Renovation of the Bailey Walk

 The lower footpath along the river has been closed for a couple of weeks - and there's been a lot of hard work going on down there.

Now the path is open again, I went to have a look:

Steps have been rebuilt, with the guard rails, railings renewed around the places where benches look out over the view, and lots of planking replaced to keep the banks in place.  It all looks very impressive!

Funding for the work came from Brecon Beacons Local Nature Partnership, and the work was done by Joy Contracting and Groundworks.

Craft Centre Toilets

 Sadly, the decision has been made to close the public toilets at the Craft Centre.  I'm not sure whether this is intended to be permanent.  Apparently there has been a long term problem with vandalism, and the damage has been severe enough to need engineers (and presumably plunbers) to put right.  Also, the cost of running the toilets is higher than the takings from them, and since the Town Council makes up the shortfall in funds, this means there is less money available for other projects around Hay.

 

The rather tatty little sign visible in the picture has more information:

 The lower note, in a different hand, says: "There's also free toilets available at the Castle, through the gift shop, 1 at Cinema Bookshop, 1 at Richard Booths bookshop, or go into any cafe, honestly the locals are nice enough, don't care."

The unisex toilet on the other side of the block is still open (opposite the St Michael's Hospice shop) and the toilets by the Clock Tower are still open. 

Visiting the Hoard

 I was lucky enough to arrive at the Black and White House in Hereford just as one of the guides was taking a party round, so I could tag along as she talked about the Herefordshire Hoard.

It's not one of the most impressive hoards that have been discovered - the pieces on display only filled a small case.  It was originally much bigger, though.  When the metal detectorists found the hoard, they decided not to declare it to the Coroners Court, which is the legal route.  Instead, they decided to try to sell it on the black market.  By the time they were caught, roughly 300 coins had dwindled to about 20.  

So, instead of getting 50% of the value of the hoard granted by the Coroner's Court, which would have been a very substantial sum, (possibly over 4 million pounds), at least one of the men involved is still in prison.  Recently, the Museum service has managed to track down and retrieve part of the hoard.

It's a great pity that the coins were split up, because the ones that were left told a fascinating story.  One of them was a silver dirham from Persia, showing just how far trade routes stretched in Viking times.

The prize of the collection, though, was a Two Emperors coin, so vanishingly rare that only two other examples have been found - one in 1840 and one in 1950.  The coin depicts King Alfred of Wessex sitting next to King Ceolwulf of Mercia, giving valuable evidence of an alliance between the two which is not mentioned in the historical record - and the coin is also extremely valuable in the monetary sense, to collectors.  That would be why we were only seeing replicas at the Black and White House, the real thing being safely under lock and key.  

My favourite piece, though, was the crystal ball - not the modern sort used in fortune telling, but something much smaller, about an inch in diameter.  Made out of pure quartz, and bound around with gold, it would originally have hung from a woman's belt - they have only been found in women's graves.  It was great to get a really good look at one.

Storm Eowyn

 Only the hardy stalls were out at the market this morning - basically the Sock Man and the Fish Stall in the square, the usual bread, veg, baked goods and meat in the Cheesemarket, and Alex Gooch's bread with a couple of other stalls in the Buttermarket.  Still, I managed to get everything I needed from them and the other shops round town - and I treated myself to a ticket to the Norwegian folk concert at the Globe on 15th February.  There's also a concert the next afternoon in St Mary's Church, but I will be at work then.

Herefordshire Hoard

 I'm quite excited about this, as the last time the Hoard was put on public display I wasn't able to go.

The Herefordshire Hoard (or at least, replicas of the Herefordshire Hoard) will be on display at the Black and White House Museum in the middle of Hereford on Saturday 25th January, from 10am to 12.30, and from 1.30pm to 3.30pm.  Entrance costs £3.50.

There will be Viking themed craft activities throughout the day.

I kind of wish I still had my Viking re-enactment kit.

Hay Energy Assembly Part 2

 There was also a speaker from Llangattock Green Valleys, near Crickhowell, Simon Walter.  Now, I have a vested insterest in them, because I am a share holder.  I signed up with them when they were doing a stall at a local event - I forget what it was now.  They've been in existance since 2009, and have several micro-hydro electricity generators in the hills around Llangattock and Crickhowell, as well as a beekeeping project, a woodland project and other things.  

I think it was Simon who warned that setting up a local community energy company was a long, slow process, and it had to be done one step at a time - so our first step is to get as many people involved and enthusiastic about the project as possible.  Green Valleys did it by holding events in the five communities that their area covered.  This will be easier in Hay, because the population is much more centralised.  

Another thing they did was to have maps where people could mark where they thought were suitable sites for e.g. solar panels, and where were the "cherished spots" where they didn't want to see anything to do with energy generation.

In the last 18 months or so they've been trying to take their energy production to the next level, and the Green Valleys volunteer who came along was very enthusiastic about it.  Peter had started with very little knowledge about renewable energy, but he's got up to speed very quickly over the time he's been volunteering.

We'd run out of time for the film on solar energy, so we went straight into the second part of the meeting, which was to discuss the question put to us by the organisers:

"In an ideal world what do we, the people in this room, think are the best ways for us to gain community support and participation in generating community owned renewable energy locally and in setting up Hay Energy?"

We all thought that the map was a brilliant idea, and our table was also keen on "love bombing" the community - getting as much local publicity as possible for the project.  

As well as a facilitator and a note taker for each table (we got through a lot of post it notes!) the Assembly was also trialing some new tech which recorded each table's conversations via mobile phone, so there was a record that could be looked at later.

Our table also discussed some of the more practical ideas for energy generation, and the way that there's really nothing new in having micro-hydro schemes - there were several watermills locally in Victorian times, and one of them, up Cusop Dingle, was used to supply electricity to Brynmelin in 1911!

At the end, each table presented its findings to the wider assembly, and the organisers will go away and collate those findings and see which were most popular.

In May, there will be another Assembly, this time on Mental Well-Being.  The date, May 10th, was chosen so that the Welsh Commissioner for Future Generations (I think it was) could be present.  Mike Eccles met her by chance at another meeting, and she said she'd be very keen to come along to see what we were doing in Hay.

Hay Energy Assembly - Part One

 Last year, at about this time, there was a citizen's assembly in the Swan to talk about food security in the Hay area, and lots of good ideas came out of that.  There was a bit of a delay in implementing some of those ideas, simply because it was too much work for the volunteers who were trying to get it going, but they have now been able to access funding for help from paid staff, so now things are starting to happen behind the scenes.

So it was time for the second of the three planned assemblies - this time on Energy.  The idea is that Hay could set up its own energy company to generate renewable energy for the local area.

We were shown a short film from the Orkneys, where one island now runs entirely on renewable energy, which also brings in income to improve life for the islanders.  Wind power goes into the National Grid (there is a power line to the mainland) and is also used to store energy in the form of hydrogen, which heats the school.  They're planning to move into tidal power next.

Then we had a speaker from Ynni Teg Cyf, Jonathan Townend, who talked about community energy.  There are thirty or forty groups around Wales which are already generating energy for their local communities in a variety of ways, and the technology is improving so fast it's hard to keep up with it!

He did say that he was a bit worried on his way up to Hay from South Wales because of the lack of charging points for his electric car, but Hay has several charging points, so he would be able to get back home.  That's one of the infrastructure problems that needs to be addressed nationally.

His own group has a wind turbine and a solar array - though half of that blew away in recent gales and hasn't been replaced yet!  Even so, they have an annual turnover of about £400k - this is variable because of the variation in wind and solar output and the variable price of electricity wholesale.

As Hay is on the edge of a National Park, it is difficult to get planning permission for a wind turbine, but Hay is in a hilly area, and micro-hydro power is good in the smaller streams - though here there is the issue of getting extraction licenses for the water (even if it comes out and goes straight back in again!).

Solar panels are easy to set up, especially if a company can get enough people with suitable rooftops involved to install the panels - though there is the problem of rainy and cloudy days to consider.

Then there's the legal position that has to be considered - there are certain statutory requirements that have to be met, and there's the matter of how the company gets paid for the energy it is supplying.

There is help out there, though, from Community Energy Wales, the Welsh Government Energy Service, the Development Bank and Ynni Teg, who have a website at www.ynniteg.cymru.

More on Bus Stops

 

This is the bus stop by Hay Castle.  Looks a bit sad, doesn't it?  And windowless, thanks to some spray painting vandals several years ago.

And this is the bus timetable across the road at the top of the car park - good luck with finding out when the next bus goes from that!  You'd think that the bus company would want people to have up to date information on when their buses run, so that more people could use them.  The Tourist Board office does what it can to help, but they are not always open.

(both photos kindly supplied by Francoise Verger-Moulinier and Pierre Moulinier).

The green bus stop belongs to the Town Council, and several Town Councillors including Fiona Howard, have made positive responses to the emails that have been sent to them regarding the state of the bus stop.  As ever, though, there seems to be no money to fix the problem.

County Councillor Gareth Ratcliffe (MBE!) has said that he would like to see new bus stops rather like the one in Cusop by Lower Mead.  It's a very nice, wooden bus stop with a seat, but it leaves one side exposed to the weather, which would be a problem at the Hay Castle and car park bus stops.

The car park bus stop is owned by Powys County Council, and there is a possibility of that one being replaced.  It's also a bit shabby, but gives better protection from the weather than the Hay Castle bus stop.

So councillors from the PCC and the Town Council are now aware of the problem.  Mention was made of them looking for grant money to fund a replacement bus stop.  Although Talgarth has a nifty little electronic display board to tell passengers when the next bus is due, this does not seem to be viable in Hay - Talgarth was funded by the Welsh Government because of the nearby trunk road, apparently.  Even so, it would be nice to have improved bus stops.  More people need to be encouraged to use the bus services, for a whole host of environmental reasons, and for that to happen, bus travel has to be made comfortable and appealing - and with a timetable that gets people where they need to go in a timely fashion.

Bus Consultation

 There's an article in the Brecon and Radnor Express of the 8th January about a consultation on bus timetables that Powys County Council are holding.  

The survey, which includes other bus related matters, can be found at 

www.haveyoursaypowys.wales/

If anyone wants to take part in the consultation, it runs until Thursday February 13th.  Be aware that you first have to register to "join the community", which involves thinking of a password and answering a few general questions.  Then you can click through to the consultation you're interested in.

There are currently four consultations on the go, including one about the County Council's Sustainable Resource Strategy that I will probably go back and have a look at later.

As far as Hay is concerned, the new proposed timetable shifts the time of the bus to Hereford to be earlier by about 10 minutes, and will change the number of the bus to the X44.

The last bus from Hay to Brecon will be at 19.52

The last bus from Brecon to Hay will be 17.07

The last bus from Hay to Hereford will be 17.47

and the last bus from Hereford to Hay will be 18.53

They are also proposing a new service, the B49, which will be a pre-booked service from surrounding villages into Brecon on Tuesdays and Fridays, and from surrounding villages to Hay on Thursdays.  I didn't see details of how to book this service in the consultation itself, but it seems worth checking up on.  There will be one journey each way on each day.

Also, if anyone wants to put their views about the state of the bus stops in Hay, and the timetables (or lack of them) at the bus stops, there is a place to do that in the consultation. I've been talking to Francoise Verger-Moulinier and Pierre Moulinier, who live close to the bus stops.  They have been trying to get local councillors interested in improving the state of the bus stops and the provision of up to date timetables that are not shredded by the weather, with little success so far.

Cusop History Society - The Baskerville Family

 I got it slightly wrong yesterday - the Cusop History Society meeting actually started at 4.30pm, so I was rather early.  The hall was full, though, and the £3 entry fee included a glass of wine.

Paul Remfry was talking about the Baskerville family and their lordship of Cusop.   He was also talking about the difficulties in interpreting medieval documents - were Ralph, Roger and Robert brothers, for instance?  We know the mother of one of them was called Juliana, but was she the mother of the other two - or were they some sort of cousin or nephew?  Some of the documents were written long after the events they recorded - the Diocese of Llandaff, which had land holdings locally, claimed to have records dating back to 500AD - but did they really?  Or were they writing documents that just claimed that they had always held that land?

Another famous chronicler of medieval Wales was Gerald of Wales - who was notoriously selective in his recording of facts, especially concerning families who he considered to have blocked his ambitions to be Archbishop of Wales (there was no Archbishop of Wales until 1924, when the Welsh Church finally became independent from the Church of England). So it was Gerald who attributed a quotation to Henry II about how terrible the Baskerville family were, presumably because he had fallen out with the Baskervilles himself.

What we do know is that Ralph who died in 1086 held most of the Baskerville lands, including Cusop, and across to near Aberystwyth and in the other direction across the Midlands, and there is a paper trail through the records that survive showing that Cusop was passed down the family until it came to a family called the Clanvowes, which may be a corruption of theWelsh Llanfair - and one of the Clanvowes may have married a Baskerville daughter.  Possibly.

But what about the time before the Baskervilles arrived?  They were Normans, so before 1066, Cusop was Welsh, and there are various Welsh princes who were probably lords of Cusop.  It all got quite complicated, and also included stories about the Earl of Hereford known as Ralph the Timid!

At any rate, it was the Normans who built several of the local castles - Hay, Clyro, and Cusop all have a very similar plan, though Cusop doesn't seem to have a motte like the others, and Hay became far more elaborate over the centuries.

It was a fascinating talk, about a complex and confusing period of history (though doubtless the original Baskervilles would have been quite clear about who was related to who, and which brother owned which lands).

I'm looking forward to the next meeting - possibly in March?  Details to be arranged.

Enchanted Hour

 I had great fun at the Library yesterday - I was giving the talk for Enchanted Hour.

I trained as an archaeologist, so my chosen subject was the obscure archaeological remains in the local landscape.  The area around Hay is rich in Neolithic and Bronze Age tombs, and there's a Roman fort at Boatside Farm, and several medieval mottes.  A good crowd turned up for the talk, and they asked interesting questions afterwards, and everyone seemed to have a good time.  I even got filmed!  John Price, who films a lot of local events, was there with his camera.  It's the first time I've ever worn a microphone to do a talk.

Mary Anne, who organises the talks, thought it would be a wonderful idea if a group could get together to go to visit the tombs later in the year, and she's a lady who gets things done, so I may end up acting as a tour guide!

This afternoon, at 4pm, the Cusop History Society are meeting at Cusop Village Hall - I hadn't heard about it until someone told me yesterday.  They're going to get an update on work at Cusop Castle, so I'm going to go along to that.

Mary Anne is going back to South Africa in February, so the next Enchanted Hour will be in March, a talk about a journey that involves a dancing hippoptamus!

Wassail!

 It's traditionally Wassail time - when the apple trees are blessed so that they will produce good cider later in the year, with morris dancing and fire and loud noises to scare the evil spirits away.

Artistraw Cider are having their Wassail on Saturday 11th January - no morris dancers, but there will be a Green Man, folk music, flaming torches, a bonfire and mulled cider.  

It starts at 6pm at Bryntirion, Clifford.  Tickets are £3 each, available from the Artistraw website, and under 18s are free - they've had to introduce tickets because there is limited space.  The parking is also very limited.  They are not allowing dogs, and there will be no food available, but people are welcome to bring their own snacks.  As the walk from the parking at Clifford church to the farm is unlit, people are also advised to bring a torch, and wrap up warm with good boots!

A Wide Variety of Music Coming Up this Year

 Hay Music are starting the year with a bang - a concert by the Marsyas Trio, with Australian soprano Lotte Betts-Dean at St Mary's, on Sunday 12th January, at 3pm (doors open at 2.30pm).  Tickets are £20, and £10 for under-25s.  ~The afternoon will include the world premiere of a work by Michael Finnissy, plus a work by Dame Judith Weir, who was Master of the Queen's Music (and then the King's Music) from 2014 to 2024.

Both the composers will be present at the concert, and they will join the players in a pre-concert conversation, which will make it quite a special occasion.

There will also be music by Ravel and Saint-Saens.

I'm also looking forward to February, when the Engegard String Quartet will be playing Norwegian Folk Music at the Clobe on Saturday 15th from 8pm, followed by classical music on the Sunday afternoon (Beethoven and Brahms) and more traditional Norwegian folk songs.

Walking Out

 Another lovely sunny day, so I've been over the bridge and half way to Clyro.  I went down the public footpath by Racquety Farm - I haven't been that way for a while, so it was a bit of a surprise to find the bridge over the ditch at the bottom looking like this:

The supports have been washed away on one side, but it's still crossable with a bit of care.

On the way across Hay Bridge going up, I saw a pair of egrets stalking about in the shallows at By the Wye.  I don't think I've ever seen a pair together before.  On the way back, there was a heron flying downstream.

Warren Wall

 It's a lovely sunny day, so I went out this morning to the Warren to see how they're getting on with the wall that's being rebuilt along the top of the hill.

I was standing by the gate to take the photo, so there's only a little way left to go.

There were quite a few people around, closer to the river, with several dogs.  The river was quite high and fast after the recent rain, and there was still frost on the grass in the sheltered places.  Great tits and robins were everywhere in the bushes.

New Years Honours

 Congratulations to Gareth Ratcliffe, who is included in the New Years Honours List!

He has been given an MBE for services to Bannau Brycheiniog.

It's well deserved for all his hard work.