Painscastle Local Interest Group Visits Cusop

 Yesterday evening was the usual date for the monthly meeting of the Painscastle Local Interest Group (mostly history, but anything else that takes their fancy, too), and they decided to use the meeting time to visit Cusop Castle and Church just before the Dig starts.

A gazebo had been set up on the Castle site for tea and biscuits, with a good view of where the archaeologists and volunteers are going to dig.  John Price was there to film, and I got a mic because I was going to say a few words about the Castle.  That was after an introduction by Sue, and a few words from Jane (who actually owns the Castle site).  We actually know very little about the castle itself, which is why the dig is so exciting - we should be able to find out a lot more about what went on there, and how old the site is.  What we do know is that it is not a typical Norman castle - there's no motte, just a ringwork and the possible remains of a stone building.

Then we moved into the church, where Celia, who is one of the churchwardens, gave a talk about the history of the church and what they are doing in the churchyard, which is very wildlife friendly.  They've had help from the kids who come up to stay in Trewern House from Dagenham and Essex, and from young people doing their Duke of Edinburgh awards.  Recently an oak tree fell down, and Danny Thomas the chainsaw sculptor is going to carve the fallen trunk into a variety of local animals and birds.

It was a lovely evening, and the people from Painscastle were interested and asked some good questions. 

Festival Crowds

 I'd started to think that I wasn't going to see anything quirky at the Festival this year - then I went into town and found a busker playing the Uilleann pipes next to Spar.

There don't seem to be quite so many people around as last year, though of course the mid week part of the Festival is always a bit quieter than the two weekends.

I also saw three red kites circling over the middle of town! 

Good News for the River Wye

 The River Wye has become the first river in Wales to receive a charter of rights to protect it.

There was a ceremony at the Warren and the charter has been endorsed by councils, campaigners and environmental groups along the length of the river.  Councillor Elissa Swinglehurst of Herefordshire Council helped to create the charter, and other signatories are the Forest of Dean Council, Bannau Brycheiniog National Park and the Wye Valley National Landscape.  Powys County Council and Monmouthshire Council were also represented at the ceremony.

The charter gives the river the following rights:

The right to flow and perform natural functions

The right to biodiversity

the right to be free from pollution

the right to be supported by a healthy catchment area

the right to regenerate

the right to representation

Ecologist Dr Louise Bodnor was appointed as the official Voice of the Wye in April 2025, and sits in meetings of Herefordshire County Council's Wye Catchment Nutrient Management Board, where she has the right to vote on behalf of the river.

The charter comes at a time when the river's health has been officially downgraded to "unfavourable - declining" by Natural England, and the court case brought by Leigh Day is in the High Court, seeking to hold Avara Foods and Welsh Water responsible for the increase in pollution in the river.  

Old Castleton and Clock Mills

 I got out of the Festival crowds the other day when a friend took me out to see a local castle I'd never visited before.

Old Castleton is perched on a promontory overlooking the water meadows of the River Wye, which meanders like mad across the valley there, and it's got three baileys!   I had great fun scrambling up and down the banks and the motte.  We also had to climb a couple of gates that had been put across the lane, possibly to stop sheep from the field just above from getting into the farmyard.

 Here's the motte, which is actually lower than the banks surrounding it, because of the lay of the land.

While looking at the map, I realised that we were also very close to Clock Mills.  This is a private house, and it was once owned by Rafael Sabatini, the author of swashbuckling adventures early in the last century.  Some of them were made into films starring Errol Flynn, and Sabatini invited Errol Flynn to stay at the house for a few weeks in the 1930s, for a bit of peace and quiet.  So we did a little detour so I could see the house, just from the gateway. 

Festival Around Town

 I've been bimbling around town today, pretending to be a tourist.

Fair in the Square is on, with the usual vintage stalls, food stalls and live music.  I treated myself to a falafel, which was very good, though the estimated wait time of ten minutes might have been a little optimistic!

In the Buttermarket and Cheesemarket there were more stalls, mostly of the crafty variety, and up at the Castle there was a craft fair on the lawn.  They had live music, too, from a girl with a harp accompanied by a singer, guitarist and violinist.

More food trucks were in the Honesty bookshop, and down on Belmont Road the Secret Wine Bar was open, selling local Black Mountain wines (and some from a friend's vineyard near Presteigne).

The garden was open at Tinto House, along with small art gallery on one side and vintage French linens on the other.  There's an art exhibition in the empty shop near Kilvert's, too.

And there are real owls at the Wobbly Owl shop this afternoon. 

Hiking Hedgehog

 

New post box topper for the Festival.

Heard at Hay Festival

 I'd booked a ticket to the very first event at Hay Festival - well, the very first for adults.  The lady introducing the event said that there had been eight thousand kids from schools who had been bussed in for the day, and there would be a similar number of older children on the Friday.

They were trying a new format for talks.  Normally, three guests would sit on stage, and be given prompting questions by the moderator, to get a discussion going.  This time, though, after an introduction by Simon Armitage (who also read one of his poems, about a late library book), each guest got up to give a mini lecture, after which there was time for a few questions.

Tony Robinson said that he had been expecting the first type of event, but he gave a very good talk anyway about what history is, and how all the writers of history have had an agenda that you need to know something about before you take their account at face value.

Katherine Rundell talked about the importance of encouraging critical thinking in young people in a time of AI that pretty much agreed with everything you said and gave inaccurate information.  She's done a lot of work in schools, so she's seen changes as pupils start to rely on ChatGPT and the like.

Dallas Campbell started by saying he'd been going to talk about one thing, but had been inspired by the previous speakers to talk about something completely different!  He's interested in space archaeology, and talked about moon regolith and how it can be used to make all sorts of useful things, from cinder blocks to build Moon habitats for astronauts, to silicon chips.  He had also brought along Neil Armstrong's space suit - well, not really Neil Armstrong's space suit ("that's behind bullet proof glass at the Smithsonian!") but the space suit that had been made for Ryan Gosling for a film where he played Neil Armstrong.  Which is nearly as good!

  After the talk, I went to the food tent for some delicious Tibetan curry.

This meant that I passed the BBC Marquee on my way home, just at the moment when several different breeds of sheep were lining up, with their handlers holding leashes, to process up the aisle to the stage!

And then they turned round and came out again!
 

Bizarrely, the music they walked in to was the House of the Rising Sun!

I have no idea which BBC programme this was for - it wasn't up on BBC Sounds when I went to look.