardens and the rough road connecting them.  I wonder in what proportion the lake and the Crown common land around it  provided the livelihoods of these former inhabitants, and what led to the abandonment of these well-built cottages.  I imagine though, that they may have still been occupied in 1879 when local men were employed to build what became known as Tredwell’s Castle in the lake.

A ruined cottage east of LLyn Eiddwen

Mark John Tredwell (b. 1856) was a rich young orphan who was brought up principally by his grandmother, educated briefly at Cheam and Harrow and who, for some unknown reason decided, on inheriting his parents’ wealth, to settle and lure his many friends to Ceredigion.   In 1878 he took a 21 year lease on the small Georgian mansion Aberllolwyn at Llanfarian and spent freely on both house and garden, building cabins in the grounds to accommodate the parties of friends who arrived on the  train and were conducted out to the mansion by charabanc.  He created a small menagerie, apparently including a monkey, a bear and numerous ornamental birds. He threw lavish parties for his guests, and also for the local school and Wesleyan chapel.   However this was not fun enough and led to his craziest investment – a party castle on a man-made island in Llyn Eiddwen, on land he didn’t even own.

The ruin of Tredwell’s Castle on Llyn Eiddwen

In the mid 20th century the ruined Tudwal’s “castle”, sketched by E.T. Price of Llanrhystud,  was in better shape

Locals were employed quarrying the necessary stone and it is estimated that at least a thousand loads of stone, lime and timber were transported by rowing boat across the 100 yards of water to the masons building the perimeter wall, the tower and some ancillary sheds and buildings.

An account in the Aberystwyth Observer on 12 July 1879 describes a crowd of people who assembled at the railway station to view Tredwell’s latest purchase, a  steam powered launch capable of carrying up to six persons.  Apparently it took 20 horses to drag it to Tredwell’s ‘pool in the mountains’.

In the summer of 1879 party guests were accommodated at Tredwell’s expense at the prestigious Queen’s Hotel on the promenade, then transported by charabanc and steam boat over to the island, where  the entertainments were raunchy in the extreme.  Orgies were mentioned, and local lasses were said to be involved.

Unfortunately for him, Tredwell’s considerable wealth was insufficient to the the project, bills went unpaid and after a lengthy and expensive court battle with his builders he was declared bankrupt.  The lease on Aberllolwyn was terminated  in 1881 and he eventually died, penniless, in London in 1930.

There is no local folk memory of the steam launch so it may have been repossessed, or perhaps it lies under the waters of the lake.  The ruined square tower on the island still stands surrounded by willow scrub, and the evocative emptiness of the landscape is enhanced by the ruined cottages on the shore.

Ruined Cottages on the shore of Llyn Eiddwen

On my recent visit an equally compelling mystery  was the glistening gloops of jelly on the pathside where the path runs parallel with the shore.  I am told these are Crystal Brain Fungus Myxarium nucleatum, a fungus ( but not a mushroom) which is found in winter during wet weather and when  dry shrivels up to just a rubbery patch.  But if that is so, what is the jelly for?  Does it spread spores?  It just appears to cling to the rocks and grasses, in lumps up to 4 inches across, glistening in the winter sunlight.

Crystal Brain Fungus

Crystal Brain Fungus

Clearly there is much more for me to learn both about the work of the four poets and about these Crystal Brains strewn upon the grasses.

 

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A grand day out at the Gorsgoch Show

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Last Saturday I attended the Gorsgoch Agricultural Show and Llanwenog Young Farmers’ Club event in my role as Judge of the Flowers in the Produce Tent.

It is a delight that most local shows have revived after two empty years caused by the Covid pandemic.  This was the first time I have visited this particular Show, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.  The event was held on a windy hilltop at Glwydwern farm, and I found my way there, thanks to the satnav, by narrow and twisting lanes beyond Cribyn.  It was an idyllic scene with two horse rings, sheeplines and a large traditional Fedwen marquee packed with produce.

The Vegetable classes at Gorsgoch Show

The spread in the Produce tent was impressive, and I was glad I did not have to face the challenge offered to Cookery judge – no less than 28 bara briths  were awaiting her inspection, and fourteen competent men had entered a fruit loaf in the class limited to their gender.   The seventeen other open classes were all well represented.  The only difference from the shows of old is that now, thanks to health and safety considerations, all the edible entries, once judged, are enclosed in clear polythene bags to keep the flies off.  There were even closed refrigerated cabinets  in which the very ambitious cheesecakes were displayed.  A few confused bees wavered around the tent.  The demonstration hive had proved to be leaky and had been sent home, leaving the escapees behind.

Twenty eight Bara Brith at the Gorsgoch Show

A rare little Rhodoxis at Gorsgoch Show

The Flowers were not quite as numerous as the cakes, and it seems that none of the serious competitive dahlia growers had attended.  But the range of plants in the class of pot-grown and  outdoor planters revealed some discriminating gardeners.  New and exciting cultivars find their way to Gorsgoch gardeners.    A charming Rhodoxis ( a cerise-flowered hybrid of Rhodohypoxis and Hypoxis parvula) vied for attention with some fine fuchsias.

In the outdoor pots I awarded the Best Exhibit rosette to a perfect dome of Bidens ferulifolia ‘Blazing Glory’ overhanging an immaculate trailing yellow Calibrachoa.  There must be some very beautifully appointed gardens and patios in the area.

Bidens Blazing Glory and Calibrachoa at Gorsgoch Show

One of the vases of garden flowers was particularly striking as it featured species with deep purple blooms: buddleia, penstemon and verbena, and some unusual fern foliage.

I was charmed by this deep purple collection of Garden flowers at Gorsgoch Show

This spirit of innovation had also spread to the vegetables.  Among the pairs of cucumbers were two perfectly matched, sparsely hairy, pale yellow yellow globes.  I noted the judge had cut one open to convince the spectators that these unfamiliar vegetables were, nonetheless, real cucumbers!

After completing my duties I roamed the tent enjoying the handicrafts.  It seems many people in South Ceredigion are expert patchwork seamstresses, and the quilts, cushions and table runners took up a great length of the tables.

Just some of the handicrafts at Gorsgoch Show

Perhaps because of the Young Farmers’s involvement there were also well supported competitions classes for 18 and under, and 19-26 year age groups embracing cookery, handicrafts and photography.  In many shows these sort of classes are popular with younger ages, but interest peters out after primary school.

Outside the tent, judges were busy with a dog show and  two horse rings. In one ring there were  beautiful Welsh cobs, and mountain ponies with their colt of filly, while immaculate riding horses and ponies were cantered around the judge in the other.  Burly men wrestled with uncooperative sheep led upon thin white rope halters, and vintage tractors set off on a procession along the adjoining roads.  This deeply agricultural area contains many skillful farmers, growers and crafters as well has historians and scholars.    The display from Coed Fardre Nursery, Talgarreg embraced geneaology, antique tools, scale-models of the many English and Welsh regional varieties of five-barred gate, and 150 different knots all tied in yellow rope!  I am told a book is forthcoming.

Gorsgoch Show

Gorsgoch Show

It is very clear from from the competition in children’s art from Duffryn Cledlyn and Talgarreg Primary Schools that in this part of the world the pupils in Years 3 and 4 know exactly what farm animals look like!  I suspect they also know their vegetables – for it is a long way from Talgarreg to the nearest McDonald’s or KFC.

Eight and nine year-old art  ‘ The Show” at Gorsgoch Show

 

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Remembering Kathleen ‘Kay’ Humphreys

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by the Curious Scribbler

When I got to know Kay Humphreys she was a tiny elderly lady living at the far end of the long low row of ancient cottages in the shade of a huge acacia tree at Pontllolwyn in Llanfarian.  There was just one chair for guests which could be reached with difficulty, for she lived a frugal life hemmed in by huge sloping stacks of weekly magazines, the Spectator, the New Statesman, The Week.  The cottage was very much unimproved, cluttered with the memorabilia of her long life.

Loves in her life included the big house, Aberllolwyn, (which had formerly belonged to her clergyman uncles Tom and Griff Humphreys, and which she always felt was really hers), and cats.    A rector’s daughter herself, she delighted in tormenting vicars with theological questions on the subject of cats’ souls, and whether she would meet her favourite cats in heaven.  One of these favourites was our cat, Kevin, a handsome un-neutered  tabby tom who in the 1990s often attended the services at Llanychaiarn Church, where she was a worshipper.   On Sundays when Kevin failed to put in an appearance, Kay would often appear at our door, imperiously asking ” Where is Kevin?”  Kevin became a beneficiary of her will – a legacy which he did not collect because he predeceased her.

In 2004 she endowed her own memorial bench outside the church.  Ever practical, she donated it while she could have the use of it, and on a chilly April morning, eighteen years ago today,  a party of relatives and villagers assembled around her as the Revd Hywel Jones dedicated the bench.

The dedication of the Bench on 3 April 2005

Kathleen Humphreys on her bench, with cousin Mary Ellis and niece Cathy McGregor

By this time in her life Kathleen Humphreys was best remembered for her long-running column in The Cambrian News, ” Kay’s Corner” a weekly opinion piece, which drew on a wide knowledge of folklore, gardening, theology and her own strong ideas.  She had always been a writer, and now, as I assemble her archive and diaries for donation to the National Library of Wales, one gets an insight into a remarkable woman.   She was born in 1916  into a clergy family and grew up at Llangan Rectory near Bridgend.  Her sixteen-year-old diary reveals a girl on the brink of adulthood, aware of male eyes upon her, and already sure that the life of a married woman is not for her.  Aged nineteen she was working in London, going to auditions, and working for Central Editing ( would this be the BBC?).  Her London diaries from the war years unfortunately do not survive.

Her big literary break came in 1959 when she published Days and Moments Quickly Flying under the pen name of Perry Madoc.  It is significant to remember how many women in the early 20th century adopted male cognomens to increase their chance of being taken seriously.  The manuscript had been first submitted under the name of “Pen Severn”.  Perry Madoc was published by Collins both here and in America and was very favourably reviewed in The Spectator, and compared with Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall.   Its knowing portrayal of homosexual school teachers and vulnerable schoolboys would have perhaps been expected of a male author.

Kathleen Humphreys’ 1960s diaries reveal a woman who felt her career blighted by the influential Literary Advisor to Collins, Milton Waldeman. There is more than a suggestion that his rejection of her next manuscript was influenced by her rejection of his sexual advances.   She was no longer resident in London, having moved to Pontllolwyn to be near her uncles.  Two other novels survive in manuscript: The Ink Blot  ( which was rejected by Collins and by Gollancz 1960) and The Coal Scuttle Triptych ( rejected by Heinnemann 1961).  A later novel  The Washerwoman of Sevigny  was rejected by Hutchinson in 1989.  It may have been a disadvantage that she was no longer a face on the London scene, but she was certainly publishing articles and short stories in Punch,  in John O’London’s Weekly and in Argosy.  From the 1960s she was also a regular contributor to The Cambrian News.

All her life, Kathleen Humphreys needed to earn a living  to supplement her income as a writer, and did a number of jobs in Aberystwyth.  Her  Pontllolwyn diaries span fifty years 1953 to 2004,  and record the experiences of her daily round.  Her accounts include  Rosemary Christie, mother of the actress Julie Christie and mistress of Douglas Hague of the Royal Commission for Ancient and Historic Monuments, the Jervis family of Bryneithin, the geologist Nancy Kirk, Prof and Mrs Parrott, the Thomsons of Glanpaith, the Roberts of Crugiau, the Mirylees at Nanteos, the Condrys and the Chaters as well as many local neighbours.  She was active in the CPRW, the Cardiganshire Horticultural Society, the Ceredigion Antiquarians, and in art and pottery classes.  She never owned a car, and travelled everywhere on foot or by bus, chatting to all she met and often expressing her delight in the scenery, the wildflowers and the weather.

Her handwriting is hard to decipher, but the diaries are surely a treasure trove of local life, as well as  a signpost to a huge output of published writing hidden away in old newspapers and magazines.  I end with a small sample which I have transcribed, the diary entry for 18 July 1959.

Last night I wandered up to Aberllolwyn like a ghost, jumping down over the wall from the woods, now overgrown, and the back all high weeds smothering the wallflowers and sweet williams I had in the old basins and the flowers against the wall! It was exactly like a dream in the dusk with all silent and deserted. I felt so desolate and so acutely homesick I cried bitterly and rained down curses on Uncle Griff and his smug wife and their smug house and on Providence for losing me my home and my little cat.  In two months I have only seen him once, briefly, and then he looked scared, thin and ill. 

In vain I called him, and I sat on Uncle Tom’s seat in the field in despair.  On one last impulse I went down along the bottom of the orchard to the farm and there coming through the entrance to the Dingle from the farm was a glimmer and red and white.  My darling Ginger!  And in the trim, fat as butter and coat very sleek.  How pleased he was to see me, Kissing and rubbing my face with his nose.

By this time it was pitch dark, and warm, and I resolved to spend the night with him on the hay stack.  I climbed up a very steep ladder, Ginger clinging on and purring.  We settled down.  At first it was very cosy with heat rising from the rick but presently my temperature dropped and I got chilly.  I tried to arrange these angular blocks and fetched an old raincoat of Dai’s from below.  Ginger bore it all very well and when I was too fidgety stationed himself near, so I could hear him purring gently. 

Later there was a terrific row below and footsteps.  We were rather alarmed, me especially, but peeping over the top I saw it was Dai and Mrs Hughes with a torch.  What were they doing?  Extraordinary noises of clanging zinc.  They were arranging the fallen zinc sheet from the garden wall before the calf shed to keep the geese in.  And I had nearly settled in there with Ginger for the night!  Why put the geese there? 

The haystack very humid. At daybreak Ginger and I went down through the Dingle to the cottage and into bed.  It is wonderful to have that warm lump once again snuggled up on the bed covers and his purring and sonnerations.  At 2.30 I took him up to the farm and asked Mrs Hughes to give him milk in the cowshed, which she does, the part behind the stalls where the dogs can’t reach.  There  are several tins of catfood in the farm piling up  because no-one has seen Ginger for days and days.

Kathleen Anne Humphreys, Perry Madoc or Kathleen Hatling ( as she was published in Argosy 1944) deserves to be disambiguated and rediscovered.

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Ambitious new planting on the Penglais campus

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by The Curious Scribbler

After a week marked by terrible rain and wind,  Thursday’s watery sunshine illuminated an unusually optimistic scene on the  Penglais campus.

Readers of this blog will remember the widespread dismay five years ago when the heavy equipment moved in and uprooted the iconic shrub borders adjoining the main drive into the campus.  Planted in the 1970s to complement the newly completed Hugh Owen building, this varied drift of perennial and deciduous foliage was one of the features which had led to the grading of the campus grounds as of national importance in the Cadw Register of Historic Parks and Gardens in 2002.

The original planting of the bank below the Hugh Owen Building as it appeared in 2003

For the last four years the area has presented a stark appearance of grass and bark, relieved only by a few scrawny trees which had been spared.  Few of these had lasting potential, they included sycamore, ash, Italian alder and goat willow, hardy weed trees which had opportunistically seeded in among the ornamental plantings.

The Hugh Owen bank was denuded of its shrubs in 2017

When the chainsaws and diggers reappeared a couple of weeks ago and  these trees were removed in a sea of mud some passers-by wondered if worse was yet to come.   But over the last two days a  transformation has been wrought by a  swarm of grounds staff in high-visibility jackets.   Almost 2000 shrubs have been planted,  in swathes of contrasting foliage textures.

All hands to the planting, which was done by the University’s team of grounds staff

 

New planting continued on Friday on the bank below the Hugh Owen building

The planting design by Dr Peter Wootton Beard references the border which preceded it, using many of the same or similar species to those selected by former curator Basil Fox when the building was new.   Other newcomers have also been selected.  As with the original design, the layout provides swathes of contrasting evergreens  and areas of deciduous  shrubs which form dark patches in winter.  Flowers, berries and scent have not been neglected, so the tapestry will change as the seasons progress. In the next few years mulching and aftercare will be necessary, but the shrubs will fill out to create dense low-maintenance ground cover which should be good for the next fifty year.

Afternoon sunshine on Friday catches the scheme nearing completion.

I am told that last year alone required no less that fourteen rounds of grass-cutting on this bank, much of which is challengingly steep for machinery.  The next few years will require mulching and aftercare, but as the shrubs fill out they will create a low maintenance continuous cover which should be good for the next fifty years and more.

It is good to see some long-term investment in the appearance of the Penglais Campus.  Aberystwyth is the only Welsh university  to have been awarded a Grade II* Cadw listing, for what is described as ‘one of the most important modern landscaping schemes in Wales’.

 

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Ceredigion’s first black gentlewoman

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by The Curious Scribbler

A year ago today I posted a short blog about my researches on Justina Jeffreys, the Jamaican-born woman of colour who was adopted and reared near Tywyn and became a prominent  member of north Ceredigion society in the early 19th century as wife of George Jeffreys at Glandyfi castle.

Glandyfi castle sketched by Francis Wood in 1838

It has been a particularly gratifying post, leading to much correspondence and the identification of at least six present day descendants of Justina or her brother Charles McMurdo Leslie.  I have been writing up the story in much greater detail for next year’s issue of  the history journal, Ceredigion.

I note that Wales has led the UK nations in making Black History a mandatory part of the national curriculum.  Among the early black Welsh to be enjoying renewed attention is John Ystumllyn, the 18th century black gardener, from north Wales.  Two weeks ago, to mark Black History Month, a pretty repeat-flowering yellow rose was launched by Harkness Roses in his honour.

The John Ystumllyn Rose

For many years school children have been taught about Mary Seacole, who nursed in the Crimean war, and was the  daughter of Lieutenant James Grant, a Scottish army officer, and a free mixed-race Jamaican woman.    Our curriculum could instead have more local resonance, if focused instead on Justina Jeffreys, some eighteen years older than Mary, and the daughter of another Scottish officer, Captain Charles McMurdo and a free ‘mulatto’ woman, Susan Leslie.

Justina was brought up at Bodtalog as the only child of McMurdo’s brother officer, Edward Scott and his Welsh wife Louisa, and is believed to have been a muse to the young poet and author Thomas Love Peacock.

Bodtalog, near Tywyn

It wold be wonderful to discover a portrait of this talented young woman.    She died in 1869,  so it is also possible that somewhere there is a carte de visite, depicting her in her sixties.  Although carte de visites were often collected in albums, the photos were very seldom labelled, so it will be a very happy chance if an image of her is ever identified.

 

 

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