This is another ‘quickie’, which I’m putting out partly so people can be aware of what might be in the pipeline, and also to see if anyone out there can add a little meat to the bones.
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WHERE WE AT?
As is my wont, I’ll start by showing you the area in question. It’s some two or three miles south or south west of Caban-coch reservoir. Or six or seven miles north of Llanwrtyd.
To give you a better idea of the area I’m talking about, Bryn Rhudd is pinned on both maps reproduced below.
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Bute Energy, the ‘renewables’ arm of property company Parabola, has an ‘Energy Park’ planned here. For which the registered company was known as Bryn Glas Energy Park Ltd, until Wednesday, when it changed to Bryn Rhudd Energy Park Ltd.
Which doesn’t move the project very far in terms of distance, Bryn Glas and Bryn Rhudd being adjacent hills, but I find the change significant because it suggests things might now be moving with this previously quiescent entity.
Confirmation for the project comes from the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales. This map produced last year shows Bryn Glas as a proposal.
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That said, the project does not appear on the Bute Energy website. But there are a number of Bute projects – companies formed and registered with Companies House – that don’t appear on the Bute website.
Maybe no progress has been made on these ten projects beyond general scoping and informal chats with landowners.
In addition, there are a number of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) for which companies have been formed. Six by my count.
And let’s not forget the pylons and the power lines. Mile after mile of them, to carry the electricity generated (when the wind is just right!) from remote Welsh locations to the consumers of that electricity in England.
As many of you know, I try to keep up with Bute’s activities, and here’s my updated factsheet. If anyone can add to, or correct it, don’t be shy about contributing.
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WHAT MORE CAN I TELL YOU?
A big question in all these projects, and indeed, other projects, is – who owns the land, who stands to gain? A question that’s not easy to answer.
In the case of Bryn Rhudd, my first port of call was the Land Registry, but seeing as I had no title number I had to rely on finding it on the LR map. Which I think worked.
Here’s the title document for the land I located on the LR map. It’s known as Abergwesyn Commons. You’ll see it’s owned by the National Trust (NT); which seems to be confirmed by this map I found on the NT website. (Best of luck with the filters!)
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The NT land is the area in blue. I’ve highlighted Abergwesyn, to the south of the area that takes its name. To get your bearings relative to the maps you saw earlier use the reservoirs shown above the area in blue.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t a title plan available to download, as it was too large, and I didn’t have time to get it delivered by post.
Abergwesyn Commons stretch for 12 miles between the Nant Irfon valley in the west and Llanwrthwl in the east. Drygarn Fawr is the highest point on the commons, lying above the Nant Irfon valley.
Which appears to confirm this is the area we’re concerned with, and that Bute’s planned Bryn Rhudd Energy Park is on National Trust land.
Land Registry title documents can be intriguing when they provide a bit of history, which is the case with the one we’re looking at. In the recent history of the area we see names we’ve encountered before. And of course, they’re double-barrelled names.
First, there’s Legge-Bourke. I believe the land we’re looking at was sold to the National Trust by the Legge-Bourke family.
Whereas the Right Honourable James David Lord Gibson-Watt of the Wye M.C., P.C., and son, Julian Gibson Watt, were granted “sporting rights” over part of the land for 99 years from September 1984.
Other names mentioned were those you see below.
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Though it seems that somewhere along the way Devoy became Devoy-Williams. (An attempt to go native?) And Dai is a man of the law, as this report tells us.
I’m not sure whether he and Anjana are still an item, and maybe she runs the company Chillderness herself, or whether they’ve split. Either way, the Chillderness website explains the entry on the title document. (Chill in the wilderness – geddit!)
You’ll see from the website the company has a number of properties in Wales.
Hidden away in remote corners of the Chillderness Red Kite Estate in the Cambrian Mountains, Mid Wales, are four super-cool, off-grid glamping pods. The two Conkers (Earth Conker and Moon Conker) are insulated, all year round glamping pods. The forest by the river enfolds the two Tree Tents (Dragon’s Egg and Ynys Affalon), suspended in the canopy with treetop kitchens and outdoor bathing.
If you think ‘Affalon’ and the others are toe-curlers, wait until you see the properties in Sir Benfro. We have a nod to the Rimbaud of Cwmdonkin Drive with ‘Llareggub’ in Saundersfoot, then there’s ‘Mor (sic) and More’ in Amroth.
This is the kind of tourism that too often passes for Welsh: Buy out the natives then make money from trivialising their identity and culture.
But perhaps of more relevance to this inquiry might be what we see under the heading Property Register, which deals with parts of the original title that have been detached over the years.
For there, at No 7, we see that land was detached in September 2019 from the NT Abergwesyn Commons land, which might link to the planned wind farm. But this reference gives no new title number to check, which is frustrating.
Given what we know, I’ll conclude this section by saying it’s reasonable to assume that Bute Energy has some agreement in place with the National Trust for the area around Bryn Rhudd.
Otherwise, why launch the company, and keep it alive?
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FINAL THOUGHTS
I always opposed the National Trust in Wales because it struck me as an ineffably English organisation, run by Home Counties hearties who would never understand or empathise with our history and identity.
Maybe devolution could have brought a change, if only arguing that the NT in Wales distanced itself from the parent body. But Corruption Bay was too busy anguishing over whether Picton should be disinterred and hung for what he might have done in the West Indies in the 18th century to worry about Wales in the 21st century.
More recently at the National Trust, tweeds and brogues gave way to green hair and anti-white racism. Predictably, this Wokist takeover brought in blind belief in the climate scam. Now we read of ‘Renewable energy in Wales‘, and just about every form of ‘renewables’ is mentioned . . . other than wind.
So I suggest we need a little honesty. A commodity rare in modern Wales. First from the National Trust.
On the assumption you own this land, do you have an agreement or an understanding with Bute Energy for a wind farm, or ‘Energy Park’, at Bryn Rhudd?
If so, have those who graze the land been informed or consulted?
To Bute Energy: What are your plans for Bryn Rhudd (formerly Bryn Glas)?
Also, what are your plans for the other 10 projects, each of which has a named company, but are not mentioned on your website? What stage have these projects reached?
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These uplands of Elenydd are unspoilt and beautiful, among the wildest parts of Wales. That’s because they’re remote, which of course means no decent road access. Look again at the map for Bryn Rhudd to see what I mean.
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Most of the area is only traversable on foot, by horse, or by quad bike. Which means that the environmental damage caused in transporting and erecting huge wind turbines would outweigh any possible gain from a decade or two of expensive, intermittent, and unreliable wind power.
Consequently, any plan for ‘renewables’ at Bryn Rhudd is a reminder that wind turbines, fields of solar panels, are all about making money. Nothing to do with the environment whatsoever.
The piece you’re about to read poses as many questions as it provides answers. Which is unavoidable given the subject’s complexity. But as great-aunt Fastidia said when she organised Mussolini’s March on Rome – “You gotta start somewhere, Benny”.
Another parcel of our land given over to people who think we Welsh are in the way.
Just down the road, Gelli Aur belonged to the Vaughan family, who claimed descent from the princes of Powys. They were a colourful bunch, experiencing their ups and downs; wealthy brides and royal favour to bankruptcies and beheadings.
The Vaughans became the Earls of Carbery. One was made Governor of Jamaica in 1674, with an even more colourful Welshman as his deputy. He was described by Pepys as “one of the lewdest fellows of the age”. Wow!
In 1804 the last John Vaughan died childless, and although there were many Vaughan relatives, including his sister, the estate passed to his friend, John Campbell, Earl Cawdor, who conveniently appeared with a will naming him heir.
Despite the obvious Scottish connection – with Nairnshire – Campbell’s mother was a Pryse of Gogerddan.
That’s enough nobs’ history. Let’s join the twenty-first century.
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INTRODUCTION
After trying to set this out in the order suggested by Land Registry titles, and realising there was too much cross-referencing, I decided to go for chronological order dictated by those who’ve been involved at Gelli Aur over the past 20 years or so.
If I’ve missed anyone, then please get in touch, tell me your details, especially how much public funding you trousered.
Let’s start by saying that title number WA883292 ‘Golden Grove Mansion’, seems to have as its Registered owner, Carmarthenshire College of Technology and Art. Which makes sense as there is an agricultural college at Gelli Aur.
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GELLI AUR LTD
The first outfit we’re going to look at is Gelli Aur Ltd. Formed 30 April 2001 and after lingering for years, finally departing this mortal coil in December 2010, leaving behind a stack of debts. Though a voluntary liquidator was appointed as early as July 2003.
The leading player in this company was Jeffrey Paul Thomas, based in the small town of Corsham, a mile or so from Chippenham, in Wiltshire.
At the demise of Gelli Aur Ltd there were three outstanding charges, two with Coleg Sir Gar, and one with the Welsh Development Agency. These were created just a year before the liquidator was appointed.
If you go to the ‘Filing History’ tab for Gelli Aur you’ll see, dated 29.03.2003, ‘Statement of affairs’ issued by the liquidator. I have extracted the final page and highlighted the debts with Welsh entities. (Here in pdf.)
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Among the non-Welsh creditors you’ll see Alkemi Group Plc, since re-named Alkemi Ventures Plc. Set up in February 2002, less than a year after Gelli Aur Ltd.
Alkemi was wound up April 2004 following a petition by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. Here’s the relevant document. And finally dissolved in December 2010.
Yet in its brief spell on this Earth Gelli Aur Ltd managed to incur a debt of £685,347.00 with equally short-lived Alkemi. And bless me! – both companies were owned by Jeffrey Paul Thomas.
To claim when a company you own or owned goes belly-up that it owes you or another of your companies hefty sums is often a way of salvaging summat from the wreckage.
Who can forget how Paul and Rowena Williams of Plas Glynllifon claimed to be owed £11.75m when the company they’d passed on to an accomplice hit the rocks. Oh, how we laughed!
With Gelli Aur Ltd out of the picture the old pile was ready for the next ‘improvers’.
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DIGRESSION 1
Though we see, picking up one of the pieces (from the liquidator), Golden Grove Estates Ltd, launched 24 October 2003, and which in April 2005 changed its name to Wingwest Ltd.
This company took over the Gelli Aur Ltd charge on the mansion. Here’s the relevant document. It was cleared in January 2007.
The title document linked to in the Introduction says: ‘Title closed (15.08.2002) – registration continued under CYM85255’. This title number refers to ‘Land to the east of Golden Grove Mansion’.
The registered owners of this title are Brimaston Ltd. A company Incorporated 16 September 2003, giving its address as 89 Hill Street, Haverfordwest. Its stated line of business was ‘Development of building projects’.
I use the past tense because Brimaston was Dissolved in May 2014. With no less than seven outstanding charges, all with Barclays Bank.
The first four were for Pembrokeshire farms, one fixed and floating charge, and then two relating to Gelli Aur. One for the mansion itself, the other for the West Lodge.
Unfortunately, none of the documents that would give more details about the charges are available on the Companies House website.
Gelli Aur mansion. Click to open enlarged in separate tab
From what I can see Brimaston was a company formed by the kind of people who move to Wales to run the ‘Welsh’ tourism industry. The farms they bought were to be used for ‘holiday barns’ and the like. Frightfully twee.
It seemed to go wrong when one of those involved succumbed to Parkinson’s, poor bugger, and perhaps when they realised that with Gelli Aur they’d bitten off more than they could chew.
Brimaston was struck off in May 2014.
On the Brimaston title document CYM85255 we read that it’s closed, and we are referred to CYM85254.
We’ll pick this up again in the section ‘Golden Grove Trust’.
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DIGRESSION 2
Although they invested no money in Gelli Aur, interest was shown by a group from Bridgend who wanted to turn the old house into a home for ex-servicemen.
The Golden Grove Mansion Appeal Ltd was formed in December 2009 and, after a couple of name changes, was finally dissolved in December 2021.
To complicate matters further, this entry on the Charity Commission website says the charity Healing The Wounds Ltd (the current name) is removed from the Charity Commission register, but is still raising funds.
Or am I reading it wrong? Your guess is as good as mine.
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GOLDEN GROVE TRUST
As we can read: CYM85254 ‘Gelli Aur Country Park, Golden Grove’ was transferred 16 September 2011, for £1,360,000, to the Golden Grove Trust (then of London). (Other title numbers mentioned in CYM85254 refer to: Cilsane Isaf Farm, Allt y Wern, Golden Grove Home Farm.)
Wilkins the Dots was gone by March 2013, but Salmon hung on until June 17 last year. Though David Nicholas Salmon, who I suppose is related, didn’t cease being a director until the 10th of this month.
I don’t want to get bogged down here, or to repeat rumours, but as you read in the guest piece from 2016, a considerable amount of public funding went into Gelli Aur when Salmon was there and people still ask what happened to it.
The most recent (and very brief) accounts available were made up to 31 August 2022. The asset of £2.5m has to be the main house, etc., with the overall figure reduced to £1.5m by liabilities and debts.
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Those liabilities will be the three outstanding charges on: the mansion, the West Lodge, plus a floating charge over the whole shooting-match.
The charge against the East Lodge was paid off last October, after Salmon’s departure, and the name given on the statement of satisfaction was Hendrik Jan Smit.
Before leaving this section I should also mention Golden Grove Ventures Ltd. Which never ventured far, with the latest accounts showing a deficit of some £28,000.
This too has been taken over by the new boys.
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SINGH AND SMIT
If we go back to the directors tab for Golden Grove Trust we see there are now three directors. These are, Smit, who I just introduced, Daljit Singh, and Bronwen Jones.
And it seems to be a substantial gaff, with some land,. To get there you take the A476 (the Cross Hands road) from Ffairfach, turn off at Park Lane, and you’ll find Cwrt-y-Gorffwys after passing Thomas Motor Repairs.
The only extant company I can find with which Daljit Singh is involved is Ubiq Associates Ltd. The accounts suggest a tuppenny-ha’penny outfit, needing neither accountant nor auditor to help with the figures.
Although Dutchman Smit is not named as a director, he is a Ubiq shareholder. Dr Smit is from the School of Experimental Psychology at Bristol University.
But we still don’t know why they rocked up at Gelli Aur in the first place. So here’s a shot in the dark. (And if I hit anybody I’ll plead insanity, as always.)
Singh and Smit have no obvious background in property development, and I’m fairly sure they have no experience in tourism, so why would they want a big old house far from their home area?
That home area being Bath / Corsham / Chippenham, the same as Jeffrey Paul Thomas of Gelli Aur Ltd. So maybe they know Thomas. Or is it just a coincidence?
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DIGRESSION 3
Next we have CYM409991 ‘The Golden Grove Estate’. (Not to be confused with Golden Grove Estates Ltd, which we encountered in Digression 1.)
But this title is separate to the mansion and, I suspect, it’s grounds. It refers to land between Golden Grove and the Dinefwr Estate, offering sporting rights. Those rights extend to other titles, with more than 10 miles of sewin fishing on the Tywi.
Glanyrafon, circled, is the farmhouse mentioned in the Country Life article from 2017 I’ve linked to. Click to open enlarged in separate tab
The estate was on the market a few years ago, but did it sell? Apparently not. Unless the new owner has neglected to inform the Land Registry.
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ADFER GELLI AUR CIC
Finally, we have Adfer Gelli Aur CIC. Which I thought would be another digression . . . until I looked into it.
As the name suggests, it’s a community interest company, formed as recently as April last year. It started with eight directors, but four quit 27 August.
I’m sure many of you’ll be familiar with a community interest company. In my experience, they’re set up to serve a village, or a rural area, or even for a specific project, such as a local hydro scheme.
With beneficiaries numbered in the hundreds, or at most, a few thousand. But when I checked the Certificate of Incorporation for Adfer Gelli Aur, I saw this:
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I said to myself . . . “Jac, my boy, that capitalisation must refer to the legislation of that name.“ But what does it all mean?
It becomes clear in the same document, under ‘Objects’:
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Elsewhere on the document we read that the agent for the CIC is Cwmpas (formerly Wales Co-operative Centre), much favoured by the ‘Welsh Government’, with 100 employees and an annual turnover in excess of seven million pounds.
The involvement of Cwmpas and the references to Future Generations suggest that Adfer Gelli Aur CIC might be the vehicle through which the ‘Welsh Government’ takes control of the Golden Grove mansion and grounds.
If nothing else, buying Golden Grove through a CIC might avoid the kind of bad publicity generated by the purchase of Gilestone farm at Talybont-on-Usk.
If so, then we can assume that a great deal of public money will be involved.
Though if Adfer Gelli Aur CIC is taking over, where does that leave Smit and Singh?
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CONCLUSION
What’s seems to be proposed with Adfer Gelli Aur CIC shows up yet again a widespread and ongoing problem in Wales.
I can understand the desire to keep Gelli Aur / Golden Grove out of the hands of people like those you’ve been reading about. And I have no objection to it belonging to the nation. But a CIC is not the way to go about it.
Wales needs an organisation like the National Trust to own and safeguard all our important sites. Nothing shows that need better than the disgraceful state of Sycharth, site of Glyndŵr’s home.
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Finally, let’s not forget the Barbour and tweed brigade. What does Future Generations legislation say about huntin’ shootin’ fishin’?
The previous post got considerable attention and it also unlocked fascinating new information. And that explains this follow-up. Which I hope will result in further revelations.
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WHERE ARE WE?
In the previous post I dealt with the Bryn Cadwgan wind farm planned by Galileo Green Energy. This is a Swiss company that set up a UK operation a few years ago to cash in on the Welsh wind turbine rip-off.
Different rules in England mean that complaints from local communities must be listened to which, in practical terms, means that no onshore wind farms get built. This sees Wales and Scotland increasingly used to supply electricity to England from a source the English don’t want.
Even to the extent of electricity from wind farms off Scotland’s west coast coming by undersea cable to Bangor, then down to Swansea, where it can connect with the main transmission lines from Pembroke power station to England.
Here in Wales, every project of 10MW or above is classed as a Development of National Significance (DNS), which means locals, and their elected representatives on local councils, will always be over-ruled by politicians in Corruption Bay who’ve declared war on a people they regard as racist, climate-denying, car-driving, transphobes.
It’s succinctly explained here. The chronology is intriguing.
In addition to the Galileo proposal I also knew that Bute Energy, a Scottish firm that rents a cupboard in Cardiff to fool us into thinking it’s Welsh, had a plan for an installation they were calling Blaencothi. Though details were scarce.
But true to form, Bute has again recruited a local to proselytise on its behalf. This one is Cilycwm community councillor Jamie Pickup. We can no doubt expect Pickup to be speaking up for all three projects.
But the third project, Waun Maenllwyd Wind Hub, being pushed by Belltown Power of Bristol, was a bit of a surprise. Possibly because it had previously been known as ‘Bryn Brawd’, and I’d perhaps assumed it had fallen though because I’d heard no more of it by that name.
Anyway . . . since putting out last week’s piece I have been told that the companies behind these three projects are combining to share a route to the plateau that forms the southern end of the Cambrian Mountains of central Wales.
The proposed access route to the site for abnormal indivisible loads (such as blades, hub, nacelle and tower sections) will be from the port of origin (which is likely to be Swansea) via the M4, A48 and A40. Loads would turn off the public highway at Pumsaint and travel north for approximately 14km on a combination of existing commercial forestry tracks and new tracks to reach the wind farm location. No significant traffic flows will be associated with the operational phase of the site.
Who could argue with that? A motorway and nice wide trunk roads all the way. Problem is, the route as given is sort of incomplete. Let me explain.
As written, deliveries will turn off the A40 at Pumsaint . . . but the A40 goes nowhere near Pumsaint. Which makes what Belltown says misleading, if not dishonest. And if they could get this so wrong, what else might they have got wrong?
The truth is that after leaving Llandeilo the huge low loaders will turn onto the B4302 and head for Talyllychau (Talley). Then on to Crugybar and the Bridgend Inn (where I sank a few pints in the good old days), where they’ll join the A482 to reach Pumsaint.
Using my bestest crayons I’ve conjured up this map that might explain it better.
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For those of you unfamiliar with this road, take my word for it, it will struggle to accommodate massive low loaders carrying huge turbine blades and tower sections.
Below is a capture from Google Maps showing the B4302 just after leaving Talyllychau on its way to Crugybar. Those hedgerows will have to go. And so will many other trees and hedgerows on the 13 miles from the A40 to Pumsaint.
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Now we’re going to move on to Stage 2 of the environmental vandalism associated with these projects. The section that involves the National Trust (NT) and the ‘Welsh Government’.
With the Foresight reputation damaged locally Belltown may be fronting for Foresight. Questions need to be asked. And answers demanded.
UPDATE 10.11.2023: It was learnt last night that Belltown will be taking the A482 from Llanwrda to Pumsaint. Galileo will take the Talyllychau route suggested above. No information yet on the Bute route, but it doesn’t really matter. Because there will now be two roads suffering expensive damage.
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DON’T TRUST THE NATIONAL TRUST
Once the huge low loaders reach Pumsaint, or just outside the village, they’ll take a right turn onto National Trust property.
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This is the Dolaucothi estate, home to the famous ‘Roman’ gold mines, once owned by the Johnes family, who also owned the Hafod estate, to the north. Hafod fell into the clutches of the National Trust last year. With a 99-year lease and £700,000 gift from the ‘Welsh Government’.
In other words, the ‘Welsh Government’ paid an organisation worth billions £700,000 to take over a prime Welsh estate.
Despite the excuse given by Corruption Bay for this generosity it might have been due to the involvement of Dawn Bowden MS. As Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport the Hafod deal should have had nothing to do with her. But Tourism’ has since been added to her portfolio. Fancy that!
Response from ‘Welsh Government’ to FoI request. Click to open enlarged in separate tab
I wrote about it in this post, scroll to the section ‘Bristol Fashion’. And then in this post, in the section, ‘”Welsh Government” funds National Trust’.
It’s instructive to consider the organisation of the National Trust in Wales, and what happened at Hafod. Not least because it might provide clues as to why the NT would be a willing party to this planned environmental disaster.
It was early June last year when we learnt that the Trust was taking over the Hafod estate. Which seems to be owned by the ‘Welsh Government’ through Natural Resources Wales, and had until then been run by the Hafod Trust.
Just three months earlier, in March, Lhosa Daly of Bristol, had taken on the role of NT’s Acting Director for Wales, and was appointed to the post officially in September. I mention Bristol because that’s where she lives.
If we look at her career background we see that in the past seven or eight years Daly’s been chair of the Bristol branch of the Institute of directors, vice chair of the Bristol Law Centre, and she is still a business ambassador for the Western Gateway.
These positions would have brought her into contact with the glitterati of Bristol’s business community. Including, perhaps, the directors of Belltown Power, the company planning to desecrate our country with Waun Maenllwyd Wind Hub.
With Belltown, Bute and Galileo hoping to reach the site by traversing land owned or managed by Lhosa Daly’s National Trust and the ‘Welsh Government’.
The mystery of Dawn Bowden representing the ‘Welsh Government’ last year, despite it being beyond her responsibilities, could be accounted for by her also being from Bristol. She and Daly might have already known each other.
And if that’s too fanciful an explanation for you, then try this: Bowden should have known Lhosa Daly through her being Deputy Minister for Arts since May 2021 and Daly being an advisor to the Arts Council of Wales since April 2019.
Come to that, how did Bristol-based Daly get that gig with the Arts Council of Wales?
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FINAL THOUGHTS
I’m told deals have been done with farmers and other landowners along the route between Llandeilo and Pumsaint to cut corners, destroy hedges, and in places widen the B4302, and even perhaps the A482.
This will cost a considerable amount of money. So who’ll pay for it? Will it be the ‘developers’? The county council? The so-called ‘Welsh Government’? Or will there be a whip-round in the Dolaucothi Arms?
And then there’s the question of how the National Trust squares being a conservation body with the damage it’s helping inflict on the Welsh landscape by these wind farms. What would NT members say, if they knew?
Not just in the road ‘improvements’ I’ve just described, but also on the 14km journey to the sites after the low loaders turn off the A482. And then the on-site destruction.
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There’ll be the vast concrete bases to support these huge turbines, the access roads, the deep trenches for the cables. How many trees will be felled? How much peat bog damaged? And let’s not forget the pylons.
I ask about the trees because I’m told new populations of red squirrels and pine martens are establishing themselves. Will they adapt to climbing pylons and turbines?
I suggest that even if they stick around they’ll be so traumatised by what’s being done to their habitat they might stop breeding.
As if that wasn’t enough, someone then tells me . . .
We also have two breeding maternity colonies of soprano pipistrelle bats on my land, they will love the sonic signature of wind turbines of course.
Don’t worry – once the poor little buggers are disorientated enough the blades will finish them off pretty quickly. (If they’re turning!)
Them and the kites, and other birds. And insects by the million.
Nothing here really surprises me, because I’ve always regarded the National Trust as a very commercial organisation and, in Wales, rather colonialist. Lhosa Daly playing the memsahib is entirely in keeping.
Not only that, but there’s something of the vulture about the NT in Wales, picking up land and estates as old Welsh families die out. Or more recently, acquiring property from the ‘Welsh Government’ or Natural Resources Wales.
Porthdinllaen once belonged to the Jones-Parry (Madryn) family. Sir Love Jones-Parry MP, was very supportive of the Patagonia settlement. Which explains why a town over there is called Puerto Madryn; and is twinned with Nefyn, I believe.
Another example of this sad phenomenon is located not far from me, a place I love to visit. I’m directing you now to Llynnoedd Cregennan.
Llynnoedd Cregennan. Click to open enlarged in separate tab
Major C L Wynne-Jones lost both his sons in WWII, so in 1959 he handed over this 285-hectare estate to the National Trust.
As I hope I’ve made clear, I’m not surprised by the National Trust’s behaviour with these wind farms, and the damage they’ll cause . . . what really pisses me off is that the National Trust is still operating in Wales.
Devolution should have brought Wales a new organisation to replace the colonialist parasite that is the National Trust. We should by now have a Welsh body conserving our heritage and our history, safeguarding our landscapes.
But to set up such a body would have required political leaders with vision and courage, rather than the grubby, ishoo-of-the-month puppets Wales is cursed with.
This week I bring yet more tales of colonialism dressed up as ‘saving the planet’; involving assorted enviroshysters, multifarious con men; all aided, abetted, and funded, by those collaborating buffoons down Corruption Bay.
This is another biggie, but broken down into easily-digestible chunks. (Add condiments and flavourings to taste.)
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BRISTOL FASHION
Let’s begin with a piece from the Cambrian News, a ‘paper that circulates along Cardigan Bay, with its main office in Aberystwyth.
For reasons I’ve never been able to fathom, I’m blocked from the CN Twitter account. Me! I can only assume it’s a case of mistaken identity.
Though when I tried to find out from the Land Registry website who owns what I drew a blank. Using the LR map search brought up what you see below. Yet this area must be part of the estate, with Hafod church, the public park, even a car park.
It was the same across the whole site, apart from the individual dwellings. Nor could I find a definitive map of the estate.
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But as I say, it seems NRW owns the estate, but leases it to HT. Confirmed by the HT accounts referring to a holiday cottage known as Hawthorne Cottage / Pwll Pendre, and the title document saying this property was leased in December 2000 for 25 years from The National Assembly for Wales.
It could be the same lease arrangement for the whole estate. So, with the lease coming to an end in just over three years, NRW and / or the ‘Welsh Government’ decided that instead of renewing the lease with the Hafod Trust they’d turn to the National Trust.
I suspect the Hafod Trust has been largely left to its own devices at the estate, but now it looks as if it’s either relinquishing control over Hafod, or else it’s being elbowed out.
What we see happening at Hafod is in keeping with NRW’s activities. Which include undermining Welsh agriculture, encouraging corporate greenwash, and giving away bits of Wales to enviroshysters and assorted bodies from over the Dyke.
At Hafod the beneficiary is a quintessentially English organisation, the National Trust. Yes, it adds ‘Cymru’ to fool gullible natives, but fundamentally it remains manicured lawns, print frocks, and, “More tea, vicar?”
Though there was attempted infiltration by Wokies. So maybe now it’s, “Pour your own tea, you myth-peddling, white supremacist running-dog of imperialism”.
Note, “National Trust Cymru and Natural Resources Wales have come together with support from Welsh Government to secure the estate’s future.” This, I assume, means financial support.
But why should the ‘Welsh Government’ pay a wealthy organisation like the National Trust anything to take over an asset from which the NT is guaranteed to make money?
Any payment should have been by the National Trust to the ‘Welsh Government’, which is entrusted with getting the best possible value from the disposal of publicly-owned assets.
And there was no mention of the HT trustees. Though a few other people are mentioned.
First, there’s Lhosa Daly, the “Interim Director of National Trust Cymru”.
Then there’s Clare Pillman, chief executive of Natural Resources Wales. She has a fascinating background, and has been involved in numerous extravaganzas of the ‘Rule Britannia’ variety.
Finally, speaking for the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ we have, “Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, Dawn Bowden“. Which a correspondent thought was odd, wondering why it wasn’t someone with an environmental or conservation portfolio.
He has a point. But after a bit of digging, it all became clear. Certainly after seeing Daly’s Twitter account.
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Daly is a solicitor, and has been chair of the Bristol branch of the Institute of Directors. She first came to Wales in September 2018 to work for the National Trust as assistant director of operations for South Wales.
She gives as her location on Twitter, “Western Gateway”. Which seems to have begun life as a ‘Sub-national Transport Body’ for local authorities in south west England, but has somehow morphed into a plan for a cross-border “powerhouse”.
In other words, the Greater Bristol Region.
Daly was appointed to the Western Gateway board just over a year ago. Which I find interesting. For she joins the Greater Bristol gang and then she’s made head of the National Trust in Wales. Are these appointments connected?
I ask because I’m sure the National Trust in Wales will be one of the bodies contributing to the development of the ‘Western Gateway’, ostensibly speaking for Wales.
Which hat will Lhosa Daly be wearing?
Oh, I almost forgot, she would also have the option of wearing her Wales Arts Council hat.
I’m certain Ms Daly lives in Bristol. Which is fitting, because Dawn Bowden, the Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, who has been instrumental in the deal for the NT to take over Hafod, is also from Bristol.
Did Bowden and Lhosa Daly know each other before the discussions over the Hafod Estate? And if it wasn’t due to the Bristol connection, why was Bowden involved at all? It’s outside her remit.
The map below shows Hafod Estate contains a lot of trees, part of which is said to be a “working forest”. But if Hafod is to be devoted to tourism (which is what the National Trust is all about) will there be a place for a commercial timber operation?
Perhaps not. But as we know, nowadays there are other ways of making money from trees – without touching them! And so I predict that Hafod will prove a nice little earner for the National Trust.
Image OS Maps. Click to open enlarged in separate tab
One of the first acts of a devolved government should have been setting up a Welsh organisation to do the work of the National Trust. A body looking after our heritage, on our behalf, and answering to us, the Welsh people. But the opportunity was spurned.
Which is why, after 23 years of devolution, we are discussing an Englishwoman representing our ‘Welsh Government’; another, Natural Resources Wales; with the two handing over another Welsh treasure to an English organisation run locally by a third Englishwoman.
This is colonialism. And even without the Bristol connection, this reeks of yet another ‘Welsh Government’ gift to a favoured body in a deal done behind closed doors with no pretence of a tendering process.
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LOCAL BENEFITS (WELL, LOCAL TO SOMEWHERE)
The next report also comes from the Cambrian News, and concerns that other enviroshyster money-spinner – wind turbines.
Specifically, a test mast to be erected at Bryn Brawd, the highest point in an area described in the caption accompanying the image used by the CN as being, “on the outskirts of Llanddewi Brefi”.
In fact, it’s quite some distance from the south-eastern suburbs of that metropolis lying between Cwmann and Tregaron.
Image OS Maps. Click to open enlarged in separate tab
On the plus side, the company involved is Waun Maenllwyd Wind Energy Hub Ltd. Probably a Welsh company. Phew!
One of them, BPUWL 16 Ltd, also changed its name in March, to Craig y Geifr Wind Energy Hub Ltd. It shares the Bristol office address, and officers, with Maenllwyd Wind Energy Hub Ltd.
From what I’ve learnt, Craig y Geifr is a ridge or an escarpment between Nant-y-Moel in the Ogwr Valley and Pentre in the Rhondda.
Image: Bing Maps. Click to open enlarged in separate tab
And it looks to be quite a beautiful area. A reminder of what our southern valleys were like before industrialisation.
Seeing as there are plantations close to Craig y Geifr, I assume that the land is owned by Natural Resources Wales. As for Bryn Brawd, I’m not sure. Unfortunately, the Land Registry offers no help.
So let’s focus on the two companies, Waun Maenllwyd Wind Energy Hub Ltd and Craig y Geifr Wind Energy Hub Ltd. What can the Companies House website tell us?
Now pay attention, because this may not be easy to follow.
When we click on the ‘People’ tab, and then, ‘Persons with significant control‘, we bring up the name, Belltown Power UK Wind Ltd. When we find the entry for this company, and go through the same procedure, we bring up Foresight Belltown UK Wind Development Ltd.
Averon Park has three directors. One is Philip Lloyd-Jones, described as ‘adviser’. The name is Welsh, so I got to wondering. And I found a solicitor of that name in Mold. Though since early in 2018 the practice has been part of Gamlins.
Having received so much bad publicity over the trees scam it looks as if Foresight might be switching to wind farms. But staying in Wales because those assholes in Corruption Bay are such a pushover.
But of course Foresight only manage other people’s money. In the case of the two windfarms we’ve looked at, the clue as to whose money it could be might be found in the ‘Belltown’ element of the names.
Because I suspect that Foresight has linked up with Belltown Power, a company now based in London but founded by US citizen Michael Joshua Kaplan.
I can’t tell you much more about this company, I certainly couldn’t find a website, only various company profiles. What I do know is that it’s linked to Foresight, it was based in Bristol, though one entry gives an address in Mold.
Now who do we know in Mold? Thinks . . .
The accounts for y/e April 1, 2021 show ‘Plant and Machinery’ valued at £53,672,808 (before depreciation). That kind of money is not to be sniffed at.
Click to open enlarged in separate tab
How come we haven’t heard of this great Welsh success story?
I’ll spare you another twisty-turny route, but ultimate ownership of Awel Newydd Cyf rests with Stephen George Geddes, who’s married to Clarissa vom Hagen-Plettenberg, is the grandson of the 1st Baron Geddes, and great-grandson of Archduchess Maria Christina of Austria.
Takes me back to fin de siècle Vienna! You should have seen me in my hussars uniform! Waltzing the night away.
That may all have come crashing down in 1918, but over a hundred years later we find Hapsburg descendants exploiting us!
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Staying with Foresight, it seems they’re busy across Wales.
These links tell they’re in league with Tilhill Forestry and Coleg Cambria Llysfai in the north east. But Foresight is based in the Shard! Those working for Foresight don’t know one bloody tree from another. But here they are burnishing their environmental credentials by paying Tilhill to give courses.
There’s even a video!
And Foresight seems to be embedded in the ‘Welsh Government’, for the name crops up everywhere in WG publications. Such as here (page 22).
Finally, and most worryingly of all, Foresight is allowed to brainwash young children. Here they are, again collaborating with Tilhill, using kids from Talyllychau to plant trees on a farm Foresight has bought!
Did Carmarthenshire education authority know about this insulting bullshit? What the hell was the teacher thinking to allow the kids in his care to be brainwashed by a company buying up local farms?
And have you heard of a ‘seed portfolio transaction‘? No, nor me. But that’s the kind of business Foresight is doing at Banc Farm, where those kids were exploited.
There’s more information here. It looks as if money is being made by Foresight before the trees are even planted.
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‘PSSST, I GOT A GREAT IDEA’
At a recent gathering of the Honourable Company of Magic Bean Salesmen many toasts were drunk to the ‘Welsh Government’ and associated bodies.
Hardly surprising when we recall how many schemes of dubious merit (I will say no more than that!) have received funding in Wales. A new one came to my attention a few weeks ago.
Here’s a report showing Julie James, Environment Minister in the ‘Welsh Government’ looking interested in magic wallpaper that it’s claimed can replace radiators as a source of heat. James should be interested because her lot are funding this project for Melin Homes in Torfaen.
“Do it come in a nice red flock? Cos our tŷ bach is cowin’ freezin’ in the winter. Send some round to my office, love”. Click to open enlarged in separate tab
So who is the lucky recipient of this ‘Welsh Government’ largesse? The company mentioned is NextGen. So, you know me . . .
The sole director is Clive David Osborne. Yet in all the reports on the ‘magic wallpaper’ his name was never mentioned, just the incomplete and misleading name of his company. So what’s his record?
I’ve drawn up a list of companies he’s been involved with in recent years. There have been others, but I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt that he played a minor role in their demise.
I’ve included Crush Holdings because it may link with something else I’ll be telling you.
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With so many failures I began to wonder how he kept the wolf (re-introduced to Berkshire in a rewilding project) from his door. The answer may be provided by the Paradise Papers.
For Clive David Osborne is linked to an enterprise in Malta. An island where just about anything goes. “You want an EU passport, Mr Putin? No problemo”. “You want an annoying blogger whacked? Leave it to us”.
It tells us that Osborne is director, secretary, and judicial representative for Mosta Electronics Centre on Constitution Street in the town of Mosta. Though the website only mentions founder, Joseph Zerata.
The Mosta Electronics emporium in Mosta, Malta. Click to open enlarged in separate tab
So what is the connection between Clive David Osborne and the Mosta Electronics Centre? I can’t know for sure, but one possibility might take us back to his flirtation with those Sons of Nippon.
For a bloke in the pub told me it’s possible to buy equipment online that can access satellite TV, for free, and that this equipment can be had from certain Mediterranean islands where rules about such things are somewhat lax.
Alternatively, and seeing as Mosta Electronics sells Chinese brands such as (the German-sounding) Haier, maybe this ‘magic wallpaper’ technology comes from the land of the Uyghur concentration camps. A country whose most noteworthy contribution to humanity in recent years has been Covid.
Whatever the answer, we know enough about Clive David Osborne to ask why the hell Melin Homes let him in the door, and why the ‘Welsh Government’ is funding his ‘magic wallpaper’.
I look forward to hearing the answers.
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ISLAND IN THE SUN
The Conservative and Unionist Party MP for Ynys Môn is Virginia Crosbie, and she’s appeared on this blog in the recent past. This was when Covid first hit and questions were being asked about where she was living, and whether she was breaking lockdown.
Similar questions were asked of her friend and parliamentary colleague, Jake Berry, who owns a number of properties in the constituency she represents. Questions were also being asked about his movements during the pandemic.
Just type their names into the search box to get more information.
Let me make clear that I was against the proposed Wylfa B because the construction phase would have damaged a fragile cultural identity, and that’s without considering the strain that would be put on local infrastructure and housing by thousands of workers, almost all of whom would come from outside of Wales.
But I am not opposed to nuclear in principle, and there are smaller options to Wylfa B.
Previously known as Lightsource Renewable Investments Ltd, and then Lightsource Renewable Energy Investments Ltd, the ‘BP’ was added in February 2018 when BP Alternative Energy Investments Ltd (formerly BP Biofuels UK Ltd) took over.
Fossil fuel giant BP getting into renewables is the most obvious kind of greenwash.
But don’t get me wrong, old Jac’s got nothing against oil and gas, because I’ve still got enough operational grey matter to know that we can’t live well without them, whether there’s a war in eastern Europe or not.
What’s more, I know who’s pushing us towards expensive and unreliable alternatives to oil, gas, coal, and nuclear. And I know why they’re doing it. They are not friends of Western society.
If the ‘Welsh Government’, and our local authorities, were sincere in their commitment to the environment, they’d tell BP and all the other enviroshysters to reduce their carbon footprint rather than cover good land with wind turbines, solar farms, and sterile, monoculture forests.
But that would deny our politicians the opportunities they crave to ponce around and posture, claiming to be saving the planet.
Because that’s what it’s all about – political posturing.
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MAASAI RESISTANCE
Let me draw your attention to something happening in east Africa. As I understand it, the Tanzanian government has agreed to enclose land for ‘reserves’ on which Gulf royals can go trophy shooting.
There are so many wrong things bundled up in what I’ve just written. But no doubt a great deal of money changed hands.
Wouldn’t it be great if shyster greenwashers and land-grabbing ‘environmentalists’ got that kind of reception in Wales!
The international message: This land is our land!
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GILESTONE UPDATE
Finally, a few weeks ago, in Green Man, Red Herring?, I reported on the curious business of the ‘Welsh Government’ paying £4.25m for Gilestone Farm, at Talybont-on-Usk.
The purchase was allegedly made for the Green Man festival . . . which said it had no intention of relocating from the Glanusk Estate, had not submitted a business plan, and seemed almost as surprised as the rest of us by the news of its good fortune.
It confirms there was no tendering process to invite bids from others who might have been interested, no business plan has been received from Green Man, but the purchase was still made on solid economic grounds. Absolutely absurd!
Previous owners of the land had stressed to me that while the farm was indeed valuable, the real value lies in the substantial deposits of sand and gravel on which the farm sits.
So in my FoI I asked who now holds the mineral rights to the land.
The question was not answered, on the grounds that the information is available elsewhere. Which would be true if the details of the recent purchase were available on the Land Registry website. But for whatever reason, the most recent title register available lists the sale in 2010.
So, really, I know little more than I’d already learnt from my own enquiries.
The purchase of Gilestone Farm is yet another deal done with public money, in secret, by an administration that is out of control, out of its depth, and no longer cares what people think.
Retirement remains the ambition. That said, this post is produced in the hope of drawing attention to developments in one locality that may link with wider, national concerns.
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‘Y FOEL’
Today’s piece took wing with the article you see below. It appeared in last Thursday’s Daily Post. A strange piece in a number of ways; not least because the more I read it the less sure I was of what it was trying to say.
One thing’s for sure – it has little to do with slate landscapes.
Image 1: Click to open enlarged in separate tab
To begin with, the article tells us that the land in question ‘lies south of Conwy’. Which indeed it does; but the same could be said of Cape Town. Actually, it’s quite a way from Conwy, but just a few miles east of Blaenau Ffestiniog. So why use Conwy as a reference point?
The proximity to Blaenau is evidenced by the fact that the land we’ll be looking at contains a few old slate quarry workings. Which gave the writer the excuse to tell us that back in the industry’s heyday, ‘Wales was known as “the place that roofed the world”‘. ‘The place’!
Then, there’s the ownership. The opening paragraph talks of the land ‘being brought into the care of National Trust Cymru’. Does that mean the NT has bought the land? Is it merely looking after the land?
Finally, another possible cause of confusion are the references to ‘Y Foel’. The area we’re looking for is actually, and variously, called, ‘Foel Marchyrau’, ‘Foel Marcherau’, or even – according to the Land Registry – ‘Moel Marchyria’. Whatever you choose to call it, this area lies not far from the hamlet of Cwm Penmachno.
So who wrote the piece?
Well, it wasn’t anyone at the Daily Post. The article came from the National Trust’s website. Here’s the link. It’s a sad indictment of our media when a full-page news story turns out to be a copy and paste job.
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THE TREASURY TAKETH AWAY AND THE TREASURY GIVETH
I suppose my interest was piqued when I read, in paragraph 5: ‘It is estimated that the site could lock up over 350,000 tonnes of carbon once restored, the equivalent of taking almost 80,000 cars off the road for a year’.
This mention of the ‘Ysbyty Estate‘ reminds us that the National Trust is a major landowner in Wales. This sizeable chunk of our country was passed to the Trust in 1951 by the Treasury, which had received it in lieu of death duties.
(What a metaphor for Wales’ relationship with England.)
Don’t mention ‘Penrhyn’ to the Wokies! Click to open enlarged in separate tab
In the hope of getting a clearer picture of what is planned for these 1,600 acres I e-mailed the National Trust and Natural Resources Wales. Both were helpful.
From the National Trust I learnt that it will be working with Natural Resources Wales, the RSPB, the Snowdonia National Park, locals and busybody retirees, to ‘restore’ Y Foel to a more eco-friendly habitat.
But this will not be done at the expense of farming. For we read in the piece we started with that the land ‘will continue to be grazed by sheep and cattle’.
In its response, Natural Resources Wales wrote:
‘We are committed to carrying on the good work and are in regular discussions with National Trust regarding . . . the Cwm Penmachno area. These opportunities have been enhanced now Natural (sic) Trust have purchased y Foel which surrounds a forest block we manage on behalf of Welsh Government.’
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QUESTIONS
So from Natural Resources Wales we learn that the National Trust has bought Y Foel. And the NT then confirmed it with: ‘The Trust has acquired farmland called Foel from the late Miss O.M. Williams, Freehold.’
Later, in the same message, the NT employee wrote: ‘We will also reduce sheep numbers significantly which will allow trees to regenerate naturally across the ffridd and mountain’.
But wait! The piece in the Daily Post said the land, ‘will continue to be grazed by sheep and cattle’, there was no mention of numbers being ‘significantly’ reduced.
To understand the background to, or the justification for, what’s being done in the Cwm Penmachno area, this video below might help.
In a nutshell, drainage ditches cut into peat deposits have lessened the amount of rainwater the peat can retain. With the problem exacerbated by embankments built by farmers to protect their land and livestock from flooding.
These combine to interfere with natural flooding and send more water down Afon Conwy to afflict communities like Llanrwst.
There can be little argument with saving Llanrwst and other communities from flooding.
But when terms like ‘climate change’ and ‘climate crisis’ are introduced, and used in conjunction with the promise of less grazing, and this comes with talk of carbon capture, then I think we need to be alert.
Image 3: From the National Trust website. Does it refer to a very localised ‘climate crisis’? Click to open enlarged in separate tab
The report in the Shropshire Star – a daily newspaper that circulates widely in central Wales (though of course the jobs and the money stay in Shrewsbury) – certainly gave prominence to the climate change / carbon capture aspects of the story.
Though to judge by the photographs used by the Star they were more confused than me as to the location of ‘Y Foel’. But take my word for it, boys and girls – it definitely doesn’t overlook the Dyfi estuary.
Image 4: Click to open enlarged in separate tab
One more thing, Shropshire Star; the highest mountain in Belgium and Wales is not called ‘Mount Snowdon’. Ever.
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THOUGHTS
Let’s go back to the ownership of Y Foel. It seems the National Trust bought the property following the death of Miss Olwen Mai Williams in April, 2018. Described in her obituary as the last of the Foel Marcherau family.
Though according to the Land Registry Miss Williams is still the owner of two titles bearing that name.
Image 5: Ordnance Survey. Click to open enlarged in separate tab
The first is for, ‘Foel Machyrau’. Scroll down to the plan and you’ll see that this title appears to cover the farmhouse, outbuildings and land nearby. The neighbour to the north east is Carrog, mentioned in Image 2, and belonging to the National Trust.
The second Foel title is for, ‘Land lying to the south of Foel Marcherau’. Comparing the OS map on the left with the Land Registry plan on the right, you’ll see that it makes an obvious extension to the existing woodland managed by Natural Resources Wales.
Image 6: Click to open enlarged in separate tab
But then I uncovered a third Land Registry title for ‘Land at Foel Marcherau’. (Unfortunately there’s no plan available.) I have redacted the owners’ names, but both are Williams; one lives in Carmarthenshire, the other in the West Midlands.
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Putting it all together the cynic in me thinks, ‘Well, if flooding in Llanrwst is caused by peat loss and levees upstream, then dealing with those issues will solve the problem?’
The fact that so much more is planned leads to me to suspect that this extra work, additional to peat restoration and embankment removal, serves a wider agenda.
I mean, is re-forestation an activity we normally associate with the National Trust? Then, there’s the close co-operation between Natural Resources Wales and the National Trust. Almost a partnership.
Among other things, Natural Resources Wales looks after the public forestry estate, and is (nominally, at least) answerable to the ‘Welsh Government’. Yet Corruption Bay has no control at all over the National Trust.
The article I’ve linked to says that farmers and commoners are being consulted all the way, but local sources say they’re being ignored, as ‘Welsh Government’ pushes through its carbon capture plans at the expense of another Welsh community.
No matter how it’s portrayed, what we see at Cwm Penmachno, Abergwesyn and elsewhere seems to be the National Trust muscling in on the carbon capture racket.
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CONCLUSIONS
I have never been happy with the National Trust owning so much of Wales. It’s currently 50,000 hectares, with the size of the NT estate growing year on year.
Yet there’s nothing Welsh about the Trust. Adding ‘Cymru’ can’t hide how alien it is, and how Wales is viewed as little more than a region . . . of England, presumably. It’s just window dressing. Done to please the easily pleased.
There is only the National Trust, with income of £508,000,000 a year. Its remit: ‘To look after places of historic interest or natural beauty permanently for the benefit of the nation across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.’
Just a few miles to the north of Cwm Penmachno is Tŷ Mawr, Wybrnant, home to Bishop William Morgan, who, in the late sixteenth century, translated the Bible into Welsh.
It would be difficult to over-estimate how important his work was to standardising and safeguarding the Welsh language. To proving that the Welsh language was no crude patois. And to confirming our status as a nation.
But Tŷ Mawr is owned by the National Trust. The same National Trust that believes we are not a nation. Let’s be honest here – the National Trust in Wales is just fleece jacket colonialism.
The English National Trust should have been replaced with a Welsh body soon after we entered the era of devolution. But devolution has been a disappointment in so many ways. Especially for us Welsh.
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THE ONLY WAY FOWARD
Let’s consider the options available to Welsh voters. Then you’ll understandable why the National Trust and other ineffably English organisations can so easily exploit Wales.
Unionists, especially those of the Right, will never object to England owning Wales; be it on an individual level, a corporate level, or of course, the national level.
Their commitment to Wales is entirely superficial. And conditional upon Wales being part of the Union. A Union that benefits only England.
On the Left, both Unionists and those claiming to want independence, reject the working class – the greater part of the nation – in order to impose ‘diversity’, support a parasitic third sector, and cheer a ‘Welsh Government’ throwing money at Stonewall.
These are now wedded to passing fancies that demand they engage in combat with ‘fascists’, ‘racists’, ‘climate deniers’, ‘transphobes’, ‘terfs’, and other figments of their easily-manipulated imaginations.
Yet this bizarre alliance, supporters of colonialism on the one hand and wokie clowns on the other, fight over ‘Welsh Government’ policy. To the detriment of the Welsh people.
Tourism is a subject I’ve written about more than once, and so I think my views are pretty well known. But in case anyone’s failed to get the message . . . tourism in Wales is exploitive, tasteless, disruptive, damaging to Welsh identity and culture, destructive of our physical environment, and far too little of the wealth it generates reaches Welsh people. Tourism in Wales is one of the more obvious manifestations of colonialism.
Which is why I was encouraged to read this morning about Eryri in future being treated with “respect”. Remarkably, this is the very word I have used in my previous criticisms of the damage being done to the area by crude and exploitive tourism.
The word was used by Helen Pye, the Snowdonia National Park’s former head warden for Snowdon who is now manager of the Snowdon Partnership, a group representing various interests that has produced a draft plan for the area which invites comments. It’s a fascinating document and I urge you all to read it, and to submit your comments before Friday’s deadline.
The document tells us, for example, that Snowdon is a “national asset” . . . without stating which nation is being referred to. But as it goes on to say, ” . . . the most visited mountain in the UK.” it’s reasonable to assume that we are here discussing the mythic UKish nation.
A remarkable, and worrying, statistic may be found on page 20, which tells us that between 2013 and 2015 the percentage of first-time hill walkers attempting Yr Wyddfa doubled from 10% to 20%. Which no doubt contributes to some of the more alarming statistics found elsewhere in the report.
Page 43 bears out my criticism of tourism providing low-wage and seasonal employment, and contributing little to the overall economy of an area, with: “Tourism to Yr Wyddfa is estimated to contribute £69m of economic benefit per annum. There are low rates of full-time employment and low median wages in the Park”.
Though my spirits were briefly raised when I read, on page 48,“Invasive species are being controlled”, under the “Where do we want to be by 2030?” heading . . . only to realise that the draft was not referring to tourists.
All of which can be grouped under the ‘Playground Wales’ umbrella. Organisations which insist that attracting unsustainable numbers of tourists, and encouraging many to settle, has no damaging consequences for Welsh identity, social cohesion, and the natural environment.
Not a lot different to tobacco companies back in the ’60s and ’70s arguing that cigarettes were not harmful to health. If you have a vested interested in denying what it is becoming clear to everyone else then that’s what you do . . . and just hope you get away with it.
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TREN BACH YR WYDDFA
After writing the name I got to wondering a bit more about the Snowdon Mountain Railway, which not only owns the train to the summit but also runs the cafe close by the summit.
Reading the website one of the first things that struck me about the early days of the railway was the almost total absence of Welsh involvement. This was all happening in spite of us, or over our heads. But then, that’s colonialism; a whole nation treated as if it has learning difficulties, unable to do anything for itself.
The initial excursion in 1896 of No 1 Ladas, owned by the Snowdon Mountain Tramroad and Hotels Company Ltd, was not a great success, for the train left the track. Fortunately there was just one fatality, Ellis Griffith Roberts of Llanberis.
This episode is so wonderfully emblematic of ‘Welsh’ tourism. Not only were those making the money English, even the driver of the derailed train, William Pickles, was brought in from Yorkshire (with his nephew to serve as fireman). And as is the case 120 years later, it’s the Welsh who suffer.
The company number quoted on the website is 00042476 which, when typed into the Companies House site, takes us here. We can see that this company is based in Liverpool, and has been dormant for many years. Not only that, but since 2001 the company has got by without auditors. (You’ll note that this decision was taken at a meeting in Ripon, North Yorkshire. Perhaps in deference to Will Pickles and his nephew.)
Which means that one of Wales’ major tourism enterprises is run by an unaudited, dormant company. So who owns this outfit? Well, the answer seems to be, according to this document, that the shares – all 1,803,690 (10p shares) – are owned by Heritage Great Britain PLC of the same Liverpool address.
Heritage Great Britain plc is a holding company and we are also told that, “The Group undertakes the operation of various landmark and other day visitor attractions situated in the Isle of Wight, Cornwall, North Wales, and holiday accommodation in Scotland through a joint venture”.
So who owns Heritage Great Britain plc? According to this document, as at 5 April 2016 all 5,213,371 £1 shares are held by Cherberry Ltd. Which is where the trail almost goes dead. Because if you type ‘Cherberry Ltd’ into the Companies House website you draw a blank . . . for Cherberry was registered in May 1996 in Jersey.
Naturally – you know me, nosey bastard! – I went to the website of the Jersey Financial Services Commission to see what I could learn about Cherberry Ltd . . . which was not a lot. Other than the fact that the trail goes on to Dukla Ltd of Gibraltar, as set out in this document. The Dukla Articles of Association are dated August 2015. Having paid out £4 for the Jersey documents I was in no mood to splash out more than thirty quid a time for the Gibraltar docs.
And even if I’d bought some Gibraltar documents then I might have found that they led on to the Caymans or the British Virgin Islands. Which raises a few questions.
Hafod Eryri. All the architectural charm of a public urinal from communist East Germany
First, the Snowdon Mountain Railway Ltd leases the cafe at the summit, Hafod Eryri, from the Snowdonia National Park. This ‘visitor centre’ opened 12 June 2009 and was built at considerable cost. Given who owns it it’s safe to assume that a great deal of public funding was involved. How do those funders – probably using your money and mine – feel about this publicly-funded asset now being leased to a company based God knows where?
Second, the Snowdonia Mountain Railway ferries a few hundred thousand people between Llanberis and the summit every year. In the event of an accident, how easy would it be to hold to account a company we’ve traced to Gibraltar, a company that through yet more changes of name and ownership may ultimately be located even further afield?
Are Cyngor Gwynedd and the ‘Welsh’ Government satisfied that adequate insurance is in place to cover all eventualities? Satisfied that culpability can be apportioned and justice satisfied when the guilty party or parties may be beyond UK jurisdiction?
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DRAMATIS PERSONAE
The principal characters in the Snowdon Mountain Railway, in the forms of the three current directors are, Gary Johnson, Allan James Stuart Leech and Peter Miles Johnson-Treherne; the last of whom can be founded listed on other documents as Peter Treherne or Peter Johnson-Treherne.
The same three crop up running the Snowdon Mountain Tramroad and Hotels Company Ltd (where Gary Johnson now becomes Gary Andrew Johnson). You’ll remember that this is the name of the company for which the luckless William Pickles and his nephew worked back in 1896. (Though of course they were lucky compared to poor Ellis Griffith Roberts.) So what does this company do?
In a word, nothing, for it became dormant almost from the date of its Incorporation on 22 May 2013. And as we read in the Annual Report and Accounts dated 31 January 2014, “The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Heritage Great Britain plc which is registered in England and Wales. The ultimate parent company, Cherberry Ltd, is registered in Jersey . . . “.
Something that puzzled me was, given the ages of the three I’ve named, and their relatively late entrances, who was running the show before they got involved? Part of the answer came from the former directors of the Snowdon Mountain Railway Ltd, for among them I found the information below.
Kevin Ronald Leech (born August 1943) is probably the father of current director Allan James Stuart Leech (born October 1972). Leech Senior’s Jersey address is the same address given for Cherberry Ltd.
UPDATE 04.07.2017: I am indebted to Simon Hillman for providing (in a comment below) more information on Kevin Leech. I suggest you read this Telegraph article from October 2002 and this Guardian piece from January 2014. This is the man who might still own the Snowdon Mountain Railway through a network of offshore companies, and the man to whom the Snowdonia National Park has leased Hafod Eryri. Cause for concern.
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RESPECT HAS TO BE EARNED
The fundamental problem exposed here is one we find in other parts of Wales, and indeed, around the world. To wit: A beautiful area attracts tourists, the more tourists that come, the more degraded and less beautiful that area becomes. This combination of tourism and degradation is unavoidable.
Among those refusing to concede this universal truth we may find some denying that there is a limit to how many tourists an area can accommodate, especially when they don’t live in the area and run their businesses through offshore companies.
If Ms Pye and her Snowdon Partnership are serious about showing respect for Yr Wyddfa then the answer is simple: rather than searching for the alchemist’s stone of attracting a limitless number of tourists and expecting them to cause no harm, accept that the problem is too many tourists and start limiting the numbers.
By all means encourage responsible walkers to ascend the mountain, but for God’s sake don’t make it easy for every lazy bastard to get there on a bloody railway – and then encourage them to fill their fat faces in the cafe at the top!
So make a start by demolishing the pissoir at the peak, after all, this is owned by the Snowdonia National Park Authority and was paid for from the Welsh public purse. With the visitor centre gone there’ll be less incentive for the obese and the idle to get the train to the summit.
If money was found for the carbuncle now desecrating the skyline then money can be found to buy out the Snowdon Mountain Railway, by compulsory purchase if necessary. Once bought, the rolling stock can be flogged off and the tracks torn up to restore Yr Wyddfa to something approaching its natural state.
Anything less is simply tinkering with the problem; so if that’s what’s happening then don’t build people’s hopes up by using words like ‘respect’. Use the word that I fear already describes the Snowdon Partnership and its draft plan – fudge.
Keeping tabs on the incestuous, grant-fuelled world of the Welsh heritage industry could be a full-time job in itself. It seems there is no end to the number of charitable trusts set up to take advantage of the funding available ostensibly to rescue this or that old ruin or building, with some familiar names cropping up here, there and everywhere, often with tenuous links to our country and its people.
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A linguistic digression
Anyone who lives and works in more than one language and has given the matter some thought will tell you that, depending on which language they use, the world can sometimes look rather different. This is often true of conceptual words, for example.
Watching debates in county councils sometimes brings this into sharp focus. One side or the other will table a motion (cynnig = offer, proposal in Welsh). Opponents may then try to change or wreck it by tabling an amendment. In Welsh, that’s a gwelliant (=improvement).
By no means all amendments are a gwelliant.
In English the vast majority of conceptual words are derived from Latin or Greek. Heritage, perhaps appropriately in this context, comes down to us from Norman French and means something you have inherited.
You could inherit a property in Australia or downtown Manhattan without ever having set foot in either place, and your good fortune would be down to luck of the draw and the legal system.
In Welsh the word is treftadaeth, and if we break that word down, as children are encouraged to do at school, we get tref (place/homestead) + tad (father) + aeth, a suffix which very roughly means ‘something to do with’. In other words, places linked to your forebears, an idea not a million miles removed from hen wlad fy nhadau.
The difference between the legalistic connotations of the Norman French and the Welsh word, rooted in real people and places, goes to the heart of the debate which has been raging on the pages of this blog.
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Ystrad Fflur
To its credit, the Ceredigion Herald picked up on the recent piece on this blog about plans to ‘enhance the visitor experience’ at Ystrad Fflur and help locals to ‘enhance senses of their own identity and wellbeing’, whatever that means, and it contacted Professor David Austin.
In response to questions, the professor huffed and puffed at some length about the wonderful nature of the site and was clearly reluctant to go into mundane details about what precisely was being planned and where the money was coming from.
When pressed, he gave answers which left a lot of wriggle room.
The Strata Florida Trust has acquired the farmhouse, he said, not mentioning the buildings which cluster around it (although the trust’s website says it has acquired those too).
The money had come from a private donation, and he was not prepared to say more on that subject.
The Acanthus Holden plan (the exclusive hotel with attached visitor centre) was to have been financed privately, but had now been ditched.
What happened to the £200,000 donation CHRT received to buy the buildings at Mynachlog Fawr therefore remains a mystery.
Plans, also shrouded in mystery, to develop the old farm, would be financed by a variety of means, he explained:
“There is other funding available to us, which is not Heritage Lottery Fund money, and we are in the process of finalising the arrangements for the allocation of that money to the Strata Florida Trust.”
That does not quite rule out HLF funding, and raises more questions than it answers.
Who is funding this, and why the secrecy? Is cash-strapped Ceredigion County Council involved, for example?
One of the contributors to comments on the original article about Ystrad Fflur suggested that there might be some form of local consultation. In his interview with the Herald, Professor Austin makes no mention of a consultation, and his website is also silent on the subject.
What we are about to get, it seems, is a fully fledged project for the commercial exploitation of Ystrad Fflur with no public consultation and zero transparency about the details of the development.
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Adfer Ban a Chwm
Adfer Ban a Chwm (ABC), or to give it its more prosaic English name, “Revitalise Hill and Valley”, is another trust, this time registered to an address in trendy Islington, London where Tony and Gordon made their infamous Granita Pact.
Its annual report for the year to 31 March 2015 says that the charity’s objectives “are to preserve for the benefit of the people of Carmarthenshire, Powys, Wales and the Nation” what it terms “constructional heritage”, and in particular the pretty bits.
Presumably “the Nation” is not the same as Wales.
The website expands on this a little, saying that the trust aims to “address the issues of vernacular buildings in rural Wales and the need for affordable housing in the area”.
Adfer Ban a Chwm’s leading light is an architect, Roger Mears, pictured here at what would appear to be the Henley Regatta, old boy:
ABC (it should really be ABCh) was set up eight years ago and appears to have spent most of the period since applying for and receiving grants from, among others, the Brecon Beacon National Park Authority, the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Brecon Beacons Trust, the Community Foundation in Wales and the Quaker Housing Trust. More trusts and foundations than you can shake a stick at, in fact.
It is not at all clear what ABC has actually achieved in those eight years apart from a year of planning, researching and writing a report in 2014-15 and raking in grants.
More grant money came in in May 2016 enabling it to proceed with its Grass Roots Heritage Programme, “a one-year project (the first year of a three-year programme) which we hope will identify buildings that we can turn into affordable homes.”
So after all that time, all that report writing and all those (successful) grant applications, it would seem that not a single building has been restored and not a single affordable home created, although the trust hopes to be able to identify potential candidates by this time next year.
Over the next 12 months, therefore, they will carry out “mapping and community work” in and around Myddfai, Carmarthenshire:
“This information will be used to underpin the next stage of the ABC project, and be broadcast widely in a series of interactive community workshops, where the social history of the buildings will be elaborated by gathering local memories and stories, and where community and student volunteers will learn about how to record old buildings, what to look for and what these buildings have to tell us, how they might be repaired and conserved and turned into affordable homes.”
Helping ABC along the way by working with the trust’s executive director on partnerships has been our old friend, Claire Deacon, CEO of Cambrian Heritage Regeneration Trust, saviour of Llanelly House and the Merthyr YMCA, project director at Mynachlog Fawr, lecturer and consultant, and former conservation officer with the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority.
All in all, then, one of the most successful “Welsh” buildings preservation trusts: loads of grants harvested and no sign of any actual buildings. Perhaps Griff Rhys Jones will turn it into a documentary series.
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Golden Grant
Staying in Carmarthenshire for a moment, let’s take a trip to Gelli Aur (or Golden Grove as some would have it), the former home of the Cawdors near Llandeilo.
The huge late Regency pile has been knocked about a bit and badly neglected since the last of the Cawdors moved out in the 1930s. Carmarthenshire County Council, which had a lease on the place, can take credit for the worst of the damage.
At one time the council and the ever-enthusiastic Meryl Gravell hoped to turn the place into a kind of business incubator for media start-ups. Their chosen partner disappeared with a lot of public money which was never seen again. Ever more exotic investors came and went, until finally the house and 100 acres were sold to a London art dealer, Richard Christopher Salmon.
Salmon has renovated a part of the house and made the roof of the main building weatherproof, but one of his first acts after taking over was to set up a trust.
The Golden Grove Trust, which has no known sources of income, was gifted with a debt of £1.45 million by Mr Salmon, a sum which apparently represents the purchase price of the near derelict house and dilapidated grounds. If that was what he actually paid for this massive liability, someone saw him coming.
The debt is due to be repaid – somehow – to Mr Salmon in just over a year from now.
Filing accounts is clearly not one of Mr Salmon’s favourite activities. The Charity Commission website shows that the 2012-13 accounts were received 583 days late, while the report for 2013-14 was 218 days late. The annual report for 2014-15 is currently 78 days late.
Despite this and the fact that the trust was close to being struck off by the Charity Commission, the charity was last year awarded a grant of just under £1 million by Edwina Hart, Meryl’s old buddy, for the restoration of the park which occupies around 60 of the 100 acres of land and includes, or included (it is difficult to know which tense to use) a public park with a playground, lake, café and arboretum.
The Carmarthenshire Herald reported a couple of weeks ago that there were a growing number of complaints from the public that the park was closing on more and more days, and that public access signs had been removed.
With some difficulty the newspaper managed to track down Mr Salmon who thought, but did not seem very sure, that the closure might have something to do with adverse weather conditions, and concerns of the insurers on health and safety grounds.
Readers in Carmarthenshire may struggle to recall unusually bad weather in recent months, but there you are.
Mr Salmon was clearly not best pleased with critical blog posts and press reports published in 2015, and told the Herald that he could have shut the whole place up and kept it private.
But then Edwina wouldn’t have given him £1 million, would she?
Another one to watch.
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This is a local fund run by local people
“I used to work for Neil Kinnock, you know”
As we have seen, grants are available from all sorts of different bodies, but what the Americans would call the 800 lb gorilla in this jungle is without doubt the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).
The fund’s website lists 2,785 projects which have received funding in Wales. Amounts vary from a couple of hundred pounds, to mammoths such as Cardigan Castle (£6.5 million) and Llanelly House (£3.6 million).
The HLF divides the UK into regions and nations, and each of these has its own committee and permanent head. The head of HLF Wales is someone called Richard Bellamy, whose previous roles include working on the Channel Tunnel, the National Trust, English Nature and Cornwall Council. If he has a connection with Wales, he is keeping quiet about it.
The committee, which decides on applications in Wales, currently has eight members, and according to HLF’s website:
“The committees are made up of local people recruited through open advertisement. Committees are supported by grant-assessment teams based in the relevant region or country.”
In theory, then, anyone can apply. Who selects the successful candidates is not clear, but it clearly helps if you have worked for English Heritage or the National Trust and, ideally, come from somewhere in or near Cardiff.
Chairing the committee is the august personage of Baroness Kay Andrews of Southover OBE. Andrews, who grew up at Ystrad Mynach, was parliamentary clerk in the House of Commons before becoming policy adviser to Neil Kinnock, from where she went on to found and run her own charity, Education Extra.
On elevation to the peerage, Andrews clearly felt so strongly about her Welsh roots that she chose Southover in Sussex for her title, and it is from Sussex that she claims travel expenses when going to the House of Lords.
The HLF’s rule on appointing ‘local people’ to the Welsh Committee does not seem to be taken that seriously, but no doubt there was nobody ‘locally’ up to the job, just as there were no suitable Welsh candidates for the post of Head of HLF Wales.
But we should all be grateful, shouldn’t we?
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Jac says . . . In these recent posts – and, indeed, in the one I’m working on now – we encounter groups and individuals who have hit on a method of subsidising their move to Wales and/or maintaining themselves once they’re here. Human nature being what it is, this is understandable; what is less easy to understand is why these people are being funded.
To explain how this scam system operates . . . let’s say you want to buy and renovate a somewhat dilapidated old house. And let’s say you pay £100,000 for that property knowing that it will cost another £100,000 to restore. That house will therefore cost you £200,000. But that’s a mug’s way of doing things. What those we’re discussing do is buy a property and get someone else to pay for the renovation. Sticking with the same figures, this means that for an outlay of just £100,000 they get a property worth £200,000.
To which you respond, ‘Ah, but Jac, you’ve been on the Malbec again, and it’s making you forget that these are important buildings, of great historical or cultural significance’. I suppress my usual riposte of ‘bollocks!’ to offer the following argument.
If these buildings are indeed of great historic or cultural significance then they should be in public ownership – WELSH public ownership. If they are not of great historic or cultural significance then no public money should be expended, whether directly or in grants to self-appointed ‘heritage trusts’. The worst of all possible options is to have a building or site of genuine national importance privately owned but maintained by public funds.
This is nothing less than submitting to a form of blackmail – ‘This place I own is very important (take my word for it), but if you don’t give me lots of money I’ll let it decay/fall down/ be turned into a burger joint’.
As I and others have argued, Wales needs a new body, answerable to us, the Welsh people, that protects what is important to us and our past with sympathy and respect. A new body to replace the English National Trust, Cadw, and all the strangers in our midst with their grant-grabbing ‘trusts’.
Having followed a series of excellent reports published by Jac related to the custodianship of our nation’s heritage, I should like to return to that telling mission statement of the National Trust for Scotland:-
“Scotland’s rich cultural heritage is not only an invaluable economic and social resource, it is what gives Scotland’s people a sense of belonging and identity; as such it is one of our nation’s most precious assets.” Read it for yourself.
A sense of belonging and identity …
So what are the priorities of the official custodians of our nation’s heritage? And what does that reveal about how they see the Welsh people and their identity?
Just to recap, the most prominent custodians of our nation’s heritage are:-
Cadw sets out its own three-fold mission statement with admirable clarity:-
“We conserve Wales’s heritage.”
“We help people understand and care about their history.”
“We help sustain the distinctive character of Wales.”
Worthy goals but, as we all know, there are mission statements and mission statements. Some provide organizations with clarity of purpose, motivation and a tool for making better decisions and focusing resources. Others are sidestepped and forgotten with the same ease with which they were adopted – in short, a complete waste of time and effort.
Let’s take a look at what Cadw does in practice. Their resourcing priorities, exhibitions and events, educational activities, and interpretation of historical sites, is overwhelmingly skewed towards the Edwardian Conquest castles – Caernarfon, Conwy, Beaumaris, Harlech, Rhuddlan, Criccieth and Flint. These are, after all, the great draws for visiting English tourists, and for UK Lottery grants.
Furthermore, in its interpretation of historical sites, Cadw presents a very one-sided view of Welsh history. The significance of the conquest castles was encapsulated by Thomas Pennant in 1772 when he described Caernarfon Castle as “the most magnificent badge of our subjection”. It is for this reason that some have questioned whether CADW’s name was in fact an acronym for “Celebrate All Defeats of the Welsh”.
Cadw fails utterly, for example, to link the construction of the conquest castles with the corresponding systematic looting and destruction of all of the sites, structures and artefacts associated with sovereign and independent Welsh power and authority – Aberconwy Abbey (the mausoleum of the Princes of Gwynedd), the royal “llys” at Aberffraw, the Welsh regalia including the “Talaith” (coronet) and “Y Groes Naid” (the sacred relic believed to be a fragment of the True Cross).
Harlech Castle
So what is the aspect of the Welsh identity that Cadw seeks to present, in order to foster our nation’s understanding of our history and distinctive character? Subjection. English overlordship. The futility of aspiring to our own national destiny.
The secondary areas of focus for Cadw appear to be the castles of the Marches, those bastions of alien encroachment. Chepstow, Monmouth, Skenfrith, Grosmont, Tretower, Montgomery, Oxwich, Weobley, Kidwelly, Llansteffan, Cilgerran. Again, these are presented in a sanitized manner that utterly disregards the centuries of racial segregation of Englishries and Welshries, of penal laws excluding the Welsh from holding offices, or living, trading or owning property in the boroughs developed for English colonists under the protection of those castles.
Meanwhile, the recent article highlighting the “Powis” Castle experience showed how uninterested and ill-equipped the National Trust is to foster an understanding in our nation of our own history and distinctive character. The National Trust perpetuates the 19th century taxonomic convention: “For Wales, see England”.
For the National Trust, any historical interpretation of its sites beyond the superficial Downton Abbey upstairs-downstairs world of Anglo-gentry of the 18th and 19th centuries and their anonymous native servants falls well outside their comfort zone. This is the context in which their sites at Newton House (Dinefwr), Penrhyn Castle, Llanerchaeron and Tredegar are presented.
To illustrate further the stupendous bias of the custodians of our nation’s heritage in presenting our history, I have started to gather a list of the most neglected (or misrepresented) sites of primary importance in the history of Wales, focusing on sites that pre-date the Acts of Union (or Penal Assimilation Acts) of the 1530s.
Here is the list that I have gathered to date:-
Sycharth (“Llys Owain Glyndŵr“). This was the birthplace and home of Owain Glyndŵr, our last Welsh Prince of Wales, and the subject of Iolo Goch’s famous poem. The buildings were destroyed by Harry of Monmouth (later Henry V, King of England) in 1403. For a description of the shameful neglect of this site today, I commend this article.
Church of SS. Mael and Sulien, Corwen. The dedication to two Welsh saints of the 6th century indicates that this lovely 14th century building is located on the site of a church foundation of great antiquity. This is believed to have been the location where Owain Glyndŵr was acclaimed as the true and rightful Prince of Wales on 16 September 1400 in the presence of Ieuan Trefor, Bishop of St. Asaph. It is this event that elevates this site to one of primary importance in the history of our nation, and the proper focal point for annual celebrations of Owain Glyndŵr Day (Sept 16).
Acclamation of Glyndŵr
Church of St Peter ad Vincula, Pennal (Gwynedd). The church was founded in the 6th century, but was so re-named and dedicated by Owain Glyndŵr, Prince of Wales, in competition with the chapel of St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London, one of the chapels royal of his rival, Henry IV, King of England. Pennal was regarded with honour because of its status as one of the 21 llysoedd, the courts of the true Welsh Princes of Gwynedd. The real significance of this site stems from it being the location of the parliament at which Owain Glyndŵr set out his policy programme for the independent state of Wales, recorded in the famous “Pennal Letter” addressed to Charles VI, King of France. The enlightened policies which he expounded included establishing two universities in Wales, one in the North and one in the South, ending the subjection of the metropolitan church of St. David (St. David’s Cathedral) to Canterbury, re-establishing the independence of the Welsh Church, and ending oppression “by the fury of the barbarous Saxons”.
Bryn Glas (Pilleth) battlefield. The battle, which was fought on 22 June 1402, near the towns of Knighton and Presteigne (Powys), was one of the greatest Welsh victories against an English army in the open field. It paved the way for a truly national rising in Wales, the establishment of an independent state ruled by Owain Glyndŵr, our last Welsh Prince of Wales, and the alliance with France. The battle also provoked punitive expeditions by Henry IV (King of England) that were marked by many acts of brutality and rape.
Aberffraw “Llys/Maerdref”. This is the site of the “llys” (royal court) of the Kingdom of Gwynedd, from the 9th to 12th century, and symbolic throne of the Kings of Gwynedd until the 13th century Wars of Independence. The Llys was dismantled in 1315 to provide building materials for nearby Beaumaris Castle.
Aberffraw
Abergwyngregyn. This site, surrounded by the most majestic scenery, was the seat of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Prince of Wales, and location of his brother Dafydd’s capture by the English invaders in 1283. Abergwyngregyn is also the setting for “Siwan”, Saunders Lewis’s masterpiece of Welsh language drama based on the marriage of Siwan/Joan (daughter of the King of England) and Llywelyn the Great, Prince of Wales.
Aberconwy Abbey (pre-conquest site). On this site a Cistercian house was developed under the patronage of Llywelyn the Great and his successors. This was the burial place of Llywelyn the Great, his sons Dafydd and Gruffudd. It was also seat of “Y Groes Naid” kept by the kings of Gwynedd, the sacred relic believed to be a fragment of the True Cross, expropriated by the English (with the “Talaith” and other Welsh regalia) in 1283 and removed to London. In an act of deliberate symbolism, Edward I (King of England) destroyed this mausoleum of the princes of Gwynedd following the Wars of Independence in order to build his own castle on the site where the abbey had stood.
Coffin of Llywelyn Fawr (now in St Grwst’s, Llanrwst)
When will our nation have worthy custodians of our own historical, architectural and cultural heritage? When will the official custodians accept and apply the guiding principle in of the National Trust for Scotland that the nation’s heritage is so much more than an economic resource: it gives our people “a sense of belonging and identity”? When will they truly embrace the goals of helping our nation to “understand and care about their history” and sustaining “the distinctive character of Wales”?
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Jac adds . . . Anyone who is still in any doubt about Cadw’s purpose should know that in a few weeks time Caernarfon Castle will host an orgy of Britishness that will seek to engender loyalty to the most unequal and undemocratic state in Europe by cynically exploiting the butchery of the First World War. Yes, folks, the poppies are coming to town!
So get great-uncle Arthur’s medals out of the cupboard, bone up on the Somme, explain to the kids that Britain was defending democracy and freedom, and start whistling Tipperary.
Our guest writer mentioned Y Groes Naid, and while no one knows what it looked like, a few years back someone knocked up an imagined Groes Naid. I can’t be sure, but I’m reasonably certain it was somehow connected with Cambria magazine. Maybe someone reading this will know, so get in touch and I’ll be happy to attribute it. (Click to enlarge.)
Our guest writer also mentioned the coffin of Llywelyn Fawr; well I visited St Grwst’s earlier this year and I would recommend that all patriots do the same.
UPDATE 09.09.2016: Someone has made me aware of a consultation process being undertaken by the ‘Welsh Government on proposals for secondary legislation to support the Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2016. Here’s a link. Also available is Technical Advice Note (TAN) 24 asking for “your views on . . . detailed planning advice on the historic environment in Wales”.
Was anyone aware of this legislation, this ‘consultation’ process? Or was it restricted to interested parties guaranteed not to challenge the status quo? Anyway, the deadline is October 3, so tell them what you think.
According to the 1907 Act, the National Trust was established “ . . . for the purposes of promoting the permanent preservation for the benefit of the nation of lands and tenements (including buildings) of beauty or historic interest . . . ”
But for which nation?
In Scotland, this question was answered in 1931 by the establishment of a distinct legal organization formed “in order to carry out work and confer benefits in Scotland similar to those carried out in England and other parts of Britain”.
The National Trust for Scotland is managed by its own board of trustees, elected by and answerable to the Scottish membership.
In Wales, this question finds its answer not in any Act of Parliament or of the Senedd but in the experience of visiting a National Trust property in our country. I recommend a visit to “Powis [sic] Castle”.
The magnificent red stone castle near Welshpool was the historic seat of the rulers of Powys – a kingdom with an unbroken history from the Roman civitate of Viroconium (Welsh: Caer Gwrygon; English: Wroxeter), from which the royal court moved to Mathrafal in the early eighth century, and thence to Castell Coch, the red castle, in the early thirteenth century. Today, this castle continues to be known to the National Trust as “Powis Castle”, with their rigid adherence the place names attributed by English cartographers of the nineteenth century (Carnarvon, Llanelly, Powis) and in resolute opposition to the norms of Welsh orthography.
The castle remained in the hands of the descendants of the Welsh royal dynasty of Mathrafal until the late sixteenth century, when it was purchased by a branch of the powerful Welsh lordly family of the Herberts who remained in possession until the early nineteenth century.
Is the Castle presented by the National Trust in the context of this extraordinary and enchanting history? The thousand year story of the kingdom of Powys and the descendants of its ruling dynasty? Nope. Seemingly of no interest to the National Trust.
The main exhibition presents some of the loot acquired by Clive of India, father of the British Raj, famed for his atrocities, maladministration and self-enrichment. This notorious nabob’s connection with the Castle? His son acquired it (by marriage) in the early nineteenth century.
Try asking for a guidebook for the Castle in Welsh as I did during my visit, and you will receive a response from the National Trust staff that is as replete with scorn and derision as it is unproductive.
There is no doubting for which nation’s benefit this property is being preserved by the National Trust. For the fellow-countrymen of Robert Clive, son of Market Drayton, and squire of Esher in Surrey.
As noted above, Scotland’s heritage under the custodianship of the National Trust for Scotland is managed by a board of trustees elected by the Scottish membership of the NTS. The guiding principle by which the NTS carries out its mandate is expressed as follows:-
“Scotland’s rich cultural heritage is not only an invaluable economic and social resource, it is what gives Scotland’s people a sense of belonging and identity; as such it is one of our nation’s most precious assets.”Read it for yourself.
How much longer do we have to wait in Wales for our own extraordinary historical, architectural, cultural and environmental heritage to be preserved, managed and presented by an organization answerable to our nation, and properly equipped and informed to fulfil its mandate for the benefit of our nation?
I agree with everything our guest writer says, and I would go further, adding that a nation with the interpretation of its past entrusted to those with an interest in effacing all memory of that past is as good a definition of colonialism as I can think of.
Some reading this might argue, ‘Ah! but don’t forget, we have Cadw‘. Really! Cadw is little more than English Heritage (West). And then we have the regional archaeological trusts, staffed with third-rate English diggers and their teams of willing young female volunteers, always looking for evidence of Anglo-Saxon settlement.
Returning to the National Trust, it’s not simply what it currently owns that angers me but its perennial acquisitiveness. I’m thinking now of the regular appeals for money to buy a Snowdonia farm – in case someone buys it, packs it up, and takes it home with them? Think about it – we are expected to buy a piece of our homeland for an English organisation! (Yes, that’s another definition of colonialism, and of stupidity on the part of those Welsh who fall for it.)
It is almost twenty years since we voted for devolution, and little if anything has changed in the fundamental relationship between Wales and England. The English National Trust is proof of that. At the very least we need something comparable to the National Trust for Scotland, if only as a stop-gap measure.
This nation should have no trust in the English National Trust or any similar body.
Regular readers might remember that I mentioned Powis Castle in a piece I wrote back in 2012 on nearby Dolforwyn. Here’s a link.
UPDATE 22.08.2016: The page from the Cadw website shown above was very quickly removed. I copied and posted the image late on Sunday night and when I checked at 11am on Monday, there it was – gone!
Happy Donkey Hill has been back in the news. Or rather, it made it onto the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 on Monday. (Click here and go to 1:22:32.) Then Kate Clamp popped up on Wales Today. And here’s another piece from the BBC in which we hear from her again, and also a spokesman for Mynyddoedd Pawb . . . being rather ambivalent, I thought. He “completely understands” why people should want to change names and doesn’t want to “over-romanticise” the past!
In fact the spokesman for Mynyddoedd Pawb (whose name I didn’t catch) seemed to display all the symptoms of seimonglynphobia, or a mortal fear of saying too much and offending anyone. A condition perhaps best compared to expressing a desire to tackle flooding while simultaneously denying that an excess of water might be the problem.
On the principle that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, and seeing as the vast majority of those listening to Today would have been English, Kate Clamp is probably delighted with such coverage.
Even the company that made what she wore for her 15 minutes of infamy, Robinsons Equestrian clothing, got involved by tweeting, “Nice surprise to see one our Requisite garments on BBC TV earlier. Thanks @happydonkeyhill!” I chipped in with, “Being associated with colonialist bigots must do wonders for your image.” Then there was a bit of banter with Clamp herself who opined that I should be ignored as my head is so far up my ares (sic) that Google couldn’t find it. (Ah, the wit!) In another tweet she called me “hideous” – moi! Eventually she sent me a DM in which she called me a very, very naughty name. At this point I decided, very reluctantly, and only to spare my blushes, that she had to be blocked.
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Another example brought to my attention of a name being changed from Welsh to “non-Welsh” is over on the border (the ‘Welsh border’, of course) near Hay-on-Wye. There the Maesllwch Arms, a listed coaching inn, was recently re-named Foyles.
This change was explained thus, “Taking pride in the literary history of the area, and the nearby town of books, Hay on Wye, Foyles (the former Maesllwch Arms) has been named after the famous chain of bookshops.” What ‘literary history’? As for Hay, it’s claim to fame is that a megalomaniac imposed himself on the town and took it over with second-hand bookshops, eventually declaring himself ‘king’, and Hay independent. All good fun and guaranteed to appeal to those who succumb to the myth of the ‘great English eccentric’.
The real problem with ‘Foyles’ though is not just that the owners decided Maesllwch was too Welsh, and that the name of an English book chain with no local links was an improvement, but that the ‘Welsh’ Government agreed, coughing up £150,000 of our money in a grant to ‘Foyles’.
So my message to those believing that an appeal to the quisling puppet show in Cardiff docks will do something to stop this insidious form of colonialism is simple – you’ll be wasting your time.
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The next example I want to use takes us to Ceredigion, and land owned by the English National Trust. One of the less-frequented beaches along that over-developed stretch of coast is to be found at Penbryn beach, between Tresaith and Llangrannog.
Perhaps not so well known to tourists, Penbryn beach was always popular with locals, youngsters especially. It was where they went for parties and barbecues. The lucky ones would get summer jobs at the cafe at the top of the quiet road leading down to the beach. A cafe called ‘Cartws’ (‘cart house’) run by a local, Welsh-speaking family.
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That was then, now it’s been taken over by a couple from London and re-named ‘The Plwmp Tart’. (Plwmp is a hamlet not far away on the A487 trunk road.) The Plwmp Tart is obviously someone’s idea of humour, a play on the various meanings of the word tart. On the one hand it’s a pastry dish, on the other it’s a vulgar and sexually provocative woman.
Seeing as this is a cafe it must surely be a reference to the pastry delicacy. Well, in that case, why use the image of a woman in traditional Welsh dress? And seeing as that is the image used (rather than any pastry dish) anyone seeing the sign is invited to imagine a fat Welsh scrubber from Plwmp. (Lesson 1 in ‘How to Make Friends With Your New Welsh Neighbours’ – Despite it being an English tradition, don’t make slanderous insinuations about the sexual behaviour of Welsh women.)
What we have here is not simply a change of name from Welsh to “non-Welsh”, but an added insult with the clear inference that Welsh women are lax in their sexual morals. A real echo of traditional colonialism, for ‘easy’ local women was one of the perks every young soldier in Victoria’s army expected from an overseas posting.
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Finally, while Googling ‘Penbryn beach’ I came across another example of the problem in ‘Stallion Valley Holiday Cottages’. The traditional name is of course ‘Cwm March’. The cottages themselves are called ‘The Farmhouse’, ‘The Mill’ and ‘The Byre’.
No doubt the owner of ‘Stallion Valley’ would defend him/herself by arguing that the official name remains Cwm March, and that Stallion Valley is simply used for trading purposes, done, as Kate Clamp argued, because people – i.e. English people – can’t remember or pronounce the name Cwm March. Bollocks. Even it comes out as ‘Comb Mark’ that’s still better than callously throwing away a thousand years or more of someone else’s culture and identity.
You will have noted that the common denominator or link to all these cases is tourism. Tourism and the invasion it encourages. The tourism that is creating a country from which genuine Welshness has been hollowed out to leave a socially-engineered nightmare free of anything that could remind English tourists they are in another country.
Wake up, folks. This is what colonialist tourism is doing to Wales. And the truth is that our masters always intended that tourism should have this effect on Wales.
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NEXT: Carmarthenshire County Council and the vendetta against Clive Hughes
This year saw a heated debate that most Welsh people would have been unaware was even taking place; not surprising seeing as it was about Marine Conservation Zones in the north west. Eventually, the protests of commercial fishermen and others saw the ‘Welsh’ Government do a U-turn. These Zones had been proposed with the support of the Countryside Council for Wales, now subsumed into Natural Resources Wales, and the Marine Conservation Society. The first of those bodies is run by the ‘Welsh’ Government, while the other seems to be yet another in the unending list of Englandandwales outfits. (Remember all that talk of devolution? Do you think it will ever happen?)
At the other end of the country we have seen a remarkably similar story, with very similar groups (one, the same) opposing the plan for a motor racing circuit in Ebbw Vale: first it was The Gwent Wildlife Trust, then the Open Spaces Society got in on the act before, finally, our old friends, Natural Resources Wales piped up. I made my position on the Ebbw Vale project clear in this recent post, and I shall repeat it here. If this project can deliver real jobs to the Heads of the Valleys for Welsh people, then we must support it, and ignore the objections. But earlier this week we were told that the ‘Welsh’ Government had put the project ‘on hold’. Seeing as the Assembly is in recess this decision was almost certainly taken by civil servants. Given the background of so many top civil servants in Wales we should not be surprised to see them support protests from what are, essentially, middle class English groups. Their people.
What I now realise from these and other sources is that we have a burgeoning sector of ‘Welsh’ life that is usually alien in its composition, and often hostile to Welsh interests in its policies and attitudes. The members of this sector, found all over Wales, can be recognised by their distinctive ‘uniform’ of the fleece jacket. They can be found patrolling our National Parks and nature reserves; we may know them as ‘rangers’ or ‘guides’; they may be working for the National Trust, the RSPB, Woodland Trust, countless wildlife and archaeological trusts, etc., etc. Unless the Welsh language comes into play – as with the Snowdonia National Park – then the practice in the fleece jacket industry is to not employ locals.
How do they get away with it? Simple. In today’s carefully nurtured political and social climate, in which wicked humanity is destroying the planet, a serial killer would be forgiven if he was ‘protecting dolphins’, and Hitler himself could come back and be rehabilitated if he was saving the habitat of some rare and exquisite orchid. More practically, the fleeces always have friends in high places. One was Jane Davidson, Minister for Environment and Sustainability from 2007 to 2011. Among the policies Davidson wanted to introduce was that of opening all Welsh rivers, lakes and waterways to her canoeist friends. It is of course entirely coincidental that Jane Davidson is English, and went to a private school; as is the fact that upon leaving politics she became Director of the Wales Institute of Sustainability and a spokesperson for the Ramblers Association.
Let me end by addressing something some of you may be thinking – that I’ve gone OTT with my description of these people and, consequently, the title of this post. Well, in my defence I would ask you to ponder this. We now have in Wales an army of fleece-jacketed, dictatorial outsiders who view ‘Wales’ through the prism of the group they represent – the English middle class visitor or settler. Too many of this group regard Welsh people as a blot on ‘their’ landscape, marring ‘their’ idyll. They’re in Wales, uninvited, telling us what we can and cannot do. Much of what they do (and wish to do) is inimical to our best interests, yet they do not have a single democratic vote to justify the power they possess and the influence they exert. So what would you call them?
And I haven’t even mentioned the funding. For very often the ‘Welsh’ Government – i.e. you and me – is funding these people to work against Welsh interests so that Wales can be saved for them and their friends. What a bloody system!
This is another ‘quickie’, which I’m putting out partly so people can be aware of what might be in the pipeline, and also to see if anyone out there can add a little meat to the bones.
