The Mawddach Estuary in mid-Wales is one of my favourite places. We stayed there for a few days last October.
On the southern shore there’s a fabulous footpath, the Mawddach Trail that starts in Dolgellau and follows the long-gone railway track. You can walk all the way to the coast and cross into Barmouth via the old viaduct, and then catch the bus and travel back to Dolgellau following the northern shore line. The trail is flat and even and accessible to all.
My sister Jo is a whizz at finding lovely spots for family gatherings, and so it was last Thursday we found ourselves in the Radnorshire hills, staying at Wild Meadow eco-cottage just outside Presteigne. We were only an hour or so’s drive from home, having crossed from Shropshire into Herefordshire, and thence into Wales, although only just inside the border (red arrow marks the spot):
And we all agreed how very pleasing it was to arrive on holiday so quickly i.e. without the stress of planes, motorways and hours of tedious driving. In fact the entire journey from home was mostly through rolling farm land. It also included our first ever sighting of a terrestrial rainbow. It was lying across the fields below Walton Hills as we drove through Much Wenlock. Most extraordinary. After a brief, sharp drizzle it seemed to have fallen flat out of the sky.
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And so here we are (some of us) at Wild Meadow cottage:
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Nearby Presteigne was once the county town of the ancient shire of Radnor, but these days is part of Powys, the largest administrative region in Wales. It is fine sheep farming country, and mostly looks like this for miles and miles and miles:
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And this is the town. Not much was happening when we stopped there mid afternoon last Thursday, although we were pleased to find coffee was being served in the the bar of the 17th century Radnorshire Arms along with a welcoming smile from the publican.
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Back at Wild Meadow, Jo tried out the old oak tree swing:
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And after a few squalls of rain, we watched the sun set across the hills.
“…some of the horses are unsettled by the drop…”
Thomas Telford 1826
I’m not one for heroes, but I make an exception for Thomas Telford (1757-1843), the son of a Dumfriesshire shepherd who became one of Britain’s most outstanding engineers, the first President of the Institute of Civil Engineers and the man who left us with many astonishing structures still in daily use. Not the least of his many achievements are Scotland’s 60-mile Caledonian Canal and the magnificent Pontcysyllte Aqueduct whose still working canal crosses the River Dee near Llangollen in Wales.
And then there is the Menai Bridge that bridges the strait between mainland Wales and the island of Anglesey, with arches tall enough to allow ships to pass without lowering their sails. With a span of 580 feet it was, in its day, the longest suspension bridge ever constructed. Work began in 1819 and the bridge was opened to coach traffic in 1826. The project was part of Telford’s major improvements of the road from the Anglesey port Holyhead to London, otherwise known as the A5. One object was to ensure the swift, safe transport of Irish Members of Parliament to Westminster. Before the bridge, they had to risk a perilous ferry crossing between Anglesey and Bangor.
Telford was not only a man of vision in construction terms, but he always looked to the bigger picture, building roads that, though expensive to construct, were well drained and low maintenance, always looking to create integrated transport systems that would bring local and national prosperity. He was fastidious, too, in his project planning, and astute when it came to political lobbying and fund raising. He was also a man who made fast friendships and was a diligent letter writer, and he did much to encourage the young engineers who would succeed him.
In fact he never stopped working. Only death at the age of 77 concluded his prodigious career. There was never time to marry either (though there were near misses) and only in his late years did he bother to buy his London house. Even then he still kept travelling, racketing around in a coach from project to project, the length and breadth of the British Isles. He was certainly a man who knew his own worth, but he was modest too. Here’s a letter he wrote to one of his Menai Bridge contractors, Nye Vaughn, owner of the Castle Iron Works which provided the iron chains.
My Dear Vaughn,
You will be pleased to learn that the bridge at Menai is finished and opened to mail coaches last month. I confess the admiralty demand to hang the road a hundred feet above the sea to allow sailing ships to pass was a daunting requirement. However the bridge is built and, I must say, I am proud of it. It seems I am to be known as the ‘Colossus of Roads’ ** . An odd name don’t you think? Your iron chains were a devil to hang across the straits but they are firm and there is little movement when the coaches pass across although some of the horses are unsettled by the drop. Thank your son for his suggestion to coat the chains in linseed oil to protect them from corrosion. His idea has proved better than the lead paint we planned to use. To be doubly sure we have done both. When he proposed linseed oil I believed he was repaying me for teasing you in the sealing of Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. I hope you forgive my jest. Please accept my compliments and thank your foundry men. Tell them we found no flaws in the links we tested. When I am next in need of heavy castings I will call on you.
My very best regards,
Telford
** It was Telford’s close friend and poet Robert Southey who coined this term Colossus of Roads
When we were on Anglesey back in January the bridge had been closed for three months. It was quite an emergency. Some structural upgrading carried out during the war years 1938 and 1941 showed serious signs of failing. Brittle hanging sockets were the problem and “analysis showed there was a credible risk of an unzipping failure of the bridge deck.”
An unzipping suspension bridge of Menai’s scale sounds horrendous. It’s good to know the bridge is now back in business. It opened again at the start of February. All the same, I wonder what Thomas Telford and Nye Vaughn would have had to say about brittle hanging sockets.
Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Arches, domes and half circles
This week Patti at Lens-Artists wants to see shadows and reflections in monochrome. So here’s a cloudy-day view of the Mawddach Estuary in Wales: upright and upside down. Intriguing, isn’t it. It’s making me think of a Rorschach inkblot test.
It is said that the Druids faced their final battle with the Roman Army on the North Wales island of Anglesey in 60-61 AD. According to Tacitus, things did not end well for them and their sacred oak groves. [See my earlier post Island Of Old Ghosts]. Early on in the invasion of Britain, the island had become a refuge for resisting Celtic warriors, doubtless assuming that the Menai Strait would present an obstacle to the legions. (It didn’t).
But for the Druids – the seer-diviner-lore-keeper-law-makers of the community, I tend to wonder if it wasn’t the island’s more extraordinary characteristics that they drew on. The quality of the light for one, and especially in winter when the sun over sea and strait and mainland mountains creates some mesmerizing effects, even when caught in monochrome.
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And along the board walk at Harlech:
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And through the old boat house gate at Borthwnog Hall: the Mawddach Estuary beyond
We came here last week, Monday 2nd January 2023. I’d been here before – the north-easterly corner of Ynys Mon (Anglesey) and to this field above the sea, where there are ruins of a Norman chapel (12th century) and a Romano-Celtic settlement of the late 300s AD.
And with all these chronological markers in place, I should perhaps add one more and say that it was probably 60 years since I was last here. Sixty years. Ye gods! How time does fly.
Back then, we were visiting what my mother mistakenly called ‘a stone age village’. It was one of my big holiday excitements whenever we came to Anglesey.
Above and below are the settlement’s two circular houses, inhabited during the later Roman era, but abandoned by 400 AD when the legions departed. So, mummy dear, not a Stone Age village at all, though unknown to me at the time of those childhood visits, there is in fact an impressive Stone Age monument very close by.
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As you can see, the stone houses have massively constructed walls, faced inside and out with huge slabs, and the space between packed with rubble. They probably supported conical, timber-framed and thatched roofs. (A reconstruction HERE)
There are also at least 7 rectangular buildings associated with the houses. Two of these contained several smelting hearths and were probably iron-making workshops supplying the local Roman legions with tools and weapons. The whole site was then bounded by a pentagonal wall, well over a metre thick, and entered via a gatehouse. There were also further house remains outside the boundary wall.
To me it has the looks of a secure unit. Perhaps with workshops under direct Roman control. By the 4th century the locals could well have been growing restive; itching to arm themselves. This is just my hypothesis. Other interpretations are that the outer wall was for keeping cattle in, and that the defences were considered ‘light’.
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But now a step back in more recent times and the way things were for the Ashford family circa 1960:
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And finally a giant’s leap back – some 5, 000 years:
It’s only a short walk from the Romano-Celtic settlement, and barely a stone’s throw behind a field hedge, but here we have a Stone Age cromlech, the burial place of some thirty Neolithic farmers, men, women and children. Among their remains archaeologists also found animal bones, flint tools and pottery.
The hugeness of the capstone is breath-taking. It’s reckoned to weigh 25 tons and, in consequence, it’s also thought that the stone was already in situ at the time of construction (a handy glacial delivery?) and that the tomb builders excavated underneath, wedging it on boulders to create the chamber. The whole was then probably covered with turves and soil, and as with similar monuments that were in use over a period of time, may also have included some kind of ceremonial forecourt. But however it was constructed, it surely took a massively concerted effort.
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Our visit over, we turned back to the car. Back to the present. Across the lane from the tomb was the misty view of the Great Orme on the mainland (named by the Vikings during the next invasion phase). Behind us was the small place called Din Lligwy – five millennia of human history documented in stone.
On my personal time-scale, I’d like to say I’ll be back there in another sixty years, but it seems unlikely. Still, you never know…
Lens-Artists: Looking Back This week Sofia sets the challenge.
copyright 2023 Tish Farrell
New Year on Newborough Beach, Anglesey – mainland Wales in the mist
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We began and ended 2022 on the island of Anglesey in North Wales. In between there were meanderings to favourite spots in Shropshire and around and about the town of Much Wenlock.So here we have a random selection of a year’s happy moments and things that caught my eye.
January walk on Wenlock Edge – looking down on Much Wenlock
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On the Cutlins in February
And finding aconites: first signs of spring
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The Linden Walk in early March
And alder catkins in the Linden Field
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April over the garden fence
Oil Seed Rape in full flourish in the Corve Valley
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May on the Linden Walk
And on Windmill Hill
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June on Wenlock’s old railway line
And on the Stiperstones viewing the Devil’s Chair from a respectful distance
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June in the garden
And on the Bull Ring, Much Wenlock
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July in the garden
And in the Shropshire Hills at Mitchell’s Fold
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August over the garden fence
And with the Cutlins MacMoos during the two-day heatwave
And after the wheat harvest on Callaughton Ash
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September: harvesting the field beans in Townsend Meadow
Gathering storm clouds, but no rain
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Early October and back to Wales: Barmouth Beach
And October’s end in Ludlow
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November: windfall quinces at the allotment
And a sundowner stroll on Windmill Hill
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December over the garden fence
And on hoar-frosty Downs Hill
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And so back to the beach, Lligwy, Anglesey, January 2023
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Lens-Artists: Favourite 2022 images John at Journeys with Johnbo sets the theme for this week.
Finishing the year with a photo that began it, taken during our New Year break at Aberffraw on the North Wales island of Anglesey. It’s a place you can always rely on for some stunning light effects, even in winter. Last January did not disappoint, though we had some gales too. Here are some of the more peaceful on-the-beach moments.
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Here’s wishing you glowing horizons, whatever your outlook.
This week Tina gives us the opportunity to post any 2022 photos of our choice, though not ones previously posted for this challenge. Please take a look at her lovely gallery of photos.
This seat looks to have been created from driftwood and sea debris, with just enough room for two to huddle. It’s sited on the path through the dunes to Harlech Beach (see previous post). You can just glimpse the mountains of Snowdonia in the distance.
There were also some pretty interesting seats In the garden of Borthwnog Hall (where we were spending a few nights back in October). This next one takes repurposed driftwood to a new level. Perhaps a little spooky? Or made specially for dryads.
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And then there was this more conventional bench in the rock garden. It caught the sun only as it was setting over the mountains above the house:
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And then there was the bench with the Mawddach Estuary view:
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And this was the view, and with plenty of room to perch on the wall:
Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Seating for more than one
Walking Squares #19 The header square also for Becky’s November #WalkingSquares
Tish Farrell 