Deeply into our Manx family history

 

Looking down towards Builth just after 7 a.m. yesterday morning.  

I know - I should be doing housework.  I HAVE to do some later on but for the moment I am in a delightful steady frenzy (IS there such a thing?!) of family history research involving people and places in the  18th C on the Isle of Man.  I am like a dog with a bone!    I have solved a family mystery which has been neglected many years and research is so much easier now that so many more links and documents are put on-line.    I am currently perusing the actual parish registers which have been scanned - AMAZING!

  As I only had snippets of names and very sparse details which had come down from Keith's dad,  who sadly died when Keith and I were just friends, it was not a very easy journey.  BUT yesterday I made a huge breakthrough and have found the family holding and what was happening there around the 1890s from a book written in 1945, reliant on wonderful memories from the oldest people in the parish who knew everyone who lived everywhere, even in long-ruined cottages and plots.  It also looks like I have been researching in the wrong parish for some of "his lot" as they appear to be hefted elsewhere.  I still have to trace beyond g.g. grandfather though and that hasn't been easy.  No cast iron links - just guestimates until today, but now I am confirming notes I made back in 2000 when the only tool I had on the internet was the basic IGI (it is now MUCH improved and called Family Search).

Fascinating to see the the common folk (our lot and their neighbours) chose family names for their children - John, William, Philip, Patrick, James, Ann, Mary, Margaret with the occasional more exotic Isabel or Elinor.  The Royal Naval births, however, really went for originality - how about Victoria Sophia Alfrida?  Or Belvedira Clarissa Eliza?  Or John Adolphus Frederick?  So, I am immersed in Kellys, Cowleys, Quayles, Christians, Sayles and Shimmins . . .

Anyway, yesterday very early I went for a long walk, right to the very top of the hill this time, so my fitness levels are definitely improving.  Today I treated myself to "Walking the Old Ways of Radnorshire" - a companion to the book in the same series which is of Herefordshire.  I hope there will be soon one of Breconshire too, which is actually the county we live in, although it is part of Powys now.  So, lots of photos and not much in the way of writing, but you probably know I just LOVE to research and so I am like a terrier down a rabbit hole and keeping cool at the same time.

Hedge Woundwort, and below, Yarrow.

Right at the top of the hill, a choice of 3 bridleways.  We've walked one (below) up through the woods, when we first got here.  Can't wait for it to cool down so we can explore the other two.

Outing to Vicarage Meadows Wildlife Reserve

 Yesterday was the first day of Freedom for Tam, after having to quarantine for two weeks.  We decided, as it was so hot, not to overdo things, so checked out Nature Reserves in our area and came up with Vicarage Meadows, a small SSSI at Abergwesyn in the upper Irfon Valley, above Beaulah.  We chose well!  Mind you, after stopping at the church below, the road seemed to go on and on and on and was really very busy for a narrow country lane.

Just before we reached Vicarage Meadows, we saw a sign which said "Tregaron 13" - blimey - it felt like we were heading towards Aberystwyth!

It was worth the slow journey though, through beautiful countryside.  We parked up and the reserve was signposted up a trackway, past a beautiful old building which must have been the Vicarage (lucky vicar - Kilvert would have LOVED it there) and then we had to open gates and go past a cottage, which was so pretty,  though the churchyard is still occasionally used for burials. Coflein says the church was demolished in 1964, having been restored in 1871.  Interestingly the medieval font was removed to the church pictured below - a shame the church was locked. There is a link to Llandovery's William Williams of Pantecelyn fame, as he had the curacy here, prior to his conversion to Methodism by Howell Harris in 1740.

HERE is a link to the page about the Reserve.  Ragged Robin - it is doable from where you stay, but your husband might have 40 fits at the single track lanes to get there!!

We drove back the route which took us back via Llanwrtyd Wells, which was a good call, as we went past the Upper Irfon Valley and a site at White Bridge where you can picnic/walk/paddle etc.  I think Tam and boyfriend will be going there soon.  Gosh, that little lane was busy though, lots of people wanting some countryside and river fun.  Mostly locals I assume, but there were plenty of holiday lets in the area.

We stopped to look at this little church (lovely Arts and Crafts style steeple), but unfortunately it was locked.  Below: an unusual and interesting poem on the door:

This poor young man died at just 19 years of age.  Tam and I thought it very strange for the wording to be "who died from war effect."  Not wounds, or just plain simple died fighting for his country, and we wondered if he had been discharged with shell shock (he was discharged on 10 April 1917, but I can find no more on him unless I take out a membership to access war records). Poor boy.  He will stay in my mind a while . . . so sad.

A truly wonderful place for Wildlife.  We are SO fortunate that both Breconshire and Radnorshire have lots of Wildlife Reserves, so we will be exploring them soonest.  Carmarthen was lacking in that respect, just two or three - every other inch farmed. Check out what we can explore in Breconshire.  Limestone sites next please.

I will find out when this flowers and we can check it out next year.  That would be a very exciting  find.

A first for me, Bog Asphodel.  Isn't it pretty?

Looking back towards the barn.  There was a whole plantation of dead larch just above and to the right of it.

Autumn Hawkbit I believe.  I've not knowingly seen this before, though there are Knapweeds which look very similar.

This was the 2nd meadow, which is considered (from a botanical viewpoint) one of the best in Wales.

Yellow Rattle - gone to seed now, as you can see, and guess what, it rattles when you shake it!!

Great Burnet.  A first for me.  Sorry for duff photo.

Devil's Bit Scabious.

Marsh Lousewort.  Yet another first.

An ancient yew tree in the churchyard.

Here is Hugh Montefiore's obituary from The Guardian.  He was not one shy of speaking out for what he believed in.  I had heard of him and was very surprised that he knew and loved this tiny obscure spot on the planet, where there is no longer even a church.

Gosh, that has taken me two hours to write and research - so many links and then I get distracted with another link and so on!  I hope you enjoy anyway.

I don't do hot

 

The photos are from a recent walk down along the bottom lane. That was before it got hot, and I mean HOT.  Forecast says it will be 27 deg. C today (that's 80 deg. F).  Tomorrow is even worse - 86 deg. F (30 deg. C). As an asthmatic, I struggle in the heat due to humidity.  I shall stay indoors.

        Yesterday was bad enough (only 77!) and after following the shade around the garden - finally getting to grips with the weeds and grass where it shouldn't be - I decided I would make a start on mowing the lawn.  My goodness, it might just be walking up and down pushing the mower, but I was soon in a muck sweat without a dry hair on my head.  There's still some more to cut, and the wee bit of hay meadow at the front has gone over now and needs cutting.

Bramble flowers in the prettiest pink.  There are something like 200 different species of brambles.

Though you can't see any traffic on it, the flattish area half way up the photo is where the main road between Builth and Llandovery runs.  At weekends it is busy with motorbikes heading towards the West End Cafe in Llandovery.

A Brimstone moth.

We didn't see that many ploughed fields when we lived in Carmarthenshire.  In the Cothi Valley, the land was considered to be Hill Farming land - pasture rather than arable.  Mind you, they wouldn't be sewing grain crops this time of the year so perhaps this will be a winter fodder crop for sheep.

The world and is wife have been cutting hay this past week (and who can blame them?)  Here is the view from the guest bedroom window, looking across towards the distant hills.

Well, the past two weeks have been somewhat fraught here. Unfortunately Tam's boyfriend contracted Covid from two silly girls he worked with (one had been heard to say she couldn't see the point of Social Distancing . . . as she's that stupid, she probably still hasn't made the connection).  Another person in the office (an anti-vaxxer) also contracted it.  I wonder if he's changed his tune yet?  Anyway, having seenhim over the weekend, Tam was obviously right in the firing line to get it and has had to quarantine.

Her boyfriend was quite poorly, but has now tested clear.  Tam has spent the last 12 days in her bedroom, eating her meals outside (apart from wet days, when back to her room again).  If she left her room, it was mask on, and she used the en-suite bathroom.  She did a lateral flow test every day for the first week, but it always came back negative, as did the PCR test she had done.  Even so, she was unwell - tired out mainly, but with some symptoms of Covid, which came for an hour and then her immune system dealt with.  

Now, hopefully, life can return more to normal, but with Covid cases shooting up again, we're not going far afield.

Tam wants to go somewhere for a walk today - somewhere shady I think, so I will look at the map.

Have a good weekend all.

More local walks

 

Photos from my longer up-the-hill walk at the weekend.  Starting with the dramatic view over Llanelwedd quarry from our bathroom window.  Amazingly the rain held off.  

    Last night a certain stripey cat (Theo) decided he would scale my white dresser to get at the spray of synthetic berries to play with.  In doing so, he had broken a favourite little Devon potteries teapot.  The handle had been broken off in moving (it was the ONLY casualty, how typical), but Theo went for gold and it fell four feet and smashed into smithereens.   I was NOT amused.  He wasn't in the least bit contrite.

This is the horse who lives in the field opposite us. I finally got to meet and chat with his owner.

Honeysuckle and, below, a Harebell.

I was trying to get a close-up of the St John's Wort, but got the grass instead!

Yesterday I got on with the long border again and have finally joined up with the corner bed I put in.  I have to straighten the line of the border though, as it's got narrower the further I proceeded and I have some plants to put in, and I really MUST get my cucumbers and leeks in and the well grown double Hollyhocks I grew from seed.

I made some progress with the first curtain, and mitred the corners (my way!), and today I can put the lining in.  First though, I have to go to Llandod for a new kettle as ours decided to dispense with its turn-off function this morning . . .

There's a heat-wave on its way.  I need to work in the garden before that arrives as I don't do heat . . .