In 1968, on a cold and misty November evening I found myself here with pocketful of birthday money which I spent in the station tuck shop on Callard and Bowser’s Finest Nougat. I shared it with my Third Form chums on the way home to the Coach House.
Monthly Archives: October 2017
150 years of Barmouth Bridge #13 Inspired by E. Rosalie’s Jones
“The blue and purple hills,and the emerald and sapphire waves that forever toss their white foam upon the yellow sands they lap.”
A History of Barmouth and Vicinity
150 Years of Barmouth Bridge #12 The Mawddach at twilight
Gordon Brudenell and Christiane Swain at the QMC dinner
The wonderful Gordon Brudenell introduced me to the delights of Farchynys in 1968 and contributed a warm and witty A to Z of Farchynys for the book.
On a wet and windy day in November, Gordon and Ernie Watson led a chippy party of third formers to a shooting box somewhere to the north of Bontddu. It rained. It was boggy. It was my thirteenth birthday.
150 Years of Barmouth Bridge #11 A low tide panorama
150 years of Barmouth Bridge #10 Waltons and Batemans en lunettes rouges
On this day in October, 1867
“Would you like the bridge fried or boiled, Sir?”
“When Benjamin Piercy built the viaduct in 1867, there was a man over at Barmouth who promised that if they ever finished it, he would eat the first train to come over. The morning it was due, a table was laid outside Barmouth Station with a starched white cloth and best silver and as the train approached, the chairman of the railway turned to this fellow and said, ‘Here it comes now, do you want it fried or boiled, sir?’ ”
Quoted in Stopping Train Britain by Alexander Frater, 1983
150 years of Barmouth Bridge #9 The Farchynys Run
Originally devised and organised by the wonderful Mike Jackson. The Farchynys run included both the bridge at Penmaenpool and the railway viaduct at Barmouth
150 Years of Barmouth Bridge #8 Fairbourne Halt through the beautiful geometry of the swing-bridge
A Marian on Honeymoon : October 8th, 1978
Babs and I spent three wonderful nights at the Golden Lion Royal Hotel in the balmy, sun-dappled (and sometimes, windy) October days of 1978.
Of course, we walked the bridge that week; but caught the bus home from Abergynnant!
Marians on The Mawddach 