Writers in their Landscape
Three Guided Walking Tours
Three Saturday guided walking tours
Tour leader: Dr John Pikoulis
Tickets: £50 / £47 for Academi Members and Associates
(price is per tour)
Raymond Williams in Pandy - Saturday 12 July 12 2008
Lecturer: Professor Dai Smith
Alun Lewis in Cwmaman - Saturday 16 August 2008
Lecturer: Dr John Pikoulis
Margiad Evans in Llangarron - Saturday 6 September 2008
Lecturer: Dr Ceridwen Lloyd Morgan
This series of tours is designed to introduce readers to the landscapes which inspired three memorable writers: Raymond Williams (1921-1988), Alun Lewis (1915-1944) and Margiad Evans (1909-1958).
The Raymond Williams tour will concentrate on Pandy, between the Skirrid and the Black Mountains north of Abergavenny. Williams described it in his autobiographical novel, Border Country (Parthian, Library of Wales). We begin at Williams’s old school in Abergavenny and go on to his birthplace in Pandy, through the village and on to the site of the old railway station, where his father worked as signalman. Then over the fields to where the Honddu River joins the Monnow and then to Allt yr Ynys, a beautiful 16th century manor house once the home of the Cecils and now a four-star country hotel for lunch. The tour ends with a visit to Williams’s grave in Clodock churchyard and tea at Allt yr Ynys Hotel.
The Alun Lewis tour takes the form of a walk through Cwmaman, including his birthplace, St Joseph’s church, the family home at 61 Brynhyfryd and the infant school across the Nant Aman fach he attended. We then follow the river onto the Graig, the site of one of Lewis’s most memorable poems, The Mountain over Aberdare. The other text to be studied on this tour is The Housekeeper, a fine story describing life in the valley in the Depression years. Once filled with five pits, it now presents a scene of almost Alpine splendour. Lewis’s poems and stories are published by Seren.
Margiad Evans, born Peggy Whistler in London in 1909, visited Benhall Farm, the home of her aunt and uncle, in 1918 and promptly fell in love with the area. Her family moved to Lavender Cottage, in Bridstow, a few years later. She then started to write about the area under a Welsh-sounding pseudonym. She and her husband moved to Llangarron in 1941 and, during the next six years, wrote most of the stories that comprise her masterpiece, The Old and the Young (Seren). We shall walk through Llangarron to her cottage, Potacre, followed by lunch at the Lough Pool Inn and a gentle stroll down to the Wye. The tour ends with visits to Lavender Cottage and Benhall, courtesy of their present owners, and tea at Wilton Court, a three-star hotel on the Wye which dates back to the 16th century.
The tours will start from the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff at 8.00 am returning to the same point at around 7.00 pm that evening. Detailed timetables will be available from Academi.
Please Note: The walking tours will often be over fields and we will encounter a number of stiles along the way.
For more information and to book your place contact Academi on:
029 2047 2266 / post@academi.org