Walks – Return to My Trees

The National Forest for Wales

November 2, 2021June 4, 2022Deforestation, WalksLeave a Comment

Today, at COP26, world leaders made a historic pledge to halt global deforestation by 2030. The Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forest and Land Use could be transformative in restoring balance with nature but it requires action not just words. Maybe the new National Forest for Wales can provide an inspiration and roadmap for how to achieve the pledge. Here’s an essay from the Liminal Forest exploring the National Forest for Wales concept.

Coed Cwm Einion, one of a small collection of ancient Atlantic Rainforests that can be found on the western edges of Wales, has prospered for centuries because its intimidating terrain that hugs the craggy valley sides near the mouth of the Afon Einion made it damn near inaccessible. Technically speaking, I was walking in Tilio-Acerion woodland, predominantly comprising small-leaved lime trees that grow in the rocky sites of the ravine and where ash and wych elm also grow.

Coed Cwm Einion was considered one of the best examples of this very rare type of woodland. It also was home to sessile oak, rowan and downy birch – ancient semi-natural mixed broad-leaved woodland that provide a home to a rich mix of biodiversity. These included 177 species of lichen (including the very rare Parmotrema robustum which looks like a cross between kelp and some lettuce that you’ve left in the bottom of the fridge for too long) and more than 150 species of mosses and liverworts. Lichen is often referred to as the coral of the rainforest such is its importance in supporting biodiversity. After some digital detective work, I deduced that the spongey, vibrantly green forest floor also consisted of marsh hawk’s-beard, Tunbridge filmy-fern and hay-scented buckler fern.

Amid this tapestry of ancient trees and the plant life below them the Einion river rushed through, bubbling and breaking into white foam as it encountered the many rocks and boulders in its path. Some of the larger oaks had grown out to hang over the river and touch their neighbours on the other side – the trees providing the river with a surrealist guard of honour.

Coed Cwm Einion looked majestic and magical to my untrained eye but actually it was slowly being nursed back to health after many decades of neglect, overgrazing and suffering under the yoke of invasive species that bully natural ecology (Rhododendron ponticum being a major culprit). The woodland was part of a seven million-pound multi-year ancient forest conservation and restoration initiative. And it was a prime example of the type of woodland that the new National Forest for Wales aimed to nurture and protect.

The National Forest was a bold strategy to embed an appreciation of nature and biodiversity at the very heart of what it meant to be Welsh. The idea was to create a connected ecological network throughout the country that would provide people with easy access to woodlands and forests wherever they lived and to protect, restore and grow tree cover and biodiversity to help combat climate change and species extinction.

The multi-year plan involved planting new forests and restoring ancient woodlands with an emphasis on nurturing native deciduous trees, breathing new biodiversity life into the hedges and edgerows that line the countryside and working with the farming community to improve tree cover on their land. It also aimed to educate communities and schools about the importance of nature and create a network of walks, trails and paths that will connect people to the forests and woodlands of Wales – some huge expanses like Wentwood, Brechfa and Bwlch Nant yr Arian along with other small woods like here in Cwm Einion.

The National Forest plan couldn’t have come at a more important time for Wales. Just 20 percent of the Welsh landscape had any tree cover (compare that to nearly 30 percent on average in mainland Europe). Only 15 percent was actual woodland – the remainder a hodgepodge of agricultural landscapes, urban areas and transport corridors that, while still valuable, didn’t deliver nearly the same degree of environmental benefits as intertwined woodlands could.

Even as the government was pledging £15 million over the next five years to bring the National Forest idea to life its own State of Natural Resources annual report was sounding the alarm – warning that Wales was using up its natural resources, including rivers, forests and farmland, at a completely unsustainable rate. In fact, it wrote, if everyone on Earth used natural resources at the same rate as Wales, two and a half planets would be needed. A complete rethink of our food, transport and energy systems was required but also individuals needed to come to terms with the impact the way they lived was having on nature.

Education was going to be an important part of helping people, young and old, reconnect with nature but so was the experience of being outdoors. And that experience had to be enjoyable even if sometimes it also would be challenging. That had been my goal in setting off on this walk – to map one route for a National Forest that would be enjoyable and also an achievement. Now that I had made it this far – some 150 miles of connected woodland walking from the start point in Wentwood forest – I was more determined than ever to complete the plan, even though my legs ached, my ankle felt bruised and my back had all the flexibility of a slab of Welsh slate.

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Following in Twm Sion Cati’s footsteps on The Cambrian Way

October 25, 2021June 4, 2022Forest Folklore, Nature Tourism, WalksLeave a Comment

The Doethie Valley following The Cambrian Way

The next part of the journey was going to be tricky.

When I first started planning a walking route connecting the woodlands and forest of Wales one issue kept leaping out at me from the map. How was I going to get across the Elenydd, the sparse and barely populated upland region that lay between the two market towns of Llandovery and Tregaron?

Most of it sat above 400 meters and was sliced by a series of steep valleys that helped the upland tributaries feed into the river Tywi. On the OS map, the part of the Elenydd I needed to cross was an intimidating squash of orange lines signifying a very significant hike. This was Twm Sion Cati’s stomping ground. The famed local outlaw would have walked or ridden by horse across the Elenydd as he travelled from his home in Tregaron to his hiding place cave in what is now Gwenffrwd/Dinas Nature Reserve as he evaded his arch-nemesis the Sherriff of Carmarthen.

At a loss to come up with a satisfactory route myself I started researching long distance walking paths across what looked like an impressive yet inhospitable part of the Cambrian mountains. That’s how I stumbled upon the Cambrian Way, an ambitious and very challenging 288-mile hike across the major mountains of Wales running from Cardiff in the south to Conwy in the North. It was the creation of Tony Drake, a former department store owner who ultimately sold the family business so that he could pursue it true calling – walking. In 1968 Drake convinced both the Ramblers Association and the Youth Hostel Association to back the creation of The Cambrian Way so that it would be clearly marked on OS maps and have official markers positioned along the trail to guide the type of walker adventurous and hardy enough to undertake it.

It just so happened that one section of the route connected the village of Rhandirmwyn with the ancient Cistercian abbey of Strata Florida near the village of Pontrhydfendigaid. By consulting the Cambrian Way guidebook and cross referencing against the OS Map I could see that, if I started near Rhandirmwyn, I could follow the Cambrian Way up the Doethie Valley until I reached a remote hostel called Ty’n y Cornel.

I’d visited Ty’n y Cornel the day before as part of my reconnaissance for the Doethie valley walk – driving up the very steep, single track mountain road that led east out of Llanddewi Brefi (named after the St. David, the patron saint of Wales). Outside the hostel’s front door there was a plaque dedicated to Tony Drake. On it was an inscription which read: “He worked tirelessly in Wales and England for the RA (Rambler’s Association) for 60 years but his greatest love was always the wild beauty of his creation, The Cambrian Way.”

The next morning, late summer morning I set out on this remote stretch of The Cambrian Way just north of Twm Sion Cati’s cave. I knew that it was highly unlikely I’d meet many other walkers in the Doethie valley – it was that far off the beaten track. Suddenly I was overcome with a feeling both of exhilaration and trepidation at being out here alone.

I was also very wet. It was a dry, sunny morning so I’d worn light, breathable trousers for the walk. Normally I’d have been in shorts but the reputation of the Cambrian Way suggested I’d be picking my way through brambles and God only know what else along the way. Now, 30 minutes up the trail, the mist had lifted above the valley but I was soaked – my distinctly un-waterproof trousers being in constant contact with the dew-laden bracken that reached up to my waist.

But what a sight lay before me. Ahead lay miles of meandering river valley walled in by steep Fridd-dominated hillsides – a patchwork blanket of red, brown and green flora – and it was topped off by the bare, exposed ridge on either side. In the distance I could see the tall Sitka spruce trees of the Tywi Forest plantation standing to attention like a military guard….

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Could climate change cause another Aberfan in Wales?

October 21, 2021October 21, 2021Deforestation, WalksLeave a Comment

Today marks the 55th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster in South Wales – where over 100 children died when a landslide from an unstable coal tip engulfed their school. I remembered Aberfan as I walked through the Rhondda Valley on my journey and contemplated the continued risk to Welsh coal-mining villages. Here is part of the essay.

Even as the coal mines closed their environmental legacy remained. What was noticeable everywhere we walked through coal mining country was the absence of vegetation around many of the towns and villages that serviced the collieries. That’s because much of the waste material and tailings from the mines had been deposited, dumped actually, on the hillsides around the settlements. A few days before, as we’d walked through the windfarm above Penrhys, we’d seen for ourselves the problems this practice had caused.

Below us we’d looked down on Stanleytown and Tylorstown, once thriving coal villages named after English engineers that came to speculate for coal and made a fortune. Today both villages sat stranded and forgotten in the steep, glacial valley of the Rhondda Fach. Probably the most successful thing to come out of Stanleytown since the coal mine closed in the 1960s is the comedian Paul Whitehouse.

Tylorstown, however, had been in news just recently but not for good reasons. In February 2020 unprecedented heavy rainfall caused a 60,000 tonne landslide at the site of an old coal tip above the town. We could see it clearly from our position on the mountain – a wide black scar on the hillside across from us.

As we looked down at the landslide it hit home exactly how, when you scrape the surface of south Wales, the legacy of the coal industry is still evident and still affects the communities that live among its ghosts.

The warnings of more landslides also evoked memories of the Aberfan disaster a couple of miles northeast of where we now standing. On October 21^st, 1966 at around 9.15am a coal tip that had been piled on a mountain slope above the town gave way, sending an avalanche of slurry pouring down upon Pantglas Junior School where the young students had just started their lessons. The entire school was engulfed and local people were forced to dig with their hands in a desperate and ultimately futile attempt save the children. In total 109 pupils and five teachers perished under the weight of the landslide.

The Aberfan disaster shocked the entire United Kingdom – reminding a nation that was increasingly seeing itself through the lens of modern of the brutal reality of its heavy industrial legacy. Many Britons were starting to enjoy owning TVs for the first time and the horror was exacerbated by the scenes of the aftermath that were broadcast on TV news. That horror turned to anger as it became clear the accident could have been prevented – reports revealed that the coal waste had been dumped over a natural spring and that the government run National Coal Board had been aware that the tip was unstable. The tribunal convened to investigate the disaster laid the blame squarely on the Coal Board writing that the “Aberfan disaster could and should have been prevented.”

Now there seemed a very real danger that another Aberfan-style disaster might occur in the future. The Tylorstown tip was just one of nearly 300 old dumping grounds across the south Wales valleys that were at significant risk of slippage according to one recent report – a threat exacerbated by climate change geologists had warned.

All over the world the effect of climate change is being exacerbated by widespread deforestation – trees and vegetation help anchor soil to the ground preventing erosion and landslips during heavy rain. This is hardly a new issue. Experts have long pointed to the effects of deforestation caused by sugar cane plantations all over Haiti as a worst-case example, while recent mining operations in Indonesia and Malaysia denuded vast tracts of hillside land.

Here in the valleys the situation was doubly troubling. Not only had all the local and available trees been cut down for pitwood leaving the surrounding hillsides bare and exposed to the elements, the collieries had then made the situation worse by dumping its waste on already unstable ground.

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How the Physicians of Myddfai inspired modern medicine

October 17, 2021Forest Folklore, Nature Based Solutions, WalksLeave a Comment

In the run up to the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, the business world suddenly seems to be waking up to the looming disaster that will befall all of us as a result of climate change, environmental destruction and the loss of biodiversity. So I thought it would be a good time to share this short essay from my 300-mile walk through Wales exploring how we restore balance with nature.

It’s about The Physicians of Myddfai and how modern Pharma’s knowledge of the healing powers and wisdom of nature can be traced to their teachings of over 1000 years ago.

The corpse road over the Black Mountain, Carmarthenshire

Science may only now be starting to explore and understand the true nature of trees and the connections of forests but people have appreciated the medicinal and healing power of trees and plants for many hundreds of years.

No more so than where I was right now in the shadow of the Black Mountain, walking on the Beacons’ Way towards the village of Llandeusant. In the 19^th century this was a corpse road – where the bodies of local men who had perished working the coal pits of Brynamman were carried back to be buried in their home village. Brynamman men would start the journey and meet the men of Llandeusant by a bronze age cairn situated on the mountain.

And it was here that one of the greatest medical dynasties began – a family of physicians born of otherworldly heritage whose knowledge would be passed down through successive generations of doctors over the next 700 years. These were the Physicians of Myddfai and their nature-based remedies and philosophy, however folkloric it might be, continues to have resonance today.

the Physicians of Myddfai do appear to have been real people. The Red Book of Hergest, one of two medieval Welsh language tomes hand-written on velum in the 14^th century, recounted how a father, named Rhiwallon, and his three sons, Cadwgan, Gruffudd and Einion, were physicians at the court of Rhys Gryg, the son of the Lord Rhys. Rhiwallon was said to be the eldest son of the Lady in the Lake.

The Red Book’s version of Meddygon Myddfai (The Physicians of Myddfai) included some 500 herbal remedies prescribed by the Physicians, including everyday medieval ailments like how to treat a snake bite (drinking juice made from fennel, radish and wormwood was recommended), how to reduce swelling and pain in the thighs (a mix of rue, honey and salt applied topically would do the trick) and how to stop a nosebleed (betony powder and salt applied inside the nostrils).

The book also included what might be consider more optimistic remedies for curing blindness and deafness (a mix of elm wood embers, black eel oil, honey and betony sealed in the ear with the help of the wool of a black lamb.) The Red Book included a few cures where you feel the Physicians might just have been having a joke at their patient’s expense. One remedy for “a man’s swollen penis” advised “Take African lard (or grease) and leeks, and smear upon the penis, and it will be fine.”

Academics have questioned whether the remedies that appear in the Red Book of Hergest can really be tied to Rhiwallon and his sons. They note that many of the remedies were well known in medieval times. More intriguing is the argument that the Physicians of Myddfai story was embraced, adapted and embellished by 18^th century Welsh antiquarian intellectuals (including a rakish poet named Iolo Morgannwg who you’ll meet later on this journey) in an attempt to trace a modern Welsh national identity all the way back to the ancient Druidic heritage. The Physician’s connection to the trees and nature, and their expertise in herbal medicine, also matched the values of the Romantic age that shaped these ideas.

Whatever the veracity of the original story the Physician’s understanding of nature to help cure disease still resonates. Just ask the hard-headed, extremely logical pharmaceutical companies who invest millions each year into the field of ethnobotany to discover and monetise plant-based medicines.

Medicinal plants contribute to pharmacological treatments for cancer, HIV/AIDS, malaria (arteether), Alzheimer’s (galantamine), asthma (tiotropium) and, of course, many types of painkillers (aspirin is made from willow bark while morphine comes from the opium plant).

And the philosophy espoused by the Myddfai clan continues among communities all around the world. The World Health Organisation estimates some 20,000 medicinal plants are used to treat ailments and promote health worldwide. In Sarawak, Malaysia, there are some 1220 species of medicinal plants used on a regular basis by local people. In South Africa, an estimated 80% of the population still use traditional medicinal plant remedies. And, in some Amazon communities of South America, shaman embrace the psychedelic properties of plants like the liana vine to provide wisdom and guidance to their communities.

There were no shamans in the village of Myddfai, just the local community centre featuring an exhibit celebrating the famous Physicians. It did have a café, however, serving tea and Welsh Cakes – exactly the remedy I needed.

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Battling the Bovines in the Spirit of Llynfi Woodland

October 5, 2021Green Cities, Tree Planting, WalksLeave a Comment

We had walked across the South Wales valleys from Caerphilly to Pontypridd to Ton Pentre to the top of the Bwlch Mountain. There we had traced an ancient Celtic walking trail over the mountains as it headed West. Now, after a bit of hit and miss navigation on my part, Jeff, Andy and myself had reached the old coal town of Maesteg and an homage to the ghosts of the industry that shaped modern South Wales.

The Spirit of Llynfi Woodland sat just above Maesteg on the site of the old Coegnant Colliery and Maesteg Washery that had closed down in the 1980s. The land was elevated but not really a hill – in Welsh it was called Twmpath Mawr (the big hump). It had been established five years before as part of a 10-year local regeneration project to reintroduce local people to the wealth of green space close by them, to promote biodiversity and to alleviate the likelihood of flooding. By installing a large new woodland space (it encompassed some 75 hectares) the Welsh government also hoped to promote the health benefits of embracing nature and woodlands – and so improve both the physical and mental health of a community where chronic illness and depression is high.

Over 60,000 trees already had been planted by local people including a mixture of broadleaves, fruit and ornamental trees and new walking and cycle paths had been constructed to encourage local people to visit. The project was being funded through a Welsh government grant and also, partly, by the Ford Motor Company as many of the workers at its nearby Bridgend plant lived in the area.

“That’s very corporate citizen of them,” said Andy as we walked through the woodland towards its centrepoint – the Keeper of the Colliery statue of a miner carved out of oak. “But who is sponsoring the cows?”

In front of us, surrounding the bemused looking wooden miner, was a herd of black cows. Some were munching on the grass around where the miner’s feet might have been had he been given any. Others were picking at the plants and bushes lining the paths that spread out through the woodland in straight lines to all points of the compass.

The animals stopped eating and stared at us as we approached – it was like being in a bovine version of the pub scene in An American Werewolf in London.

“Um, I don’t think those are cows,” said Jeff. “Those are young Welsh black bullocks and I’m not sure we want to walk through them.”

We all agreed. “They weren’t kidding when they said this park was all about reconnecting with nature,” said Andy as we rapidly backtracked away from the animals.

So we sought a new route through the woodland, backtracking until we reached a cycle path that ran on its southern perimeter just above Maesteg high school. There we met a man walking in our direction with his dog running a little ahead of him. We gave him a heads up about the bulls he was about to encounter.

“Oh bloody hell, not them again,” he said. “They’re becoming a right menace.”

Staring down at stranded assets in the South Wales valleys

September 27, 2021October 4, 2021Deforestation, WalksLeave a Comment

Looking down the valley from the Bwlch Mountain

Very little of the vast coal wealth that helped build Cardiff flowed back up the valleys to the mining towns we were looking down on now. The early morning mist at the top of the Bwlch Mountain had cleared and below us, in Ogmore Vale and along the Afon Afan, we could spot stranded ex-coal villages – mini-pockets of humanity jammed in among the steep sided valleys.

On our left was Nant-y-Moel – once home to the Wyndham/Western Colliery until it was closed down in 1983. To our right we could see the tips of Abergwynfi and Blaengwynfi (two sister mining communities on opposite banks of the Afan).

Perhaps the most sobering thing about the South Wales coal boom was how brief was its heyday. More than 57 million tonnes of coal were produced in 1913 by 232,000 men working in 620 mines in a thin corridor of hills and valleys no more than 10 miles wide. By 1920, the industry employed 271,000 men across South Wales but, in the years following the First World War, demand for Welsh coal began to wane. Top grade Welsh steam coal now faced new competition from mining operations in Germany and the United States and from an existential threat – an oil industry that was fast replacing the old steam age (and with devastating repercussions for coal-dependent communities like the ones we could see now that our oil-addicted society would do well to pay heed to today).

Nearly 250 mines closed across South Wales between 1921 and 1926. That year a Royal Commission concluded that the coal industry had to be reshaped and that miners needed to accept wage cuts. The private mine owners jumped at the opportunity and demanded large cuts. The miners’ union refused and on April 30th, workers who refused wage cuts were locked out and coalfields in South Wales and across the UK came to a halt.

For nine days the UK economy was paralysed as most of the workforce went on strike to support the miners. However, on May 12^th, other unions returned to work after agreeing terms with the Government. The miners carried on until the end of the year when starvation forced them back to work.

To stave off mass unemployment the UK government put some miners to work on large scale infrastructure projects – including the Bwlch mountain bypass (part of the larger Glamorgan Inter-Valley Road project) which was built in 1928 and which we were walking above right now. Before the road was built the mining communities had no way of accessing neighbouring valleys unless they undertook the type of hike we had embarked on, following ancient routes up and over the mountains.

The Bwlch bypass wasn’t just a public works project to ease the unemployed miners’ unrest – politicians also thought it could provide the communities with a way to access nature and escape the often dark and dank existence at the foot of the valleys. For this reason the road, with so many switchbacks it felt like navigating an Alpine pass, was constructed with room both for motor vehicles and pedestrians. Once completed it succeeded in attracting generation after generation of local sightseers to the top of the mountain. It became so popular that one enterprising Italian immigrant family set up a mobile ice cream van in the car park at the summit. They became so famous that the mountain became known as Ice Cream Slope by the many hang-gliders who headed up there.

The other major project that the UK government put Welsh miners to work on was planting vast forests of conifer trees. All across Wales the Forestry Commission set up camps for miners – primarily to “rehabilitate” and “recondition” the men so that they were ready for tough manual labour (notably on road projects like the Bwlch). Here in the Ogmore and abutting Afan valleys major new forest projects were launched. As we wandered now through a sprawling windfarm on our way to Maesteg we could see the results to the north of us – a wide carpet of connected conifer forest starting at Coed Bwlch and running across the horizon to Rheola forest (where some 13,000 acres was planted over a 20 year period) near the town of Neath. This monocultured expanse would become known as Coed Morgannwg (Glamorgan Wood) and nowadays, Afan Forest Park. That’s where we were headed next.

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The green, green parks of home – A walk through the legacy of Cardiff’s coal wealth

September 13, 2021Culture and Nature, The Rights of Trees, WalksLeave a Comment

Cedar of Lebanon at Insole Court, Cardiff

On Thursday, September 9th, 2021 more than 60 trees located all across Bute Park in Cardiff were destroyed in what was either an act of vandalism or perhaps a pre-meditated attack on nature. Throughout the pandemic Bute Park became a haven for people wanting to walk and explore nature in the city. I thought now would be a good time to share this part of my journey of exploration where I discovered the charms of Bute Park.

My inspiration for starting The Liminal Forest walking project had been the public parks and woodlands in and around my hometown of Cardiff. Wandering these green and wooded spaces had been my escape from the stress and drudgery of the pandemic lockdown. As I walked through them each day I came to realise how disconnected I had become from the natural world and also how many other people, like me, were out exploring, soaking up nature and reconnecting.

Now that I was deep into my walk through Wales, and also my research into how our modern society became so disconnected from the natural world around it, I decided to retrace some of the urban park and woodland walks I had done during lockdown. Specifically, I wanted to explore how Cardiff’s coal wealth had shaped my hometown and particularly the parks so many of us considered a lifeline – having seen in the South Wales Valleys how that same coal industry had broken the connection local communities had with the land around them.

My starting point was to be Insole Court, a Victorian mansion and gardens that today sits surrounded by streets of semi-detached homes in the neighbourhood of Llandaff, a couple of miles walk away from the city centre

The Insoles had been one of the most important coal families in all of Wales. The patriarch, George Insole, had moved to Cardiff from England in the early 19^th century and, over the next 30 years, he and his son, James, built a coal shipping dynasty that would help make Cardiff the coal capital of the world. Their signature coal venture was a mine called Cymmer, situated 20 miles north of Cardiff in the heart of the south Wales valleys.

George Insole died of heart failure on Christmas Day, 1850 and James, just 29 years old at the time, took over the full running of the business. Headstrong and no doubt eager to build on his father’s legacy, James rapidly increased production at Cymmer. The younger Insole doubled the workforce to 160 men and boys, and further expanded the underground reach of the mines but failed to increase the number of ventilation shafts needed to keep air flowing underground and minimise the build-up of flammable gases including methane known in the industry as firedamp.

On the morning of Tuesday 15th July 1856 disaster struck. At six in the morning, just as 160 men and boys descended the shaft to begin their shift, a huge explosion ripped through the mine – killing 114, some as young as 10 years old.

Just six months later, James Insole purchased an estate on the outskirts of Cardiff called Ely Court. Over time everyone came to know the grand mansion and gardens as Insole Court where I was standing now. I knew these grounds very well. My childhood home backed onto Insole Court’s gardens and, as a child, it had provided an almost fantasy-like playground for myself and the kids in the neighbourhood.

I wandered the nine acres of grounds reacquainting myself with old but familiar surroundings. On this sunny morning, the gardens were full of families escaping the monotony of months of being grounded at home. Toddlers straddled the old stone lion at the top of the great lawn. Slightly older kids chased each other through the ornate gardens – playing hide and seek in the nursery runs, bushes and grotto made from local quarried rocks in one corner of the grounds as I had at their age. A grand, expansive Cedar of Lebanon tree continued to stand watch over all the proceedings – its black branches and deep green leaves spread wide in repose as if getting ready to settle into a comfy chair.

At the front of the house the long driveway flanked by rows of Horse Chestnut trees led up a gentle hill to the main gates. Close by, local residents had created a memorial garden to remind visitors of the Insoles’ debt to the mine workers at Cymmer. Standing in front of the memorial, it really hit home just how much of Cardiff owed its affluence and success to the sacrifices of those coal miners. And just how big a player the city once was in shaping the global fossil fuel (and ultimately climate change) legacy.

I left Insole Court, turned right onto Fairwater Road and walked into Llandaff village, passing by some other grand old houses one owned by local coal merchants. I took a shortcut through Llandaff village green, walking down Cathedral hill and through the cemetery. I walked past the ornate but weathered gravestone of Ivy Insole who died in 1888 and where husband James was laid to rest 12 years later. And then I joined the river path and walked to Bute Park – named after the third Marquess of Bute, perhaps the most influential figure in the growth of the Welsh coal industry.

The Marquess wasn’t that interested in coal mining itself. However, he happened to own thousands of acres of land north of Cardiff where the rich coal seams lay. Today, Bute Park is a great example of how public parks and open space can help a city breathe. It had formerly been the Bute’s private estate directly to the north of Cardiff Castle, which the third Marquess, working with the acclaimed architect William Burgess, had transformed into a Gothic Revival-style palace during the late 19^th Century.

It was lunchtime as I walked through the park and it was full of people escaping the isolation of their homes and enjoying the day. Runners, cyclists and determined walkers jostled for position on the main tarmac path through the park. Couples walked holding hands while lone walkers, keen to escape the throng, explored a thin dirt sidetrack that hugged the old, disused, Dock Feeder Canal which once carried a constant supply of fresh water down to Cardiff Docks to help keep the entrance to the tidal Bristol Channel open. Groups of teenagers disappeared into the bushes and undergrowth by the side of the river – looking for a bit of pebble beach to hang out and smoke weed (judging from the aroma wafting through the park). The main lawn of Bute Park was packed with families having picnics while groups of students from neighbouring Cardiff University played football, threw frisbees or just kicked back with beers.

In its heyday, these private gardens were the jewel of the Bute family’s estate. The original Castle green was first designed by the famous landscape architect, Capability Brown, in the late 18^th century under instructions from the 2^nd Marquess. But it was his son who expanded the design of the estate, recruiting Andrew Pettigrew to create the elaborate ornamental gardens, plant all manner of exotic trees and shape intricate pathways that still make the park so appealing today and such a focal point of outdoor life in the city.

Just like with Insole Court, as I walked through Bute Park I couldn’t help but consider the irony of how such a beautiful and varied homage to trees and nature had been financed by the Bute’s coal wealth. Back then nobody gave this a second thought. Today, I suspect, it might be greeted with the same sense of greenwashing disdain that many people view tobacco and oil companies sponsoring museums and art galleries.

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Cynghordy Viaduct – An engineering marvel and a hidden Welsh gem

September 9, 2021Nature Tourism, WalksLeave a Comment

In the latest video clip from The Liminal Forest journey through Wales I visit Cynghordy Viaduct, one of the most impressive feats of engineering in Wales.

The viaduct stands 30.5m high and is curved across the Bran Valley. It is built on on 18 semi-circular headed brick and sandstone arches with square rough-faced rubble piers. It was built 1868 for the Central Wales Railway.

Cynghordy Viaduct is located a few miles outside of Llandovery on a windy, single track road that climbs over the hills to the village of Rhandirmwyn.

You’d never find it unless you knew where to look – unless you’re taking the train through Mid-Wales that is!

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How rugby gave birth to a national anthem – A walk above the Rhondda Fawr valley

September 2, 2021Culture and Nature, WalksLeave a Comment

At the top of Ton Pentre village, halfway up the Rhondda Fawr valley, a single track walking path climbed steeply up towards the Bwlch mountain. I was walking today with three friends, Andy, Jeff and Tim. We had started five hours before just outside the town of Pontypridd and we were a little weary at this point. We plodded past the ruins of an Iron Age fort. To our left, the imposing Llwynypia Forest towered above us.

“I bloody well hope we’re not climbing up through there,” said Jeff, both knees heavily strapped in a vain attempt to make up for the lack of functioning anterior ligaments. Halfway up we stopped to catch our breath and to marvel that someone had installed a park bench high up on one side of the ridge. Later, when I checked Google maps someone had tagged the location as “Percy’s tiny bench”.

As we rested on the brow we could just make out a figure waving at us from far across the valley just below the forest tree line. It was man, in his 30s or early 40s perhaps. He had his arms spread wide and was singing, no bellowing Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau (Land of My Fathers) – the Welsh National Anthem – just as if he’d been among 70,000 other supports at Cardiff’s Principality stadium cheering on the Welsh rugby team. Except he was on his own and literally rocking the valley with his passion.

If this reads like a cliché – Welshman sings national anthem halfway up a valley – well it happened. And the story gets stranger still. The anthem had been composed just a few miles away in Pontypridd back in 1856, originally as a hymn titled Glan Rhondda. Over the years it gained great popularity at music and other cultural festivals throughout Wales. However, Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau wouldn’t be adopted as Wales’ national anthem until 1905 when it was sung at the very first international rugby match between Wales and the New Zealand All Blacks (the so-called Game of the Century as both teams were considered the strongest in the world).

The back story was uncanny given where we were standing right now – looking back down the Rhondda Fawr towards Llwynypia and the town of Tonypandy. According to The Official History of Welsh Rugby Union, the idea to sing the song came from Tom Williams, a former Welsh international player who, in 1905, was one of the selectors of the national team. He had been born into a farming family around Llwynypia and still worked as a solicitor in the town.

The All Blacks were famous even back them for the Maori-inspired war dance known as the Haka that they performed before kick-off. Williams suggested to the Welsh team that they sing Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau as a response to the Haka and the idea was embraced by Wales’ biggest newspaper, The Western Mail. In the build-up to the match, the paper encouraged fans also to sing the anthem at the match. As the story goes, once the All Blacks finished performing the Haka, the Welsh players, led by the captain, Teddy Morgan, broke into song. More than 40,000 Welsh fans joined in and a tradition was born. From that day on Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau was adopted as the Welsh national anthem even though the official one was God Bless the Prince of Wales.

So it seemed fitting that today, as the stranger across the valley belted out the first verse, Tim decided to join in, bursting at the top of his lungs into the famous chorus, “Gwlad, GWLAD, pleidiol wyf I’m gwlad (Country! COUNTRY! O but my heart is with you!).

It was a comic but oddly touching moment – two strangers singing the Welsh national anthem at each other from across the valley – but it seemed to capture a spirit of solidarity I felt for fellow walkers wherever I travelled through Wales.

It was only later, when I’d done more research about the area, that I shared the story of Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau and the All Blacks with my friends.

“Thank God Tim didn’t try to perform the Haka. That’s all I can say,” said Jeff.

The Cistercian Way – A walking chat in Fforest Fawr with Dr. Madeleine Gray

August 29, 2021October 7, 2022Culture and Nature, Future of Food, WalksLeave a Comment

Just above the town of Caerphilly and the Norman deer park in the Aber Valley lies one of Wales’s oldest pilgrimage routes – an ancient walking trail connecting the Cistercian abbey at Llantarnam Abbey to the holy shrine at Penrhys some 20 miles to the west. The Cistercians – a strict religious order hailing originally from the town of Citeaux near Dijon in France – had been founded in 1098 as a breakaway from the Benedictine Order that the Cistercian founders considered to have strayed from the strict doctrine of its patron St. Benedict. Dressed all in white, as opposed to the black garb of the Benedictines, the Cistercians pledged themselves to a life of severe austerity and a commitment to agriculture and manual labour.

I’d learned about this route a few weeks before when I’d gone to visit Dr. Madeleine Grey, a local historian who’d caught my attention when I’d been reading about the early Welsh saints. It turned out that another of her historical passions was mapping and walking ancient pilgrimage routes. She was the co-creator of The Cistercian Way, a long-term mapping project to establish a series of walking trails retracing the footsteps of the monks who would travel across Wales from one abbey to another.

Maddy (as everyone called her) had agreed to go for a chat and walk with me in Forest Fawr woods near the 19^th century Castell Coch (Red Castle) north of Cardiff. She’d brought along her neighbours’ dog, Nell, for the walk. It was a typically bonkers black spaniel and it raced back and forth into the woodland undergrowth and round our feet as we tried to walk.

Maddy had curly grey hair tied up in a loose bun, a peppy attitude and a walking pace that belied the fact that she had recently retired from full-time academia. She wore a mauve sweater, blue jeans and very well-lived in hiking boots. She talked as fast as she walked and, as someone used to lecturing, she’d come ready to talk.

“You might want to record our conversation as we walk,” she said as we started out up past the castle grounds and into the woods. “It’s okay, I take good notes,” I replied, my notebook and pen at the ready. She shot me a glance as if to say, “You really think you can listen, write and walk at my pace all at the same time!” I got the feeling Maddy had more faith in Nell the spaniel keeping up with what she was about to tell me. And the dog was plainly mad.

Within the first 10 minutes of walking Maddy had given me a breakneck history of Forest Fawr; how Sir Henry Sidney started an iron smelting operation in the woods and jumpstarted the iron industry in Wales; how he identified that this area was perfect for industry because of it abundant supplies of fresh water, mineral ores like iron and how he must have been an ace diplomat because he managed to endear himself to the courts of both Queen Elizabeth I and her rival, Mary Tudor. Not to mention how we were walking through one of the significant beech woods in all of Wales (and one of the only ones found this far west).

We’d only just reached the top of the hill and my head was spinning and heart was pumping due to the information I was trying to consume and the pace we were walking. “Tell me about the Cistercians. Why were they so important to the Norman Lords?” I asked as we walked.

Maddy had spent many years as an academic teaching medieval history to undergrads and had this knack of explaining in a way that was simple enough to stick in even the most scattered student brain. I suspected she was taking the same approach with me.

“The Cistercians were professionals,” explained Maddy. “In medieval times, if you wanted a bit of praying done you brought in the Cistercians. It was a bit like today if you have a problem with the electrics you bring in an electrician.”

They had arrived in Wales at the invitation of the Norman Lords and quickly established important and influential monasteries at sites like Margam (near Swansea), Strata Florida (in mid-Wales), Cymmer in North Wales, Tintern on the border with England at the River Wye and Llantarnam (just north of Newport). They brought with them an air of European sophistication – you might call it a Cistercian je ne sais quoi – to life in Wales as well as a devotion to a strict Christian doctrine that the Norman rulers were sorely lacking.

The Cistercians also had very strict land quality standards that had to be met before they agreed to establish a new monastery given the importance they placed on agriculture. So, as Maddy described, when a Marcher lord invited the Cistercians to establish an abbey they first sent an advance team to assess the viability of the land before committing.

This commitment to agriculture and hard labour on the land would have major ramifications for the woodlands that became part of the Cistercian estates. The monks felled large numbers of trees for assarting (clearing land for agriculture). According to one account by Gerald of Wales, the monks at one Abbey on the Welsh/English border “changed [one of the finest] oak wood[s] into a wheat field.” The monks also cut down forests on the order of local authorities to stem the spate of crimes such as robberies and murders.

The biggest long-term impact of the monks’ agricultural prowess came from their introduction of large-scale sheep farming. In 1291, the official Taxatio Ecclesiastica (a census of taxation on churches in England, Wales and Ireland) reported that six monasteries alone in Wales were responsible for more than 18,000 sheep. To maintain this number of sheep the monks either had to build extensive open pasture enclosures or let them graze the surrounding woodlands.

Over time the sheep population of Wales slowly started to roam thousands of hectares of hillside and became very much part of how we think of the Welsh landscape. But as the sheep steadily grazed their way through the uplands of Wales they became a dominant barrier to any chances that Wales’ ancient natural woodlands could reforest.

As I followed Maddy through the convoluted woodland paths above Castell Coch, stopping only to yell at Nell who’d disappeared down on old abandoned mine shaft, I asked her what got her interested in walking.

“Oh I don’t know,” she said. “It was probably that the only way I could get my students interested in the history I was teaching was by taking them out into the field and finding it for themselves. They always seemed to like a good walk!”

The walking bug never left her. So much so that, more than 20 years after starting the Cistercian Way project, she is still fine-tuning the routes. “It is so very hard to map. There is a lot of educated guesswork – like much of Welsh history to be honest,” she said, adding:

“Still, solvitur ambulando” as I like to say. That’s latin for “work it out by walking!”