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- Ward Lock’s Red Guide
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- Cader Idris walking tour
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- Aberystwyth
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- Map
The Ward Lock Red Guide – Southern section of North Wales
Continuing to appreciate the differences in tone and attitude to the Welsh landscape from within and without its borders. The above excerpt has been instrumental in kicking off our workshops, and more or less a product of Wales. Ms Hemans herself emigrated from Liverpool to Wales.
I LAY on that rock where the storms have their dwelling,
The birthplace of phantoms, the home of the oloud;
Around it for ever deep music is swelling,
The voice of the mountain-wind, solemn and loud.
‘Twas a midnight of shadows all fitfully streaming,
Of wild waves and breezes, that mingled their moan;
Of dim shrouded stars, as from gulfs faintly gleaming;
And I met the dread gloom of its grandeur alone.
the weather, giants, the reaper, the mourner, etc…
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Chapter IV: A Welsh Market-Town from “PEEPS AT MANY LANDS: WALES”, by M WILMOT-BUXTON, 1911.
“[We should] visit Corwen or any other Welsh market-town on a Sunday to see the most striking characteristics of the people. The streets are nearly deserted, and a strange stillness broods over the place. At the open door of some of the cottages an aged woman sits with a Welsh Bible on her knees, and keeps an eye upon the toddling baby at her feet. Everyone else has vanished, and not until a burst of melody sounds from the plainly-built chapels which occur so frequently on the highways and within the township, is their whereabouts revealed. Such singing it is, too ! It has been said that the Welsh people sing naturally in parts, and certainly it seems as though nothing but years of training would produce such a result with English choirs, not to speak of a whole congregation, as is the case in Wales. In perfect time and tune the beautiful old Welsh melodies ring forth, and we begin to realize what a large part this hymn-singing and fiery enthusiastic preaching plays in the daily life of this emotional and deeply religious people.
REV. ELI JENKINS
Praise the Lord! We are a musical nation.
“At every corner stand groups of farmers, talking eagerly with hands and shoulders as much as with lips, and with that curious rise and fall of the voice which, they tell us, is the secret of Welsh oratory.
“Meantime the market-women have spread out their goods poultry, butter, eggs, and flowers on the market-stalls in a picturesque fashion enough. Many of the women themselves are worth the attention of an artist, with their strong brown faces, black crisp hair, and very dark blue eyes,” put in with a smutty finger,” as someone has well described them.”