Author Archives: Paul Christopher Walton
Conquerors of Cadair
A group of Marians who have picked a fine day to climb Cadair Idris. The slightly damaged Trig Point is in the background. Do you recognise any of the intrepid explorers?
The Mawddach Magnificent Seven
Thanks to the good offices of our resident designer the excellent Robin Stannard there is a specially collated set of seven postcards available from Strategol. The set makes an excellent gift.
Tal-y-llyn: the art of glaciation
Tal-y-llyn Lake, also known as Talyllyn Lake, Llyn Mwyngil or Llyn Myngul is a large glacial ribbon lake formed by a post-glacial massive landslip damming up the glaciated valley
Another Gothic Night on the Mawddach?
The estuary looking up to Farchynys on an atmospheric evening featuring an appropriately Gothic Clock House, another grand old house built by mill owners. This time the Lowe family.
How deep is the Mawddach Estuary?
According to my tame geology expert, the Mawddach estuary is not an estuary at all but a fjord carved out by the glacier and then filled with sand and sea as the ice melted and retreated.
But how deep is this estuary/fjord?
I certainly can’t say, but perhaps the prospectors of rich minerals who have drilled here over the years could tell us….
So where do you stand on the rhododendron?
So big news today.
Rhododendrum ponticum is back in the media and back in the frame.
Not only is this exotic shrub bad news in the short term for its knack of muscling in on other woodland flora but also bad in the long term with its existential threat to the micro-biome. Not everybody would agree with this view, but Victorian industrialists who wanted quick results in prettying up their newly acquired baronial demesnes probably didn’t foresee the long term consequences of introducing it.
But if you really want to know, ask Stuart Holtam, Headmaster and Warden of Farchynys. Or read all about his personal War against the Rhodies in Marians on the Mawddach:
“Bleary eyed, we returned to Hades and the fires of Hell – We came, we sawed, we got tired.”
From the Farchynys Timeline #10
2008
Railway Walks, Episode 2 was broadcast on 9th October. The wonderful Julia Bradbury introduced a whole new generation to the Mawddach, that mystery caught up in an enigma.
From the Farchynys Timeline #9
1941
Kurt Hahn the action man and visionary who inspired Sam Darby to create the QMS Welsh Centre, founds the first Outward Bound Centre at Aberdyfi
Zen and The Art of The Estuary
Marians on The Mawddach 