Renewal

-

At long last, the days are tangibly lengthening as we move towards the spring equinox: a time of year that, as always, fills me with hope and cheer for the coming year. It might seem odd then, that we chose to spend a couple of hours before lunch visiting a cemetery down in Bethesda on the other side of Afon Ogwen, at a place called Tanysgrafell, in the shadow of the mountain of slate waste created by the quarry at Penrhyn. Pictured is a long-fallen but still living tree as you walk into the place.

It's a spot we've not been to for some time, and hitherto has been almost hidden from sight by lush overgrowth and brambles for decades, like a tiny, Celtic, Angkor Wat, buried in the woods. However, we read on a local Facebook group that volunteers had been busy clearing the place of its weeds and undergrowth, so that the gravestones are now all accessible to anyone interested in viewing them. Consecrated in March 1848, its original mother church, St. Ann's, built in 1812, was later subsumed by the growing mountain of slate spoil from Penrhyn quarry. There was a small chapel within the curtilage of the yard, which was in use until the mid-1960s, when it was demolished.

We started to come to the place soon after we moved to Bethesda, forty-four years ago, and it is a good stop-off on the circular walk we did today, from the site of the old Bethesda railway station, where now is the Medical Centre, along the river and across a footbridge. You then follow the path to the graveyard, which is off the path to the right (unmarked), just before you reach the Tregarth Road, and after exploring the site, follow that road left, towards Pont Tŵr and cut through Parc Meurig and across Afon Ogwen via another footbridge, to get back onto the High Street by the side of the old Bethesda Chapel. From there it's a stroll left down the High Street and back to Station Road.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Feedback & Wobbles

-
Image
Many years ago I came up with an analogy for poorly damped feedback loops. The feedback loop that prompted this frankly tart analogy was indeed a horror. Anyone who remembers shame-faced their first attempts at clutch control resulting in the good old kangaroo launch across the lights only to stall in the middle of the crossroads will have some idea of the kind of data transfer lag involved in said system. The analogy I made was that of a large blancmange. Untouched, a model of stasis and eminently stable and predictable; but prod the bugger and the resultant chaotic behaviour needs a very complex physical model and some very decent computing horsepower to predict its outputs, if at all. The system in question was a large and complex audio-visual display at what eventually became 'The Electric Mountain' in Llanberis. We were ultimately contracted to maintain the thing having been witness to and peripherally involved in its installation. Certainly not involved in its des...
Read more

A Time of Connection

-
Image
I was just reflecting on the vacuum of continuity that's left behind when someone dies: that sudden sense of disjoint, of fracture, in one's personal history that takes one completely by surprise at the oddest moments. These pinch-points in memory can often yield some surprising revelations of fact about periods in one's past. One such occurred to me tonight, tending my rather lazy meal of pizza in its journey from shrink-wrap to mouth via the oven. Al's recent demise still catches me out from time to time: the space he left bounded by forty plus years of friendship. But the thing that struck me tonight was just how much change was happening on a personal and social level in the very early years of our acquaintance. Between moving here from Birmingham in September 1980 and our buying our first proper house eighteen months later, all manner of things occurred that would chart the course of our lives to the present day. At around the time of our meeting Alan & Irene [...
Read more

Sister Ray

-
Image
Ray Keats - aka Ann Key - local artist & family friend, died this morning. She'd been ill for some years, but never let it get in the way of her work or of tending to the massive network of friends, colleagues and fans she had accumulated over the decades. Her house on the High Street of Rachub, just below where we live - a former cockle factory(!) - bought many years ago when she and her late husband Ronald moved here from Manchester to set up home in Yr Achub, is currently still home to her paintings and drawings, and the front window displays her work, including the last drawing she made in hospital, just days before she died. Her good friend Colin has been a diamond in her latter years, looking out for her and just being there when she needed him. She will be much missed by this tiny community of ageing bohemians up here in the hills, but suffice it to say, George, her cat, will be well looked after now she's gone.
Read more