Dare Valley Country Park, South Wales

Dare Valley Country Park is just down the road from Aberdare. Set on the mountainside there are gentle sloping pathways taking in lakes and a river with more testing grassy slopes for the adventurous hiker.


A recent activity weekend gave visitors the opportunity to try things they may not have had the opportunity to try before.  They included caving, archery, orienteering, bush craft and a zip wire.




Along the entrance driveway are a stables and caravan park and opposite the car park an adventure playground.  Supervised canoeing can be arranged on the lakes.


The two tier cafe provides a range of snacks and meals (the coffee and walnut cake comes in huge portions) with plenty of seating always available.

Just a wonderful place to wander and enjoy the welsh countryside and wildlife.

www.darevalleycountrypark.co.uk/

Cardiff Barrage

As well as providing spectacular views across to Mermaid Quay, the barrage's walkways have become a regular haunt for joggers, dog-walkers, cyclists and sight-seers.

Coastal Path symbol

A container ship passes almost in touching distance.

Forming part of Wales' Coastal Path, ceramic symbols are embedded into the pathway as a reminder. As part of our national heritage, a large piece of coal has been placed on a plinth for all to admire. Unfortunately, there is no label, so our younger generations, less familiar with coal fires, may be wondering why a more comfortable seat was not provided.

The lagoon between the land and the barrage consists of river water from the Taff, and supports different life-forms to the seawater just a few yards away. A fish-run helps wildlife by-pass the barrage with signs discouraging fishermen.

The engineering of the locks is impressive, highlighted with yellow stripes. Apparently these stripes form a very expensive artwork.  If you stand in one particular position, I am told, you have a view of a formation of concentric circles created on different planes on different pieces of the machinery.  I wonder how many people know this.

Barrier is down as bridge is about to open for shipping.

Road bridge lifting for boats to pass through the lock

Roadway section now vertical

Cardiff Bay

Before the barrage was built, this area was subject to one of the highest tidal flows in the world, leaving nutritious but unattractive, smelly mudflats for a large part of each day. Not an ideal location to live or even spend much time, unless you were a birdwatcher or a fisherman. The birdwatchers have now moved further along the coast to the Newport Wetlands, and the fishermen take their chance where they can.

The golden Millennium Centre 

The area has taken on a continental feel.  Cafes have outside seating areas, ideal for people-watching. Walkways with pleasant views of the bay, provide a reason to visit. Altogether an attractive space with high-value properties.


Home to the Senedd, the Millennium Centre, Harry Ramsden's Fish Bar and the Dr Who Experience, Cardiff Bay now has appeal for everyone.

The Senedd Building

The barrage itself as well as a place for sightseers, is a regular haunt of the jogger, the business man/woman on lunch break, the dog-walker and cyclist.

People of Six Bells Miners' Memorial (sandstone)

Strange how information on public objects can disappear into the ether. I have been trying to learn the history of the sandstone miners'  monument sited at Six Bells. Not Guardian, but its predecessor, erected to commemorate the disaster on 28 June 1960 when 45 miners were killed in an explosion in'W' District. It is sited close to the Six Bells Colliery site, but not actually on it as the site had not been cleared.

Below I have included a few images  of the engravings on the memorial. They are disappearing due to erosion and, lichen, moss, etc. Do you know any of these faces?  Can you put a name to them?  If so, please add a comment to this blog, or call in to Ty Ebbw Fach, Six Bells and let them know, before the information is completely lost to the community.  There are twenty-eight in all which need identifying.

Prior to the Guardian project, in the late 1990's CADW was invited to check on this monument to see if it could be restored as erosion had taken its toll. Unfortunately ground water and weathering meant it could not be saved. It was this conclusion that started discussions on a suitable replacement memorial. 
The outline of the miner's lamp and the pit wheel are already heavily pitted and damaged.

On the side walls the artist has carved portraits of local people. I recently met a man walking his dog and he pointed out his portrait - a really excellent likeness. This started me wondering about the rest of the faces, who they are - and more about the piece itself. 

Showing the hillside position.

I will add to this article if I discover more, but these are the details so far.

It was erected by Blaenau Gwent Borough Council, probably around 1986/7. Two gentlemen played a major part, Paddy Burn and Jim Watkins, I believe both their portraits are carved here. 

The scheme was delivered by a Cardiff based artist by the name of Cassidy (not sure of his first name) He wandered the streets of 6 Bells sketching people that he met and designed them into the monument. (Some say he photographed people who passed the monument as he worked. 

There was an on going consultation process that lead to the final design and I think a time capsule was buried somewhere within the monument that captures all the background. 

The Community Council leased the monument and took over its maintenance for the 30th and 40th anniversaries, but it has since reverted back to the Borough Council.

Sandstone memorial with Guardian visible on the colliery site

http://www.pinterest.com/margaretgurney/guardian-six-bells/

NCB Film Unit

The National Coal Board Film Unit created films documenting the working and social life of miners, from 1947 when the NCB took over many of the UKs pits. They made educational films highlighting and explaining new equipment and methods, as well as pieces which documented the social life of miners and their families. For many years, The Miners' Review was shown in cinemas all over the UK before the main feature film.

In 1947 with great enthusiasm of the employees, each pit had a notice erected:

This pit is managed by NCB for the people of Britain

How were they to know the NCB would also prove to be the demise of their coal industry.

http://www.bfi.org.uk/blu-rays-dvds/portrait-miner

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/474432/

The work of the film unit came, sadly to an end in 1984, shortly before the demise of the coal industry in Britain.  These films are a rich archive of material providing a glimpse into the lives of thousands of miners and their families. An industry which is now lost. 

Llanelly House, Llanelli, South Wales

Llanelly House has been a derelict mess in the centre of the town of Llanelli, for nearly a hundred years. Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen hosted a programme on BBC Wales exploring its renovation and restoration over the past ten years.  A fascinating programme revealing Renaissance painting on the wooden panel above the fireplace, and cobbles under the foundations, revealing the house had an unknown Tudor predecessor.


With a spend of £7million, this house needs to find its niche and become self-sustaining into the future to ensure it is well maintained for future generations to enjoy.

In a few months time, there are plans for a high-tech genealogy room where visitors can research their ancestry, but in the meantime there are free guided tours of the ground floor, with a charge for the other floors.

Sir Thomas Stepney, a shipping magnate, and his wife Lady Elizabeth lived here around 1714, and the house has been remodelled to this time period.  All the victorian "improvements" have been removed. Solid walls replaced with steel pillars and walls of glass to create victorian shop fronts have now been taken down and the solid walls and smaller rooms recreated.

The roof, a series of 'v's was costly to replace, but was originally designed to give the impression from the ground of a building with a flat roof.  The top line of the building was highlighted with a series of bathstone urns which had to be renovated and strengthened.

In the local archives is an inventory of items in the house at 1764.  Compiled by Sir Thomas himself, the list has, in pride of place, an armorial tea service. A copy of their coat of arms would have been despatched to China and, in time, the crates of china would have been returned, emblazoned with their personal arms.

Llanelli town centre is being renovated to a cost of £60 million, with Llanelly House as its centrepiece.

Click below to see images of the restoration.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-24824536

Wales - Don't be daft !

Strange the phrases that catch in the mind.

 "Wales - Don't be daft !" was a bumper sticker on a car which I followed for a few miles this morning, pondering on its exact meaning.

Was it an instruction to Wales (the nation) not to be daft. That seems rather a sweeping statement that everyone in Wales was being silly.

Or should it have been whales?  If so, they wouldn't have seen it on the bumper of his car, and if they did they wouldn't have understood it.  Also he would have had to have been in the ocean, so it would have been he who was being daft.

It may have been an answer to two questions:
"Where do you live?"
"Wales."
"Do you like it?"
"Don't be daft !"
This second reply could be taken in a choice of two ways. One good for Wales and one bad.

Which brings me to politics.

Wales, or rather the Senedd, will now have certain powers to tax the welsh nation. One move closer to independence, I suspect. I only have one comment to make to this idea.

Wales - Don't be daft !