gwallter

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Last week the National Trust kindly asked me to give a talk based on the items in an exhibition in Newton House, Dinefwr, Unlocked: 125 objects from Dinefwr.  The choice of objects, most of them connected to Newton House and…

  • Felicia Hemans, the leading woman poet of the Romantic period in Britain, came to Wales in 1800 when she was seven years old.  (Felicia Browne was her original name: her father, George, owned a wine-importing business.)  Her first home was…

  • It might seem that everything that can be said about angels has already been said.  But Jim Crace, in his latest novel, eden, gives them a new look, and a new, sinister identity.  In his eden (not Eden, you’ll notice)…

  • This week I finally managed to get to St Illtud’s Church in Llanelltyd, near Dolgellau, and see for myself the stone, just over three feet tall and chained up like a dog, that sits on a low plinth at the…

  • Pedair brawddeg sy gan Wicipedia i’w ddweud am Watkyn Hezekiah Williams.  Ond yn ei ddydd roedd ‘Watcyn Wyn’ yn adnabyddus iawn fel bardd, ac fel sefydlwr ysgol nodedig, Ysgol Gwynfryn, Rhydaman.   Dim ond arbenigwyr, siŵr o fod, sy’n darllen ei…

  • When I used to travel to London regularly, the Courtauld Gallery was one of my favourite places to visit.  Last weekend I went back, for the first time since its extraordinarily expensive (£57m) makeover, which closed it for three years. …

  • Years ago my friend C and I challenged each other to read, all the way through, a Classic Long Book.  My challenge was Moby-Dick, and his was Bleak House.  Whether C ever reached Melville’s majestic final line, ‘… and the…

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