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Category: Montgomeryshire

Concrete and Roses

Concrete and Roses

Gregynog Hall is a one hour drive from home.

Let’s get the pronunciation right first. The ‘y’ is not pronounced as ‘ee’ as in ‘silly’ but ‘i’ as in ‘bite’. The ‘greg’ part is emphasised more than the rest. Sorted!

This style is the sort of thing that you would have seen on farmhouses in Montgomeryshire many centuries ago but this building is not what it seems and it has a rather complicated history.

There has been a building on this site since the 12th century but the original medieval hall was demolished and rebuilt in 1577 and then demolished and rebuilt again in the late 1840s. So is that the end of the story then? Well, no, it isn’t because it isn’t actually a timber-framed building. The facade that you see is concrete moulded and painted to appear as a timber-framed building and is one of the earliest uses of concrete for such a purpose.

So the current building is Victorian but includes some parts of the older buildings. The building itself is not normally open to the public because it is now used as a study centre for the University of Wales but today it was open as part of ‘Wales Open Doors’, the equivalent of the English ‘Heritage Open Days’. The grounds are normally open to the public but we didn’t look around the grounds because the weather was poor. We will probably return to explore the gardens at some stage.

So let’s go in.

This entrance takes us straight into the Lounge.

That ‘Chesterfield’ style seating looks very loungy and it was, as we discovered later, when we lounged there drinking our coffee and eating our very scrumptious cake.

The room next door was the Blayney Room which featured the original medieval wood panelling.

The carving over the fireplace was very intricate and amazing.

Just down the hall was the Library and what is now called the Senior Common Room. I don’t know the Common Room’s original name; looks pretty comfy though.

That was the end of our short visit but we hope to return with better weather to explore the grounds and gardens although on this visit Amanda found a Rose Border which looked very interesting. Our next visit may not be until next year.

Castle to Canal

Castle to Canal

Who’s a silly boy then? We did this trip at the end of July and I duly wrote it up and I thought that I had posted it on the Blog – but no, I had forgotten that important bit. As you can see I have rectified that mistake and here it is in all its glory! (Well it’s only 3 months late).

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Monday 24th July 2017

The weather was borderline and unsettled but we decided to risk it. Approximately 25 miles from home is the town of Montgomery which, although the county town of Mongomeryshire, is really quite small but thoroughly delightful.

This is the town centre; virtually all of it. The view is from the churchyard and where the building on the left stops is the main road. On the other side of the main road is Broad Street, where the cars are parked, and the brick building at the back is the Town Hall

The church is quite imposing and sitting on a knoll makes it more so.

Up near the top of Broad Street is the Dragon Hotel a rather striking 17th century former coaching inn.

There are some interesting ancient buildings in Arthur Street which runs north from the top of Broad Street.

There is a little lane running steeply uphill from near the Dragon Hotel and when you have puffed your way to the top end you will arrive at Montgomery Castle or, at least, what’s left of it. There is not a lot left but what there is remaining is impressive.

The views from the castle are also impressive and it shows what a good defensive position it was.

We left Montgomery and headed further north to Welshpool. We have been here before, once for Powis Castle and another visit to ride on the little Welshpool narrow gauge railway but we hadn’t actually looked round the town itself. However, before we do that, we had to have another quick look at the railway and discovered a locomotive that we hadn’t seen before waitng in the station. This locomotive looked slightly smaller than the one we’d seen here previously.

We then went on to the Montgomery Canal on the otherside of Welshpool. If you look at the following link it will show a map of Welshpool that gives an idea of where these various places are. Powis Castle in the bottom left corner, Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway middle left and the Montgomery Canal roughly in the middle. Don’t confuse it with the river further right which is very wiggley; the canal runs further left.

http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?X=322510&Y=307508&A=Y&Z=120

We walked across the bridge and came down to the canal at this point.

There was a further bridge or two before we arrived at the lock outside the Powysland Museum (second picture).

We went across the canal to the Powysland Museum. Next to the canal you may be able to make out the two metal sculptures of Herons on the bank with a close-up in the second picture.

I took the picture above from on the bridge shown in the picture below.

Inside the museum are a variety of interesting artifacts ranging from a stash of ancient roman coins to old kitchen equipment.

A final view of the Town Hall in High Street and we decided to call it a day.