Author Archives: Curious Scribbler

Weathering Storm Darragh

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by the Curious Scribbler

We all knew Storm Darragh was on its way, and when it arrived it certainly lived up to the Met Office predictions.  The wind roared from the small hours on Saturday morning and continued, varying only slightly in violence all through the day.  Violent rainstorms came and went, stinging the face as they were delivered horizontally by the wind.   Towards evening the direction veered a little and only then did my handsome thirty year old Nordmann fir, which had been tossing its boughs all day without breaking them, suddenly and catastrophically toppled into the road. It didn’t immediately inconvenience many motorists for the road was already blocked in three other places, two by floods and one by a fallen oak.

Farewell my Nordmann Fir

Possibly more surprising was how totally the widespread loss of electricity disrupts 21st century life.  When the power went down on Saturday morning we didn’t just lose heat and light.  The router stopped working, the internet disappeared and the phone, which is now delivered by the router rather than a copper wire, ceases to work too.  So we reached for our mobile phones only to find there was no signal, because the booster mast which delivers it was also lacking power.  Only by driving up the road to a different location was contact with the world restored via 4G.

Venturing into Aberystwyth we found the whole town without light except for a few emergency lights above the back doors into some of the bigger stores.  The traffic lights were off.  And absolutely every shop was closed.  Clusters of disconsolate students roamed around the closed convenience stores.  In yesteryear a few small shops where the shopkeeper lived on the premises would have been open.  But tills don’t work without electricity and cards cannot be read.  The cashless society is totally dependent of electricity.  Those of us who have lived here for many years have the resources to weather a power cut comfortably:  log burners, camping gas cylinders, candles and lamps.  We cook our meals, and play scrabble by firelight until power is restored.   The bedrooms do cool down rather.  Central heating requires electricity to circulate the water.  But for the all-electric home a power cut must be very bleak indeed.

Even bleaker is a flood.  Unusually, the Ystwyth seems to have flooded more severely than the Rheidol, where the flood-plain playing fields became merely rather wet.  The Ystwyth and the Paith, which drains into it, flooded spectacularly, creating a single sheet of water from Tanybwlch beach to to Gosen.  I have stolen Alan Chamberlain’s photo from a Facebook post.

Alan Chamberlain’s photo of the Tanybwlch flats on Saturday 7 December

By Saturday afternoon the roadworks at Gosen were underwater, the plastic barriers bobbing in the flood, the metal ones collapsed under the water.  The lovely old house, Tynlone, was flooded. It must be over 30 years since I’ve seen the river quite so  full.  The water receded overnight leaving the usual mire of silt.  Only the field closest to Tanybwlch beach, which really wants to become a saltmarsh, remained deeply flooded by Sunday evening.

Devastation at Gosen

The swollen River Ystwyth by Llanychaiarn Church

Highest road flooding I can remember

By Monday only the field closest to Tanybwlch beach, which really wants to become a saltmarsh, remained deeply flooded. The dog was pleased to walk the length of the strand.  There was less change here than I had expected, only in one place had a fresh load of beach pebbles been taken right over the bar to cascade into the river.  On the seaward side the Sea Sandwort  Honkenya peploides has taken a hammering, the mat of rhizomes and stolons which stabilize the sand has been much reduced and the big quarry stones arranged to protect the shore have moved even further down the beach.  At the south end the sea had left huge heaps of bladder wrack and laminaria, piled more than knee deep along the strand line.  Plenty of marine life had been scooped from the sea bottom by the violent waves.  Creatures seldom seen have been thrown up by this storm.  Another contributor to Facebook Ceredigion Birds and Wildlife has posted a selection of finds: lobster, crab and crayfish on the strandline at Aberaeron.  I particularly note the Sponge Crab Dromia vulgaris.  This animal is covered in coconut-coloured hairs except where it bright pink pincers protrude, as if it were wearing nail varnish.  It picks up sea sponges to wear on the shell like a cloak, using a pair of specially modified hind legs to do so.  I had no idea this species was native to our coast  – I thought it belonged in the Mediterranean.  But then the sea has been getting warmer, as well as the storms more violent.

Melissa Lilley posted this picture of a Sponge Crab among the debris washed up on Aberaeron North Beach

The sheep had very little space to graze, but rustic seat on the Tanybwlch strand proved stronger than it looks.

It has been a week of total calm since Monday and the clear-up is ongoing.  Restoring our phone and internet has been a long job; both the fallen trees on our road took down the lines with a vengeance, but it was encouraging to find that by Tuesday several vans of Openreach  engineers were tackling the job.  Today is  Thursday and  Letter from Aberystwyth can reach the world.

A Tour of Old College

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by The Curious Scribbler,

I was privileged to join a group of Old Students Association members for a tour of Old College.  Twelve of us gathered at the site office in the building formerly known as The Cambria, on the corner of Pier street, where we donned borrowed hard hats, luminous tabards and steel toed boots before being led around the site by the indefatigable project manager, Jim O’Rourke.  Jim is in his eighth year of nursing the restoration of Old College,  a costly undertaking which has received funds from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, Welsh Government and the European Regional Development Fund, UK Government, Coastal Communities Fund, The National Lottery Community Fund, philanthropic trusts, and individuals.  The many projected uses of the building can seen on the University’s website.

The early phases of the project were mostly destructive.  I recollect the many months when the site was the domain of the asbestos removal specialists, and more recently the demolition of the hotch potch of later buildings clinging to the flank of the Old College on the inland side.  These are all gone now and we went out of the back of the building to view the massive hole from which a 21st century building will soon rise in its place.  This will house kitchens and other utility rooms in the basement, an airy modern restaurant above, and the modern lifts which will give access to the five floors of the northern part and the three to the south.  A huge glass function room will in due course hover above the Georgian villas.

The huge hole from which the kitchens and restaurant will rise.

The old building being restored comes in five different phases, the Cambria, the two Georgian villas, the Seddon core which boasts the Quad, the Seddon Room and the Council chamber ( originally a billiard room), the architecturally distinct 1894 central block by C.J. Ferguson, and the tapering southern prow which had first been designed as the hotel tea room but had been demolished and rebuilt by Seddon as the Science Wing  after the fire of 1885.  Victorian architects expected the public to be sufficiently able bodied to use stairs, and the stairs in the building are many and varied:  the grand staircase of Ransome’s artificial stone near the original front door with its porte cochere, the short flight giving access to the council chamber, the tight spiral staircases up the turrets, and a handsome iron and mahogany open well stair rising four storeys in the central Ferguson block.

The dramatic asymmetric stairwell in the section designed by Ferguson

The challenge for the restoration is to make all these floors level and accessible from the lifts in the new atrium.  In some places floor levels must be altered to make this possible.  New openings have been made to create linking corridors and former partitions have been cleared away.

It is now possible to see the bones of the future rooms and their purposes.  The Georgian villas will function as a new entrance point to the Old College, while the first, second and third floor rooms adjoining the quadrangle will become bedrooms of a lavish hotel.  We walked through several each 40 or more square yards in size, with gothic windows reaching down to the floor.  Looking down on  the balcony of the quad to the floor below it is easy to imagine the weddings which will in future use the large open spaces of the quadrangle and the old hall.

A future bedroom in the Old College hotel

Everywhere there is evidence of the conservation ethic of this project, original plaster coving carefully protected, damaged walls patched with lath and lime plaster to match the original building techniques.  It contrasts dramatically with the lack of respect for high Victorian buildings which was common in the mid twentieth century.  I remember being in the council chamber twenty years ago.  While it still boasted an incomparable view out over the sea, this lofty vaulted room had been boxed in with plasterboard inner walls and a low ceiling from which some ugly sixties pendant lights hung.  This has all been stripped away to reveal a handsome vaulted timber ceiling.  Clustered banded pillars like those in the colonnade by the Seddon room were concealed behind the plasterboard.  Horrifyingly, their ornamentation had been chipped away where it projected against the boarding.  These pillars were not of fine marble, but built of concrete blocks skimmed with a thin coating and ornamented with bands and capitals of plasterwork.  The damage will be painstakingly repaired in plaster.

Original features of the Council Chamber, (former billiard room) emerged from behind boarding and a false ceiling.

Historic plaster was chipped away to accommodate a refit of the room in the mid 20th century.

Another challenge to the budget is the handsome banister surrounding the asymmetric stairwell at the south end of the building.  Wrought iron with a chunky  mahogany rail, it is, unfortunately, some twelve inches lower than the current regulations for a banister.  When we visited a crude timber handrail had been assembled to protect the workers from falling over. All the rails will have to be taken down and lengthened by a skilled blacksmith.  If there had been Health and Safety in the 1960s I have no doubt the entire rail would have been ripped out and replaced with pine planking!

Non-compliant banister topped by a temporary rail

A further expense will be the careful removal of the peeling gloss paint liberally slathered on the walls and ceilings in years gone by.  Gloss paint was felt to be particularly hygienic and easy to clean, but it is the wrong material to coat onto lime plaster, and detaches itself like leaves in autumn.  A lot has been learnt about conservation practice in the last thirty years.

Peeling gloss paint and new plasterwork in one of the many tiny irregular-shaped rooms

Our tour continued to the tapering south end of the building where science was formerly taught. The small partitions in the first floor room have been removed to create an attractive space, lit by windows on both sides.  It will provide desk space for IT, games or web designers in the business enterprise hub.

The southern prow of the building which is ornamented externally by the Voysey mosaic

Removal of the false ceiling in the adjoining  semi-circular Chemistry lecture theatre revealed a tall conical roof which formerly was lit by six windows between the rafters.

A newly discovered feature was the roof of the former Chemistry lecture theatre

Leaving the building on the seaward side we passed two tall timber crates standing on end.  Peeking between the planks we could verify that Thomas Charles Edwards, first Principal of the college is within one protective crate, and  Edward  VIII, that most transient of monarchs, stands safely on his pedestal  in the other.   Aberystwyth has the only full length effigy of him, created by Mario Rutelli in 1922, when he was  Prince of Wales.  Over the years at least two attempts have been made upon his  head, famously recovered by the police and re attached only to be hacked at once again  by  angry students in the 1980s, when the wound was soldered by the then ceramics technician in the art department.    Perhaps he feels safer in his crate!

Edward VIII safely in his crate

And she’s gone!

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by the Curious Scribbler

Clearly I was too pessimistic yesterday in my account of the dismembered Hot Toddy on the Tanybwlch shore.   Later that day the broken hull was indeed removed, and has been recorded on Facebook by Bethan Thomas.

Bethan Thomas’ photo – The Hull is removed!

And loaded onto a council lorry

Well done everybody involved and I guess the removal of the mast and metal parts was just the first part of the salvage operation.  It is so good to see this dramatic stony beach return to its pristine condition.   If only the permanent repair of the retaining wall between the bridge and the river could also be achieved before this winter’s storms remove yet more of the parking area by the stone jetty.

The white bags protecting the riverside wall have mostly collapsed and more of the wall will soon follow.

 

Ignominious end of the Hot Toddy

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by the Curious Scribbler

I wrote in August about the two boats beached at Tanybwlch, the second of which remained un-rescued and acquired a council notice for its removal under the terms of the Aberystwyth Harbour Act 1987.  It was no surprise that notwithstanding this enforcement notice the boat continued to sit stranded on the pebbles.  It was an old  fibreglass boat with its cabin closed off with a piece of hardboard and we speculated it had been abandoned.

The two boats beached in early August

On Monday it was still there, its mast clearly visible from the car park. But today things are different.  The shell of the hull is now in two pieces and fragments of fibreglass and other detritus litter the shore line for a considerable distance.  There has been a high tide and a good swell is rolling in, so the pieces have probably been knocked around a bit.  But the critical observation is that the aluminium mast, the rudder and keel  and much of the other metal work of the hull have disappeared.  It has been cut in two.

The fibreglass remains of the Hot Toddy

There is even a neat pile of less important metallic odds and ends sitting on the shore waiting to be collected. And an empty fuel can which probably powered the tools used to dismember the boat.

Small items of salvage left behind on the upper shore

I think that some opportunistic salvage, perhaps by moonlight, took place this week.  Certainly nothing of any scrap value remains.  The fibreglass hull is is a negative asset –  it would be very costly to recycle and would be treated as landfill waste. However its removal from the shore is even more pressing as the eroded fragments break down to release fibres damaging to all forms of filter-feeding marine life.

There is an urgent need for  a beach-clean to remove the many fragments already scattered along the upper shore.  I shall be happy to take part.  But the broken halves of the hull need professional disposal as soon as possible.

The wreckage of the Hot Toddy

Too many people view our rivers and seas as waste disposal units.  Only yesterday on facebook  several people also recorded three men dumping planks and other trade waste from a trailer into the Rheidol River in Penparcau.  There are some folk who don’t deserve a good night’s sleep.

Planks tossed into the river at Heol Tyn y Fron

The perpetrators’ load.

Hot Toddy on Tanybwlch Beach

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There is a new piece of litter on the beach this month, a rather aged fibreglass yacht which lies stranded on the shingle at the north end of the beach.

The abandoned boat now wears a bilingual enforcement notice

I first saw it on 5 August, when not one but two boats had come ashore, the Hot Toddy and another boat  which was on the sand half way down the strand near the concrete barrier.  That second yacht has now been removed, while the Hot Toddy has today been pasted with a Council Notice.  Under Section 40 of the Aberystwyth Harbour Act 1987 it will shortly be removed and disposed of unless the owner serves a counter notice and removes it themselves.

The Hot Toddy on tanybwlch beach

Passers-by gather to inspect it and exchange news.  I have been told that the second boat got in to difficulties trying to help the Hot Toddy and both ended up on the beach. Another source had heard that the Hot Toddy was sailed ( or motored) by a complete amateur with no sailing skills who had bought the old boat in Cardiff and was trying to sail it to Liverpool!  It certainly appears that the owner has not identified themselves, and has abandoned it.  I looked more closely at it today and met an experienced sailor who owns a similar boat  He told me that, unlike with cars, the registration of boats is voluntary and an old one such as this could be bought for £2000 or so.   The costs of disposing of it will probably exceed any scrap value.

Further down the beach I checked up on another piece of flotsam, the Tanybwlch dragon which I first wrote about in December 2019.  This heraldic-looking tree trunk has been moving around the beach ever since, ( it even disappeared for a while), its dragon head steadily eroding away as storms rolled it on the pebbles until the likeness was lost.  Now it has had its final come-uppance, its headless body incorporated into a beach bonfire,  and now burnt through to create two pieces of charred trunk.

Demise of the Tanybwlch Dragon

A copious amount of timber, trunks and branches, brought down river, washes up on the south end of this beach and is soon de-barked by the action of the sea.  I wonder who was the creative soul who came down with saw and screwdriver and fashioned  the fine rustic bench which looks out to sea from the stones where the Wheatears breed.

A driftwood bench overlooking Cardigan bay

The Tanybwlch bench

For a while there was also a driftwood arbour tied together with fishermens’ rope and twine, but this blew down and disappeared.  Always something new to look out for on my favorite beach.

It is to be hope though that along with the disposal of the Hot Toddy the Council’s attention with be focused on the continuing collapse of the retaining wall above the river where the cars park.  It is two years since a temporary repair was done with white bags full of rocks.  Most of these have now washed away and the winter storms will play havoc with the remaining structure.  If only the small hole which developed before during Storm Ciara in 2020 had been promptly filled with cement!

The white bags protecting the riverside wall have mostly collapsed and more of the wall will soon follow.

Aberystwyth Allotments

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by The Curious Scribbler

Fine days have been few and far between this summer but Sunday afternoon in Penparcau proved a happy exception. The sun shone, there were unthreatening fluffy clouds,a paraglider wheeled overhead from its launch at the top of Pendinas, and at the bottom of First Avenue, many people took the opportunity to visit the allotments during the Open Afternoon in aid of the National Garden Scheme charity.

The axial path between the Aberystwyth allotments

It is more than ten years since I last came on an open day and once more was charmed by the range of gardening skills on display. At one end I found Veronica’s traditional vegetable plot bursting with rows of flourishing foodstuffs runner beans, french beans, broad beans potatoes, carrots and many more besides. A retired soil scientist, she has gardened this plot for a couple of decades, and recollects the year when floods covered the allotments, the water rising two feet and more inside her garden shed. Hers is a full sized allotment, the generous space deemed necessary in the post war days to feed a family.

Aber Allotments Veronica’s generous vegetable plot

At the other end of the axial path I found another long-established allotment with quite different use of space, largely devoted to fruit trees, elegantly lawned, with tubs of vegetables and flowers and a restful place to sit and relax at the distal end.

A tranquil oasis of fruit trees and lawns. Aber Allotments

Other allotments bristle with garden technology, raised beds, edging, hooped cloches made of alkathene pipe, fruit nets and trellises. There are several living willow structures and exuberant roses on the boundaries of many plots. And every allotment has a shed, some just tool stores while others are little home-from-homes, places to heat up a cup of tea, sit back and enjoy the peaceful scene.
In recent years, as they become vacant, some of the old allotments have been divided into two or three parts, better serving the needs of townsfolk without gardens. There is great contrast amongst these too, reflecting the owners’ enthusiasms for flowers, food or nature. One mini-allotment is dominated by a wildlife pond. Nearby I found another with two keen gardeners devoted to an amazing range of choice and exotic vegetables – Chilean Guava, several different cultivars of blueberry, grafted vegetables growing upon a gourd rootstock, unfamilar cultivars of familiar herbs and greens.

Raise beds and wood shaving paths at Aberystwyth allotments

Flowers and vegetable blend at Aberystwyth Allotments

The visit put me in mind of the allotments at Konigstein in Germany which I visited with the Cardiganshire Horticultural Society as part of a twinning visit to Kronberg in 2015. Up to half of the space in these allotments could be devoted to recreation, and many plots contained substantial chalets, dining areas, play equipment and ornamental trees, while the rest would be devoted to edibles or flowers. Many of the holders would have been flat dwellers, who spent whole days at their allotment homes. I remember how impressed we were by the feel-good ambience of these German allotments. The Aberystwyth allotments are evolving in a similar direction.

The Konigsberg allotments in Germany

A homely chalet in the Konigsberg allotments in Germany

The Konigsberg allotments in Germany

The Konigsberg allotments in Germany

The Konigsberg allotments in Germany

The brimming bin of Bryn Eglur

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I often walk my dog on the cycle path between  Rhydyfelin and Llanfarian.   At either end of this stretch there is a dark blue bin.  The slim one at the Rhydfelin end is lined with a black plastic liner and regularly emptied by Ceredigion  Council.  Strangely the similar, but double-sized bin at the other end has been overflowing for months.

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Yesterday I met the man who empties the bins.  He tells me that the Bryn Eglur bin is an unauthorized bin ( although it looks very much like a council bin) and it is not their job to empty it.

The Bryn Eglur bin is almost exclusively full of bagged dog poo and smells pretty unpleasant.  It is on the edge of a small picnic area which I imagine was specified by the Council as an amenity area when Planning Permission for the development at Bryn Eglur was obtained.

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Perhaps the Planning Department specified a bin but failed to ask the Waste Collection Service whether they could empty it?   I wonder whether this situation will ever be resolved.

Dafydd ap Gwilym’s Kestrel

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by The Curious Scribbler

There is a celebrated yew at Strata Florida.  It is certainly old, and by tradition is deemed to be the yew under which the fourteenth century poet Dafydd ap Gwilym is buried.    Its status was marked by a painted stone bearing  his dates which lay in the undergrowth at its foot, and was then further established with an inscribed slab installed by the Honorable Society of Cymmrodorion in 1951.  To further advertising the poet they at the same time installed an even larger inscribed slab within the adjoining abbey ruins.    Walking through the footings  of the north transept one cannot miss the huge commemorative slate rectangle, like an outsized gravestone, officiously engraved in Welsh and Latin,  which is affixed to the wall by iron cramps.

Current scholarship is a little less emphatic. The excellent little book, The Poetry of Strata Florida, by Dafydd Johnston examines the evidence and exposes the assertion to a measure of doubt.  The antiquary John Leland writing in 1540 stated that there were 39 vast yews in the cemetery, while by 1874 there were only three.  Statistically, Dafydd ap Gwilym could have been under any one of these trees!

Johnston further points out that he may not be buried there at all.  A substantial strand of evidence for the grave under the tree has been a poem by ap Gwilym’s contemporary poet Gruffud Gryg.  The poem is addressed to the yew tree above Dafydd ap Gwilym’s grave.  However I now learn that writing marwnadau ffug  – mock elegies –  was a popular pastime for fourteenth century poets.  There are several known instances of pairs of poets writing reciprocal elegies for one another – obviously at least one in each of these pairs must have been alive at the time, and possibly both were.  These elegies were complimentary, as were the praise poems which poets composed about the homes of the the princes and landowners they visited.

Dafydd ap Gwilym was a native of Llanbadarn Fawr and may have learnt to write at the abbey scriptorium.  He was not just a professional sycophant turning out eulogies about broad acres, fat cows, and fine houses.  Much of his work celebrates nature, love and indeed lust.  He sounds like a cheerful chap, addressing his love poems to Dyddgu  or Morfudd or indeed improper suggestions to the Cistercian nuns of Llanllugan in Montgomeryshire.  He depicts woodland as a church and bird as clergy, or holly as a lover’s bower.

So irrespective of the exact truth it seems very apposite that he should have a tree as his memorial.  When I visited it today,  the silence of this deeply rural spot was only broken by a party of screaming swifts  flying low over the ruins and the intermittent  clamour of baby birds from the top of the yew.   I discovered that  pair of kestrels have chosen to rear their nestlings in the top of Dafydd ap Gwilym’s tree.   This is surprising, for kestrels barely build a nest and typically nest in crags or old buildings.  Perhaps an old crow’s nest has provided a sufficient platform for their eggs.  I feel sure Dafydd ap Gwilym would have approved.

St Mary’s church Strata Florida and Dafydd ap Gwilym’s yew

 

An alternative stratagem for remembrance  is represented by the huge black marble memorial situated between the church and the abbey wall.  Sir David and Lady Grace James died in the 1967 and 1965 respectively.   His business interests had expanded  from his father’s  London dairy business to foodstuffs and cinemas.  He acquired a country estate, Sutton Hall, Barcombe,  and a knighthood. His roots were at Pantyfedwen and the couple  were justly proud of their wealth  and their worth as  philanthropists and patrons of Welsh culture.  Bold capitals on six faces of the column assert their names, their charitable trusts, their characters and their  claims to fame in considerable detail.   Will this massive memorial outlast the reputation of the poet, or vice versa?

The memorial to Sir David and Lady Grace James.

 

 

Idyll and Industry at the National Library

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by The Curious Scribbler,

The leading exhibit in the Gregynog Gallery is undoubtedly the Canaletto, loaned out for the summer under an initiative to share the National Gallery’s collections with those of us in far flung corners of the UK.

The Stone Mason’s Yard by Canaletto

The Stonemason’s Yard was painted in about 1725 and donated to the National Gallery by Sir Thomas Beaumont a hundred years later.  It depicts an early morning scene in  a lesser square the Campo San Vidal.  The rising sun casts long shadows across the scene and, as the accompanying caption describes, there is much human activity going on.  There are gondolas and gondoliers on the Grand Canal, and women attending two lines of washing  in the middle distance. The foreground shows women engaged in traditional activities – housework, spinning and childcare.  At centre are the stone carving activities, a man with a mallet  and chisel is carving a large block of limestone, while another with his back to us is splitting stone into pavier slabs. But the third stone mason on the right of the picture is the one who caught my attention, for here, working on the interior of a huge freshly carved basin or well head is undoubtedly a burly woman.  It is unexpected to find a woman mason, but it appears that Canaletto painted what he saw.  Surprisingly  she is not mentioned in the caption.

The lady stonemason

The rest of the exhibition is spread out to either side,  Turn right for ‘Idyll’  scenes of rural Welsh landscape in paintings in the collections of the National Library, or turn left for ‘Industry’, –  iron works, mines and quarries depicted over two centuries.  Adjoining the industrial views are also a few abstracts, so abstract that only the initiated would know that they are about Wales.  I’ve learnt a useful expression –  ” deeply personal response”  is a good description for baffling representations of named locations!

Among the more representational works, are pictures by Turner, Ibbotson, Richard Wilson, Thomas Jones of Pencerrig, David Cox and other well-known artists.   For locals like me it was interesting to see a 1955 painting of Hafod by Joyce Fitzwilliams of Cilgwn, Newcastle Emlyn. The house is party roofless and viewed I think from the path up towards Pendre cottage.  Demolition of the Italianate wing added by Henry de Hoghton has already begun.

Joyce Fitzwilliams’ Hafod 1955

Also of local interest was a painting by  World War I Belgian refugee Valerius de Saedeleer of the land dipping down to the sea, probably near of Llanrhystud.

Valerius de Saedeleer Coastal landscape near Aberystwyth painted during WWI

Turning to the industrial side  there are some powerful images such as Miners returning from Work by Archie Rhys Griffiths, a depression-era painting which nonetheless evokes the grandeur of toil.  Many of the more  recent industrial views  are more grim or dismal in tone.

Archie Rhys Griffiths 1932 Miners returning from work

But my eye was caught by a work by Penry Williams, thought to depict the Dowlais Iron works. Like the Canaletto, the scene is bright and lucid, with long shadows cast across a foreground of great activity.  The bare grassy uplands gleam in the background with neat fields and scattered farmhouses on the slopes, while lurking in full view is the industrial behemoth.  Four tall chimneys, five flaming beacons, long sheds with with rows of chimneys each emitting a gleam of fire and puffs of white smoke.  Everything is neat and new and sharply designed.  The tall chimneys have ornamental tiers, and a huge sphere on a stone pedestal indicates an owner of wealth and  discernment.  Doubtless many men worked perspiring in the heat of these sheds, but the only humans we see are two top hatted gentlemen on horseback and a gardener with his wheelbarrow, meticulously edging a broad graveled path through the immaculate garden which adjoins the works.

Penry Williams’ evocation of industrial glory in the early 19th century

There came a time when industrialists moved away from their factories to unspoilt rural locations, sometimes donating their former parks to the people, but in the early 19th century one can sense the excitement of new industry bringing huge rewards to the iron masters, and new jobs to the rural poor.  Penry Williams came from a modest family of stonemasons in Merthyr Tydfil.  Without the patronage of the newly enriched iron masters he would never have studied at the Royal Academy or  settled in Rome to pursue a career painting Italian scenes for young gentlemen on the Grand Tour.

Curating Nature

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by The Curious Scribbler

The School of Art has selected gardens and gardening as the theme of this year’s long running summer exhibition.  The exhibition forms a part of the undergraduate course in which students act as curators – selecting the works, mounting, framing and displaying them in the gallery.  For this they sifted through the substantial collections belonging to the School of Art, bringing various long-unseen artworks into the light. The result is an intriguing collection on the general theme, including paintings, etchings, prints,photographs, decoupage and even ceramics spanning a time frame of 150 years. There is also a cabinet to explore.

Each drawer in this cabinet was compiled by an individual student. Here the page is open at Phallus impudicus,  the Stinkhorn fungus.

My eye was first caught by two exquisite botanical illustrations by Mildred Eldridge, wife of the poet R.S.Thomas.  The first is of Sanguisorba canadensis growing in 1959 at Eglwysfach, possibly in their garden, or in the collections of Mr Mappin at Ynyshir Hall.

Sanguinaria canadensis by Mildred Eldridge

A second painting dated 1960 shows the delicate pastel shades of a bicoloured Camellia japonica.  Mildred’s illustrations appeared in several books in the 1940s and others were published as art cards by Medici Society.

Camellia japonica by Mildred Eldridge

 

I was also arrested by a powerful winter scene by Belgian artist Maurice Langaskens, showing a man with secateurs mounting a ladder to prune a tree, dark birds whirling overhead.  He spent much of the first world war in captivity in Germany.  How did this picture find its way to Aberystwyth?  Was he perhaps a friend of our better-known Belgian refugee Valerius de Sadeleer, who spent those years living at Tyn Lon, Rhydyfein, painting local landscape scenes?

An etching by Maurice Langaskens

This rummage through the archive makes serendipitous connections.  Who knew that George Cruikshank had a cartoonist great nephew whose wood engraving in the magazine The Leisure Hour pokes fun at the Aesthetic Movement of the late 19th century?  The tiny print shows the industrial production of serried rows of sunflowers, along with people, bees, gnats and savoy cabbages.

Woodcut by Cruikshank’s great nephew Cruikshank Jnr

Sunflowers get a grittier treatment in a lithograph by kitchen sink realist John Bratby from the 1960s.

Sunflowers II by John Bratby

Several more recent artists in the collection have close ties with Aberystwyth and I was pleased to see two of Jenny Fell’s calendar linocuts from 1989 on the walls.  I am an early investor in Jenny’s work, four other months have adorned my kitchen walls since 1991.  Hung here is October ( a bonfire) and April ( Violets and Primroses).  The captioning has a very modern slant:  burning autumn leaves now brings a homily about carbon dioxide and global warming.

 

October by Jenny Fell

Works by Art School staff are also to be found.  Prof John Harvey’s small spikey drawing evokes the steep hill and neat gardens  of Elysian Grove while Prof Catrin Webster’s huge colourful canvas dominates the room.

Elysian Grove by John Harvey

The very same evening I was at the Arts Centre for the launch of John Hedley’s exhibition in the upstairs gallery.  John paints and burnishes slices of tree trunk, many of them from Bodnant or from Anthony Tavernor’s amazing garden at Plas Cadnant on Anglesey.  When at his alternative home in Crete ancient olive boles provide his canvasses. The designs develop in the studio, suggested to him by the grain and form of the pieces of timber.  The combined rich colours and metallic finishes of copper and gold leaf are bright and vibrant.  We read a lot about mental health and well-being in relation to nature these days.  This exhibition though has no subtext, it is just unapologetically cheerful.

Trees trunks felled by Storm Arwen are canvasses for John Hedley