Radnorshire From Above - Review

Let's get the praise out of the way first; this is a beautifully produced book - in Aberystwyth - containing more than a hundred aerial photographs illustrating the archaeology and landscape of the old county of Radnorshire.  The colour photographs are accompanied by an informative text describing the background to aerial archaeology and what each of the often stunning images tells us about the past.

Anyone with the slightest interest in our Radnorian heimat should snap up a copy without delay.  Published by the Radnorshire Society and the Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust, it costs just £9 from the Society and a still great value £12.99 from local bookshops.  Congratulations to all involved in its production.

Here you'll find snowscapes, landscapes, the complexities of the Walton basin, hill forts, castles plundered of every last stone by the perspicacious Radnorshire folk and the churchyard of Newbridge-on-Wye with the graves of the local toffs shielded from the hoi polloi by a neat hedge.  Innes Ireland's old home at Downton merits a page, there are splendid shots of the Elan Valley including nostalgic shots of dried-out 2003, Roman marching camps, tai un nos and traces of the Glasbury church which ended up on the wrong side of the Wye after one 17C flood.

Any complaints I have may seem trivial to those who view the world through anglocentric spectacles, but here you go:

First off the text does recognize that the Anglo-Norman hold on Radnorshire castles was pretty precarious.  For long periods they were back home in Herefordshire and at others, a bit like the British army in Basra, confined to barracks.  So where were successful local rulers like Cadwallon ap Madog hanging out, since they tended to despoil the Norman castles rather than move in?   In Welsh castles more than likely, places like Buddugre - I would have liked to have seen some discussion about that.

Castell Cwm Aran?  This monstrosity may be perpetrated by the Ordnance Survey and the local High School but it's just wrong.  I'm far from being a language purist, I'm not vexed by the use Rhayader instead of Rhaeadr and I positively welcome the use of a localism like Noyadd instead of Neuadd.  But there is no river Aran in Radnorshire - the river and the castle are properly called Cymaron.  It was good enough for the bards and it should be good enough for the Radnorshire Society.

Likewise the use of placenames like Crug Erydd (Crug Eryr) and Penarth Mount (Bryn Pennardd).  Indeed the names used by the bards for these supposedly Norman sites might offer a big clue that they were in use by the local uchelwyr in the 15C.  None of them have been - so perhaps it's time CPAT dug one of them up?  I guess archaeologists don't like documentary evidence much, but Lewis Glyn Cothi describes Cefnllys Castle being rebuilt and occupied in the 15C - he even names the builder!

To me it illustrates the fact that in order to get a fuller picture of medieval and early modern Radnorshire history you really have to get to grips with the bards and their work.

Mistakes?   Well no-one was transported for  Rebeccaite attacks on toll gates in and around Rhayader, p87.

Radnorshire from above

A new book of Radnorshire interest.

More details here.

The Dublin Franchise

"Irish fascists? - get away with you."  "Anti-semitism! - don't be stupid."  My interlocutor remained unconvinced by my references to the Blueshirts or Denis Fahey.  If he'd know that my maternal grandfather was from Pontlottyn, he'd have surely put my ignorance down to an innate prejudice born of the Anti-Irish riots of the 19C.

Perhaps I should lend him my recently acquired copy of Professor Ray Douglas's Architects of Revolution, subtitled Ailtiri na hAiseirghe and the fascist 'new order' in Ireland. It's a good read, although I did find myself getting bogged-down with the multitude of unfamiliar Gaelicised personal names.

In truth hAiseirghe and it's would-be Fuhrer, Gearóid Ó Cuinneagáin, might have deserved an extended essay rather than a 320 page book but the background against which the movement grew, and finally failed was fascinating.

hAiseirghe's policies seem crazy now, but at the time that was not the case.  Hitler was fighting, and seemingly winning, a war to make the world safe for totalitarianism.  hAiseirghe and Ó Cuinneagáin saw themselves as obvious candidates to take on the Dublin franchise.

Many Irish people supported the Germans and anti-Semitic views were widespread.  Democracy had shallow roots, let's remember that Britain had ignored the result of election after election and even locked up most of the victors of 1918.  The 26 Counties had been liberated by the gun rather than the ballot box and many were disappointed with the party bickering that had soured the hopes of independence.  The economy stagnated and emigration reached ridiculous levels - four out of every five born in the 26 counties between 1931 and 1941, for example, would eventually leave the country.  A youthful movement that:

despised democracy;

sided with hated England's German enemy;

wanted to expel the Jews;

hoped to form a standing army of a 100,000 to march on the north;

planned to organise an economy based on the corporate state;

advocated that emigration be made illegal - this was also contemplated by De Valera,

declared it would pass laws against the public use of English

and that ultimately aimed to create a "missionary-ideological" Catholic state acting on the world stage

Well it wasn't quite so wildly out of touch with contemporary Irish realities as we might nowadays imagine.

To be a little controversial I'd say that in some ways hAiseirghe resembled the 1970s Welsh group Mudiad Adfer.  Both had grown out of the mainstream language movement, both appealed to idealistic young men and women and both rejected Anglo-American culture in its entirety.  Of course there were huge differences, stemming from time and place and the religious and cultural backgrounds of their members.

A couple of surprises.  Ó Cuinneagáin, who was no soldier, turned to the British general Dorman-Smith for advice on invading the North.  An interesting character I'd not come across before.   On another occasion  in the cause of Celtic solidarity hAiseirghe plastered South Dublin with posters proclaiming Rhyddid i Gymru!

In the end the author says hAiseirghe missed the boat, largely because of  Ó Cuinneagáin's failings, and that with better leadership they could have garnered the electoral success that went to Clann na Poblachta in the 1948 Election.

The Big Lie

This thoroughly researched book, it's really an extended essay of 112 pages, exposes the big lie that Welsh nationalists can somehow be implicated  with pre-war fascism. The accusations just don't stand up to Professor Jones's scrutiny and are shown to be without foundation, unworthy of any decent person.

Such a serious book should receive wide attention so I'd like to restrict my comments to a couple of minor themes explored in the chapter entitled Diwylliant Gwleidyddol Cymru.

Firstly, while the lies about Welsh nationalism and fascism are recurring elements on the Welsh political scene, there has been virtually no effort to discuss the real Welsh fascists of the 1930s.  This is the solitary exception from the pen of an English academic.




I don't really agree with Professor Jones about the significance of the 30% polled by the Mosleyite candidate in Merthyr in 1931. It was a straight fight and in 1929 the Tories and Liberals had polled 40%. Certainly Mosley's long-time associate Jeffrey Hamm has been ignored in Wales, just as cosy myths about the Spanish Civil War are preferred to, say, examining the life of a revolutionary like Billy Griffiths.  Such people are confined to the footnotes.  I'd like to add a couple more forgotten names: the ex-Communist from Cardiff, Rupert Arthur Beavan, an influential BUF organiser in West Ham; and the Liverpool-Welsh journalist Norah Briscoe (nee Davies).  She wrote for the Daily Mirror, was jailed for wartime spying in an MI5 sting operation and later wrote a well-received prison novel No Complaints in Hell.  In contrast to exploring the lives of these real but forgotten fascists and others like them, we must endure the frequently regurgitated fantasies against Plaid Cymru.  Why?

Is it because socialists don't want to explore their own backyard?  After all Mosley was on the radical wing of the Labour Party, an ally of the likes of William Cove, Nye Bevan and A J Cook.  No Welsh parliamentarians followed Mosley into the fascist wilderness but plenty of other former Labour and ILP MPs and ex-candidates in England did, and not just those involved with the short-lived New Party.  Did these people suddenly stop being socialists or did they believe that the Fascist's policies of state worship, corporatism and collectivism were not a thousand miles from their previous standpoints?

Secondly Professor Davies makes a sad but surely correct observation when he suggests that the big lie has been around for so long and been revived so often that many Welsh nationalists have come to believe that it must be true.  Why is this?

Is it because Welsh activists are so involved with domestic matters that they have little time for the wider world?  You see this in the way the Welsh blogosphere has little of interest to say about foreign affairs.  Do Welsh nationalists nowadays see the wider world only through the prism of the BBC?  Does Plaid Cymru want to be loved by the British left - who they seem to view as moral arbiters qualified to pass judgement on Wales and her history?  My own view is that it's high-time that we engaged with the world and not just the  bien pensants.

You're Welsh and you know you are....

..... it's a football chant that is sometimes used to wind-up the fans of Hereford United, and like all good insults it works because it has an element of truth.

Now why Herefordians, especially those from the south and west of the county, should be at all ashamed of  their Welsh roots is a puzzle.  After all native speakers of a Celtic language lived-on in Herefordshire for a hundred years after Cornish had died out.  Yet while the Cornish are rightly proud of their heritage, Herefordshire, even her local historians, seems to be in denial.

The author of this little book* - it was written in 2003, published in 2006 but I've only just got around to obtaining a copy - hopes that it will go some way to rectifying a situation where "the great majority" of those in Welsh Herefordshire are unaware of their history.

Does it succeed?  I think not. The book concentrates far too much on earlier times rather than the more recent past; and too much on general Welsh history rather than particular Herefordshire concerns.

The first 143 pages take us up to Owain Glyndwr, whereas the next 600 years merit just 28 pages.  You'll look in vain for the clash between the Welsh party and their English rivals in 15C Hereford.  There's no mention of Hergest and it's importance to Welsh literature nor of the Herefordshire patrons of the Welsh bardic tradition in the 15C and 16C.  Although the survival of the Welsh language into the 19C is mentioned there's no real detail; you'd be better off reading this blog: here for example. or here, or to save too much searching, here.

An annoying aspect of the book is the way in which the origins of some local placenames are guessed at because of their similarity to modern Welsh words. An old fault of the amateur historian which really shouldn't have a place in a 21C work.

 

* Herefordshire, the Welsh Connection, Carreg Gwalch, £6.90

Hands Off Wales - The Radnorshire Connection

The author of the new book Hands Off Wales, Wyn Thomas, is a Radnorian.  On his website Dr Thomas mentions that he left Llandrindod High School without qualifications, only returning to education later in life.  The author's English-speaking, non-academic background must surely have been a help in empathising with the Welsh nationalist militants of the 1960s,  who, in the main, were working-class, English-speaking and uncorrupted by either chapel or university.

In a way this weighty book - 424 pages - is a bit like one of those BBC4 documentaries on punk rock, very detailed, very informative ..... as long as we remember that most people were listening to the likes of Abba, David Soul and the Muppets.  For those of us interested in Welsh history it is a fascinating and well-written account of another minority pursuit - physical-force nationalism.  The book is mainly taken up with a thoroughly researched narrative about Tryweryn, the Free Wales Army and John Jenkins.  The right questions are asked, the protagonists allowed to speak for themselves, leaving us to draw our own conclusions.  A short final chapter offers opinions, but these are predictable enough and provide no surprising insights.

What about Radnorshire?  There is new detail about the only action ever carried out by the Free Wales Army - the botched sabotage of the Fron Aqueduct in 1967.  We also learn that a planned attack on the Birmingham pipeline in Knucklas was called off by Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru because of the possibility of damage to houses in the village.  The very successful attack on the pipeline in West Hagley is said to have been carried out by a cell from Newtown and Llandrindod. Really?  Later in the book the author casts doubt on the existence of any such a cell, although he does mention an English resident of Llanbister (for some background on this individual see here and here) later associated with the historical group Cofiwn, who seemingly had links with John Jenkins.  Finally, the young Anglesey county council employees imprisoned in 1969 were said to have been instructed in the art of bomb making at Graig Farm, Llandegley - leaving many suspicious of the involvement of an agent provocateur.

Update: Wyn Thomas talking about Eileen Beasley, see here.

A new book from Builth

Perhaps like the black American soldiers from the Pencerrig camp this blog should stick to its own side of the Wye bridge,* but here we have a book (or maybe booklet - it only has 96 pages) full of interesting snippets about life in Builth during the Second World War.

Of course a locally produced book like this - it's published by the Builth Wells and District Heritage Society - isn't going to delve too deeply into the more controversial aspects of wartime life: profiteering, the black market, sexual shenanigans, the Epynt clearances etc.  What we do get are individual memories of varying quality and interest, the first chapter is particularly fine while one or two others would have benefited from a little discreet editing.

Some thoughts: the young Builth nurse who was badly wounded in the Coventry blitz and subsequently died.  More than 60000 civilians were killed during the war on the Home Front, shouldn't their names also be recorded on our war memorials?  The Bootle mothers who returned home after a few weeks because "they would prefer to face the bombs ,,,,, than stay in Builth."  One would like to know more.  The young Home Guarder much mocked for running off when confronted by a German parachutist, surely the sensible course of action?

All in all a volume that should fascinate younger readers and stir memories for the older  generation.

* It seems that the bridge was guarded to ensure that locally stationed white American troops stayed in Builth, while their black compatriots could go no further south than the Llanelwedd Arms. 

The Story Of Knighton - New Book

Knighton. For the very occasional visitor such as myself it's as exotic as any distant holiday destination, with it's eccentric architecture, unexpected shops and the only multi-story car park in Mid Wales.  I actually drove across the county and back about twenty years to pick up a copy of the book in the town itself.  It was pleasing to see the precipitous main street decorated with the flags of St David and Owain Glyndwr.  Clearly the great patriot has been forgiven for laying the place to waste some six hundred years ago.

My major quibble with the new purchase was answered in the first sentence of the foreword, the book "is mainly concerned with the period from the 1770s to the 1970s."  The first 40 or so of its 200 pages do concern earlier times but medieval Kighton is done and dusted in the first 15 pages.  In any case I doubt if the author is as comfortable with the traditional Welsh society of the middle ages as with later periods.  Calling Glyndwr's lieutenant Rhys ap Gethin is revealing - a bit like saying Ethelred the son of Unready.  The book could certainly have done with better proof-reading, a few errors have made it through to the final version, especially in regard to dates, for example the Knighton jockey Garnet Evans is said to have been born in 1887 and killed at Epsom in 1805.   I was also surprised that Mr Parker could not find a few lines to mention a man who should surely be, if not the town's favourite son, at least better remembered, Clem Edwards.

Yet carping aside it's a fascinating book that should be on every Radnorian bookshelf.  A fact-filled volume which left me wanting to know more, to give just one example, about the company of 60 or more Knightonians who enlisted with the Duke of York's Inverness-shire Highlanders in 1795.  A body of men, who I learn elsewhere, were "more partial to the plaid" than some of their Highland comrades.  At a mere £10 with over 50 photographs this is another welcome addition to Logaston's growing list of books of Radnorshire interest.

Who was Rhys Gethin?

On not much evidence Rhys Gethin is said to have been Owain Glyndwr's leading general, and historians from Sir John Lloyd to Sir Rees Davies have identified him as being Rhys Gethin of Nantconwy.

Cledwyn Fychan makes an entirely convincing case that the Rhys Gethin of the contemporary historical record wasn't Rhys Gethin of Nantconwy at all, he comes up with a far more likely candidate.

The handful of reviews I've read agree that if you want to know who Rhys Gethin is, then you should read this little book.  The advice seems to defeat the object of the essay, which was to make the real Rhys Gethin better known.  It's not the easiest work to get hold of and you may end up, like me, getting a version with a perfect cover and binding but with contents consisting of a different essay altogether.  One of the drawbacks, I guess, of getting a Welsh language book printed in Italy.

Anyway the Rhys Gethin of the historical record was Rhys Gethin of Llwyngwychwyr, Llanwrtyd, of that there can be little doubt.  There are only two mentions of Rhys Gethin in connection with Owain Glyndwr in contemporary records - there was the Rhys Gethin who captured Carmarthen in the company of others, including kinsmen of Rhys of Llwyngwychwyr; and there was the Rhys Gethin who Prince Hal mentions, in a letter to his father King Henry IV, as having raised an army in Buallt with the intention of invading Herefordshire.  English nationalists should note that this letter was written in French.

As early as 1401 Rhys Gethin's father, unnamed sons and various kinsmen were "deprived" of their lands in Buallt because they had risen in insurrection with Owen Glyndourdy.  As for the family's military prowess, that leading military commander in the 15C French wars Sir Richard Gethin of Builth was the son of Rhys of Llwyngwychwyr.

Some points of Radnorshire interests: Was Rhys Gethin the Rees a Gytch who an English chronicler says was involved in the Battle of Pilleth?  It's impossible to say.  There were certainly kinship links between Rhys Gethin's family and Philip ap Rhys of St Harmon, Glyndwr's son-in-law.  As so often, the contribution of East Central Wales - in this case to Glyndwr's war - is underestimated.  This elegant little book goes some way to illuminating one aspect of that contribution.  If only it were better known.

Not a Book Review

It's a bit daunting when someone expresses the view that they miss my book reviews.  Do people actually make or avoid a purchase on my recommendation?  Good heavens, sometimes a book has been reviewed here even before it's been read.  It's often an excuse to upload something visual on to the blog.  Like this:

There are books that you want and procrastinate over buying and then there are books like this that are bought on a whim and leave one reflecting "why?"

Not that it isn't a fascinating book, even if it does include one of the daftest maps ever published by an academic press.  This map, purporting to be of post-1284 Wales, shows the future county of Monmouthshire in England and Tintern located somewhere west of Newport.  Thankfully the map is so small that you need a magnifying glass to spot its stupidity.

As the title suggests, the book deals with towns in medieval Wales and consists of a dozen chapters each written by a different author covering topics such as townswomen, fairs and feast days, entertainment, bardic poetry and the Welsh element in towns across the border such as Bristol and Hereford.  The multiple authorship does lead to repetition, for example Gruffudd ab Adda's poem to the maypole in Llanidloes turns up in three of the chapters.

Radnorshire towns get mentioned in passing but as is often the case my interest is piqued by the footnotes more than anything - the bard Bedo Brwynllys' presence in Knighton for example.  I didn't know that and I'd like to know more.  Perhaps my suggestion that he was from the township of Brwynllys in Maelienydd rather than Bronllys in Breconshire has some substance.  I do hope so.

After Cilmeri

After admitting below that I don't read much fiction, it's hardly surprising that I'd never heard of the after-Cilmeri novels of American author Sarah Woodbury.  Here we find her mooching around Aberedw Castle and almost revealing the location of the snap at the top of this blog.

A Novel of Radnorshire Interest.

Now I'll be honest and admit that I don't read novels.  I might occasionally enjoy a page turner or read a book that gives an insight into a world I want to know more about, but that's it.  This novel, however, concerns two of the more interesting individuals who have lived in what later became Radnorshire, Gwenllian the daughter of Owain Glyndwr and her husband Philip ap Rhys of Cenarth in the parish of St Harmon. The novel, it says, was inspired by poems written by Lewis Glyn Cothi, Llawdden and Ieuan Gyfannedd.  Long-time readers of this blog will realise that this presses a lot of buttons for me, so it's a book that I had to buy.

After a couple of chapters I'm afraid I consigned it to the rather large box entitled books to be read later.  As I said I don't really like novels, I much prefer factual books.  Now obviously it is perfectly proper for an historical novel to make things up.  Not much is known about the lives of Gwenllian and Philip so the author is at liberty to imagine a great deal.  But why change the few facts that are known?  The book features a poet called Iolo, obviously Iolo Goch..  In reality it's doubtful if Iolo even lived to see Glyndwr take up arms.  The novel mentions Lewis Glyn Cothi's marvellous poem requesting a bed and sets it in 1402, Lewis was probably born in the 1420s. I found fact changes like this, and I could go on, annoying.  Obviously most readers wouldn't have the same problem.

I don't feel the book captures the spirit of the time and skimming through the unread chapters I found the plot a bit far-fetched. Gwenllian comes across as a worthy enough farmer's wife driving an ox-cart instead of a 4x4, rather than the aristocratic figure the bards describe.  She's a bit dim and, good heavens, wouldn't a married woman from St Harmon involved in secret assignations with a stranger in a Llanidloes tavern quickly find herself the talk of the town in 2012, never mind six hundred years earlier.

So is this book a good read and worth buying?  Judge for yourself, I'm afraid I'm the wrong person to ask.

Forthcoming Books

I see Lolfa will be publishing a novel of Radnorshire interest this summer based on the life of Gwenllian the daughter of Owain Glyndwr. Gwenllian and her family lived at Cenarth in the parish of St Harmon.

The selling pitch on the Lolfa site mentions that the book may be of interest to those who speculate about Owain's burial site. This is usually thought to be in Herefordshire near the home of his daughter Alys Scudamore. When you think about it St Harmon would have been a better bet, especially if, as some believe, Gwenllian's husband Philip ap Rhys was such a diehard that he continued to fight on, even after the surrender of Owain's son Maredudd in 1421.

Book of the Week

Real Powys, that's a good one, for a county dreamt up in the 1970s by bureaucrats with a passing but imprecise knowledge of medieval history. Anyway it's part of a series from Seren Books that includes Real Llanelli, Real Merthyr and the like, so we can excuse the faintly oxymoronic title.

The paperback consists of 39 offbeat pieces based around towns and districts in the county, some 200 pages in all. As well as the expected, Richard Booth and Adelina Patti, we also get more rootsy stuff, Harry Tuffin's, or a day at Penybont races for example. Mind you I could have done without the author's exploits with a hairy 'lumberjack' in the Abergwesyn pass.

Mistakes? Well you don't have to ford the Ithon to get from Cilmeri to Llanynys but Parker certainly knows his subject. There's an I-spy game for Gogs to while away the happy hours on the A470 - 3 points if you see a car scrape it's hubcaps on the metalled kerbing going on to Builth Bridge.

Who should read this book? Certainly the author's soap-dodging, dream-weaving, down-shifting, white-flighting, Guardian-reading, gastro-pubbing incomers. Also locals who like to read other viewpoints on the familiar, Llandrindod's fresh air for instance is "Patchouli, with faint opiate top notes." Yes we've all caught a whiff of those. At £9.99 it might also make a useful Christmas present for whichever public servant was responsible for an information board recording "the legend of Prince Llewelyn."

Verdict. It's not Paul Theroux but it'll do.

Nothing in the Papers

I bought this book - it's a general history of Britain up to the present day - a few years ago and I'd happily pass it on to Oxfam except for the fact I wouldn't want the unsuspecting to read nonsense like this:

"If she could speak, would her words be in Old English - a Germanic language - rather than the Gaelic and Latin used by the townspeople of Roman Dorchester."

It isn't an isolated example of the author - he was Chief Archaeologist with English Heritage - using Gaelic when he means Brythonic, the ancestral language of Welsh not Irish.

According to the Sunday Times this "massively informative" volume will help cure "our current identity crisis." If the English do have an identity crisis it might help if widely held prejudices be put aside and the Welsh/British contribution to their history be given a little more consideration.

All in all a book that suggests that archaeologists should stick to bonekicking.

Moving on .......... There are those who believe that the 15C bard Llawdden comes from Loughor while others maintain he was from Machynlleth. I think I'm correct in saying that the earliest manuscript reference to his origins says he was Maelienydd, which later went to contribute much of modern day Radnorshire. Certainly there is agreement that his poems show that he lived here, possibly in Cefnllys. It seems that Llawdden was a very rare Welsh forename, and here's an example from 16C Radnorshire. It's from the 1546 Lay Subsidy for that part of Llanddewi Ystradenni parish in Knighton hundred: Llowthen ap David. It's Lloyden in the 1543 version and in the Radnorshire Society's index to the Lay Subsidy, so I guess it could get overlooked. Who knows, maybe a grandson of the bard.

The Spannerman's Tale

Maybe it's old age but even today's stars seem less interesting than the spannermen of the 1950s. I doubt for example if Button or Hamilton will ever inspire a volume as good as the 1957 autobiography (as told to Peter Lewis) Alf Francis, Racing Mechanic.

Someone who figured prominently in that book was Alf's youthful protege Tony Robinson. Now, getting on for 60 years after he first worked with the Polish-born Francis, we're promised an autobiography of Robinson himself (as told to Ian Wagstaff).

No doubt tales of Stirling Moss will dominate but hopefully Innes Ireland will get a look-in, Robinson was chief mechanic with the BRP team when the Scotsman led them on the track in 1962, 1963 and 1964. You can watch the pair around the 0.54 mark in this rather wonderful footage as Innes explains to a patient Tony how he's just bent the car.

Will it match up to the Francis book? With a promised 160 pages and 120 photographs compared to the dense, 300 plus information packed pages of the 1950s page-turner it's doubtful. But at least it's not another Hamilton bio.

Book Review - Elenydd

It might be an idea for some wealthy patriot to buy up all the copies of this pretty little book and pulp them. After all Gwasg Carreg Gwalch's volume will probably sell best to tourists, and before you know it our "last wilderness" will be gone.

Of course this is already happening, with 4x4s churning up mountain tracks and the industrialisation of the skyline with wind-farms of very little environmental benefit.

Anthony Griffiths' photographs prove that if you are prepared to get out and about early, in the morning, especially on bright days in winter, then you'll take excellent photographs. No doubt the pictures' impact are diminished a little by the small format (220x220mm) but the colour reproduction is excellent and at £12 the book is inexpensive.

Despite the bilingual format the further reading list contains no Welsh language books or articles, those by Cledwyn Fychan for example. It does have Erwyd Howells but misses out on Ruth Bidgood. Essentially Elenydd is a tourist book, there are seemingly no people in this wilderness, no ponies, no sheep and no rain. The text is that of an informative visitor's guidebook, there is little room for the old mountain communities and their story here.

Book of the Month

Radnorshire is fortunate to fall within the area of interest of the Logaston Press, if the county had to rely on Welsh publishers alone, then good books of local interest would be few and far between. It's also noticeable that the Herefordshire publisher seems to survive without recourse to the public purse. The county is also fortunate to have an author such as Mr Parker, who on this occasion has turned his attention to the local politics of the nineteenth-century.

The first half of the book details the elections to the county's two Parliamentary constituencies - the county seat and the Radnor Boroughs seat, which survived until 1885. This is the tale of local gentry rivalries, alliances and accommodations told in a lucid manner with excellent illustrations of the protagonists and their mansions.

In the second half we move on to a Welsh dimension with the widening of the franchise and the emergence of more modern politicians such as the Liberal MP Frank Edwards. The author also has three chapters covering those extra-Parliamentary activities of the small farmers and labourers: the cottagers revolt against the Enclosures, the Rebecca Riots and the later Rebeccaism of the salmon poachers. Although the author recognizes the positive outcomes of such challenges and the local establishment's fear of and willingness to compromise with the commonality, I do notice a hint of disapproval of, for example, the cottagers' champion Cecil Parsons. While an old established family like Lewis of Harpton refused to enclose long established encroachments onto the common, the newcomer James Watt was less cautious. Thomas Weale's wife Margaret may well have had an ungovernable temper and was carried, in her bed, and dumped on the floor of a local public house rather than out on the common, but the fact remains that the Weale's home was demolished and the family and their six children evicted into the snow. Likewise Richard Page and his wife may have been evicted for the non-payment rent, but what is not recorded is that the couple were in their eighties.

Although mentioned in passing, I would also have liked to have seen a separate chapter on the party politics of the new county and district councils of the 1890's, Radnorshire's passion for Independent councillors came only later. Like Mr Parker's previous Radnorshire book, this is a thoroughly researched and well-written work, at £10 it should be in the library of every Radnorian with an interest in the history of our county.

Book Review

Now I admit that I have no qualification whatsoever to review a book about Herefordshire placenames, but, hey, even the author Mr. Coplestone-Crow admits that he himself is no expert. Indeed he has relied heavily on placename guru, the late Dr Margaret Gelling who also provides a less than glowing foreword.

On the face of it untangling English placenames is a fairly straightforward business - you take a familiar element, the ley in Litley for example, meaning a clearing and then add on some random Saxon forename, in this case Lutta ,to give Lutta's clearing. OK I'm joshing a subject which I know nothing about - but it would be useful to know a little bit more about names like Lutta, and if there is any other evidence for their presence in the localities to which they supposedly gave their names.

It is in Mr Coplestone-Crow's treatment of the old district names of Herefordshire that the book has great value. Of course I was aware of the old Welsh districts of Ewyas and Erging, although not the extent of the latter. The district of Mawfield or Maes Mail Locheu was news to me, while my confusion concerning the location of Lugharness - it means Lordship on the River Lugg and according to Percy Enderbie was Welsh in speech in the 17C - was cleared up. Oh and doesn't the observation that Geoffrey of Monmouth made a copying error, confusing the D in what is now Doward with CL to give Cloartius as the location of Vortigern's last stand, rather suggest that he was using older sources rather than his own imagination?

Not a book which will be of much interest to Radnorians, except for the occasional irridentist such as myself, Herefordians, no doubt, would be well advised to snap it up.

Book Review

This is a selection taken from the papers of "the doyen of peasant historians" Evan Jones (1850-1928) of Ty'n y Pant, Llanwrtyd. As the editor points out in his foreword, some aspects of the author's interests have had to be largely omitted from this edition - archaeology and music for example. What remains are 300 pages covering the folk culture of the Builth Hundred, its farming, local history, social life, sports, religion, customs, poetry, superstitions and traditional proverbs.

It is a book that will be well received by anyone with an interest in Mid Wales, agricultural history or folklore in general. By its nature it is the type of book that can be dipped into at leisure, divided as it is into numerous short paragraphs on a myriad of topics which had caught the attention of Evan Jones during a lifetime of collecting.

Checking out the occasional item of Radnorshire interest, I was quite excited to see examples of the work of, what the author described as a Radnorshire born country rhymer in the Welsh language, Shams Clee. Unlike Evan Jones, we now have access to the 19C Census Returns which show that Clee was infact born in Llanfihangel Bryn Pabuan.

How I came to acquire this book provides a sad comment on the history of Builth Hundred. I had meant to buy a copy before Christmas, but had never got around to placing an order. Visiting some relatives I was told that one of them had just purchased the book after reading a review in the local paper and, since Evan Jones' sons Emrys and Afan had been regular visitors to her parents during her youth, she had hurried out to place an order. Unfortunately the book was of little use as she had failed to notice that it was written in Welsh. I purchased the book (at a small discount!) and reflected on the sad truth that many of the families whose ancestors and farms are mentioned within its pages would be in a similar position - unable to read about their own history.

The book is published in an attractive hardback edition by Gwasg Gomer at £16.99.