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The Glynn Vivian Art Gallery has got into the excellent habit of displaying a good mix of works from its permanent collection along a long wall in one of its upstairs rooms. This has the advantage of letting us see…
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Some nineteenth century Cardiff archaeologists
Nineteenth century Glamorgan saw the birth and rapid growth of an industrial working class. But also significant was the rise to prominence, and eventually to power, of an enlarged middle class. Cardiff, though it failed at first to diversify industrially…
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Francis Place, pioneer artist and potter
In the late seventeenth century York was a lively intellectual centre. The York Virtuosi – modesty was not one of their features – were a group of scientists, historians and artists including the zoologist Martin Lister, the antiquarian and historian…
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Some books I read in 2022
Covid may have loosened its grip, but its ‘stay home’ message has lingered, so just as many books got read in 2022 as in the previous year. I’ve been steered to some of them by research needs, but that hasn’t…
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Caerdydd, mas o’i gof
Daeth y newyddion yr wythnos hon bod Cyngor Dinas Caerdydd yn bwriadu cau Amgueddfa Caerdydd (‘Cardiff Museum’ neu ‘The Cardiff Story’ yn Saesneg), a leolir yn yr Hen Lyfrgell yn Yr Aes, reit yng nghanol y ddinas. Dymuniad doethion Cabinet…
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Dorian Gray discovers world music
In the cosy light of our post-colonial glow-lamps we tend to imagine that ‘world music’ was discovered, and given its long-deserved recognition, by our own generation. We still have dozens of LPs and CDs of Indian and west African music,…
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On magpies
We’d both noticed that there seemed to be more of them, now that the cold weather has arrived and the last of the leaves have fallen. Always in pairs, they perch like snipers on the higher branches of the large,…
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Pant Glas: a Meirionnydd commune in 1840
Barmouth was not the only place in Meirionnydd to host utopian settlements in the nineteenth century. Fanny Talbot’s Ruskinian village there was preceded by a quixotic attempt to set up a socialist commune in a very different part of the…
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Castle of light
Barmouth and utopia make an unlikely combination. But for a brief period the town, best known for its donkeys, candy-floss and Brummies, was the home of an idealistic social experiment, and an historic act of generosity. Fanny Talbot was born…
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Ar ddiymadferthwch
Dros y misoedd diwethaf mae rhyw ofid amhendant wedi ymdreiddio i’m meddwl. Nid gofid personol, ond rhywbeth mwy cyffredinol, fel rhyw niwl trwchus sy wedi setlo fel melltith ar y wlad a’r byd, ac sy’n peidio â chael ei symud gan…