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 of Leeds Ralph Thoresby and the glass painter Henry Gyles. Another member was a pioneering […]
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 reduced the enjoyment. Here are some of my favourites. The list doesn’t include any charity […]
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 y Cyngor yw troi’r gwasanaeth yn ‘amgueddfa symudol’ yng ngofal ‘tîm bach allweddol’ o staff […]
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, rooted out in Tower Records in Piccadilly Circus in the 1980s. We kept an eye […]
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, ailing cherry tree at the bottom of the garden. Often they land on the kitchen […]
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 region, Abergeirw. In Liverpool in 1839 a splinter group began to break away from Robert […]
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 in Somerset in 1824, the youngest daughter of John and Mary Bowne. Her father was […]
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 y gwyntoedd di-baid. Mater anodd oedd hoelio’r gofid hwn mewn geiriau – nes imi sylweddoli […]
A playing card with feeling
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 Dinefwr Park, was up to me. I could hardly fail to include one commonplace but […]
Battle of the buildings
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 a cottage near Abergele, before the family moved in 1809 to St Asaph to live […]
