Tag: Nonconformist Wales

• A Christmas in the Victorian Welsh Uplands

  In the high country of mid and north Wales, where the hills folded into one another like great, weathered blankets and the lanes were little more than tracks worn by generations of hooves and boots, Christmas in the Victorian era arrived quietly. There was no sense of sudden abundance, no dramatic break from the rhythm…

  antonydaviesfrsa

  23/12/2025

  Articles

  19th century Wales, Agrarian Wales, books, Calennig, christmas, Christmas in Wales, Cultural memory, fiction, history, Mari Lwyd, Mid Wales, Nonconformist Wales, North Wales, Noson Gyflaith, Plygain, Rural communities, Rural winter life, Upland farming, Victorian Christmas, Victorian domestic life, Victorian Wales, Welsh Chapels, Welsh Christmas traditions, Welsh countryside, Welsh farmhouse life, Welsh folk traditions, Welsh rural life, Welsh Social History, Welsh uplands, writing

• The Uncrowned Kings: How the Preacher Ruled Victorian Wales

  Imagine a Sunday evening in November 1880. Outside, the valley is pitch black, hammered by rain sweeping down from the mountains. But inside the gas-lit chapel, the air is thick with damp wool, peppermint, and anticipation. Five hundred people sit shoulder to shoulder in a silence so taut it hums. They are not waiting for…

  antonydaviesfrsa

  05/12/2025

  Articles

  19th-century-wales, Blue Books, Chapel Revival, Christmas Evans, Coalfield History Wales, Cymraeg, Hwyl, Liberal Wales, Methodist History, Nonconformist Wales, Rural Wales, Slate Quarrying Wales, victorian-wales, Wales Social Change, Welsh Chapels, Welsh Communities, Welsh culture, Welsh heritage, Welsh history, Welsh identity, Welsh Language History, Welsh Literacy, Welsh Nonconformity, Welsh politics, Welsh Preachers, Welsh Pulpit Tradition, Welsh Radicalism, Welsh Religion, Welsh Revivalism, Welsh Social History, Welsh Theology

• When the Last Prince Hid in Our Hills: A Family Legend That Still Haunts Wales

  By Antony David Davies FRSA High in the forgotten uplands of Montgomeryshire, where bracken folds over ancient sheep paths and the hills roll unbroken into silence, there stands a farmhouse my family still speaks of in reverent tones. Its name is Esgair Llywelyn — Llywelyn’s Ridge. Even now, the place endures. Weathered, empty, but defiantly…

  antonydaviesfrsa

  29/07/2025

  Articles

  Aberedw, Antony David Davies, Builth, Cilmeri 1282, Cultural survival, Dulas Valley, Dyfi Valley, Edward I, Elinor Bennett, Esgair Llywelyn, family history, Family legend, Forgotten voices, FRSA, Heritage preservation, Hidden history, Historical memory, Historical storytelling, Identity and place, Legacy of the past, Llanwrin, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Lost Wales, Machynlleth, Medieval Wales, Mid Wales, Montgomeryshire, National memory, Nonconformist Wales, Owain Glyndŵr, Powys heritage, Prince of Wales, Resistance and survival, Rural Wales, Welsh ancestry, Welsh culture, Welsh diaspora, Welsh history, Welsh identity, Welsh legends, Welsh nationalism, Welsh rebellion, Welsh storytelling