Llantysilio Church

I came across this church during my walk along the Llangollen Canal. It is in a beautiful setting above the Horseshoe Falls with abundant meadow land and woodland close by. The church is dedicated to Saint Tysilio, the son of the Prince of Powys in the early 7th century who died at the battle of Chester in 613. Tysilio's brother succeeded to the throne but then died within two years. His widow was determined to marry Tysilio and make him Prince of Powys, upon which news Tyslio fled to Brittany and settled near St. Marlow. The existing structure was probably built in the 15th century, although there is earlier carved stonework around the north window. The original church probably dated from 1180.

 

This wonderful window depicts scenes from St Tysilio's life.

This is a plaque dedicated to the poet Robert Browning, who once worshipped here.

The sculpted font

An interesting notice in the church porch.

This is all that remains of a giant yew tree, probably dating back a thousand years.

The north window has some interesting carvings which may have been rescued from Valle Crucis Abbey at the dissolution.

A lovely setting, especially at this time of year.

The walk from the car park takes you above the canal.

At the going down of the Sun, And in the Morning...

I always make a point of observing the anniversary of the November 1918 Armistice. This year I was able to attend an Armistice Dinner on the Friday, and then a Remembrance Sunday service with the family. I never set out to go anywhere particular to observe the 2 minutes silence on the 11th itself. I simply stop at the nearest memorial wherever I happen to be. 11am on the 11th found me in Llangollen where I was able to attend the commemoration at the war memorial before setting out on my canal walk.

The memorial is in a prominent position on the high street and has a well supported field of remembrance.

The British Legion flags were lowered for the silence and the last post was played.

For the 1914 - 18 war there are 71 names recorded.

For the 1939 - 45 conflict there were 30 names recorded.

As the anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War approaches there is a lot of interest in exactly who these people were. "We will remember them" should be taken literally and the history of these people has been traced by Peter Stubbs and David Crane who are prominent historian locally and play a great part in the local museum. David has written "Walks through the History of Rural Llangollen" and Peter is prepared to work for anyone who would like research carried out on people who served in the wars of the 20th century. He can be contacted at pastubbs23@hotmail.co.uk, or on 01978 869 037.

The history of the names on the Llangollen memorial can be seen at http://www.llangollenmuseum.org.uk/english/Memorials/MemorialsHome.htm

Ruthin Craft Centre - brilliant!

After a splendid day walking around Llangollen, I found that I had time to spare after it got dark around 4pm, and before a meeting in Caerwys concerning the Pilgrim Way North Wales, which began at 7:30pm. The default activities are of course shopping or eating, but on the 11th of November I decided to do something different - visit a craft centre. Fortunately there was one opposite Tesco in Ruthin which had an excellent café serving afternoon tea. So, rested, fed and spent up, I ventured into the art gallery and was immensely pleased with what I found - a beautiful light and airy building with excellent staff and a current display which was amongst the best textile exhibitions I have ever seen.

"Beach Woman" by Audrey Walker. A great study of a momentary glance on painted textile.

This is a major exhibition which celebrates the work of Goldsmith's College textile department during the period 1975 to 1988 when Audrey Walker was Head of Textiles. She has been 25 years retired in West Wales but is apparently still going strong. It must have been an exceptional time because the output displayed here is magnificent.

"Dream No 8 - The Seeker", 2013 by Michael Brennand - Wood. A collage of embroidery, mosaics and other materials on a wooden panel.

The cleverly titled "Basket" and "Odd Basket Case" by Cleo Mussi, a pair of ceramic mosaics.

"Oranges and Lemons" by Jennie Moncur. A hand woven tapestry of wool and linen.

A pair of "Nouveau Bleu Sketch Vases" by Amy Jayne Hughes, one of which is for sale for £860. Beyond my pocket, but they would make an interesting display piece in the right setting.

"The Odyssey" by Alice Kettle

"The Fabulous Clip Joint" by Michael Brennand - Wood. I've no idea why it's called that, but doubtless for the asking price of £12,500 you could find out.

"Storm" by Dawn Dupree. I can't quite see it myself, but the piece has interest.

The Craft Centre from the outside. The centre comprises a series of high class shops in addition to the gallery and the café. It has a great car park and I strongly recommend a visit.

Many of the gallery's exhibits can be seen on their Flickr page. The opening hours are 10am to 5:30 pm. The car park is free, and admission is free.

First Impressions of the Ogwen Visitor Centre

I made a brief stop last week at a building which has been nearly a year in the making, Ogwen Visitor Centre, just off the A5 near the lake, next to the celebrated youth hostel and the start of the popular walk to Cwm Idwal. The building itself is superbly constructed from stone and slate and well chosen timber. It has a very convenient car park and a useful kiosk type café. However, my first impressions were that it has been rather spoiled by the current obsession with things digital and with the current fashion of dumbing down information. Have I misjudged it? See comments below.

This image shows the quality of the construction and design. It is clearly built both to impress and to withstand the weather.

This is the main source of information, a touchscreen display which will tell you something of how the mountains were made. Choosing the level at which to relate this story must always be difficult, but this particular display unfortunately chose the level of an average 11 or 12 year old.

The main room is quite large, and lends itself well to these blocks of text which are projected across the wall. It looks modern and it works.

Images are also projected along with the text.

I wasn't quite clear what the screen was about. When I was there it was just a succession of images of the local hills.

A 3-D model of the surrounding hills, with a rather disappointing button system to provide snippets of information relating to parts of the model.

Appy Trails!

If you fancy graduating from a Time Team watching armchair archaeologist to a slightly more active one, then it's well worth looking into the new free Archwilio App, created by the four Welsh archaeological Trusts. The app can be downloaded for Android. You can read quite a detailed article about it on the BBC website.

After trying it out, the historical descriptions are interesting, but many entries lack photographs, although this isn't really a problem if you are physically at the site, and want to get some written information about what you are seeing. You can, in fact, submit photos once you have registered with the app. One slightly off-putting feature is the unpleasant sound effect that plays when you tap an item. Hopefully the app will be improved with user feed-back.

Geocaching on the BBC

We've very interested in the potential of Geocaching to make walking fun and interesting for children, so we were interested to hear a program about it on Radio 4 last week. You can listen again at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03ggfw8.

It's a shame they didn't have the good taste to base the event in Wales, but what can you do?

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