Wales | Library Road Trip

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October 29, 2025 · 9:39 am

WALES – Brecon Beacons, Merthyr Tydfil and Cardiff

The beautiful Brecon Beacons National Park covers over 500 square miles on the border between Mid and South Wales. We drove up from Hay-on-Wye into a mysterious area that contains some of the highest peaks in Wales, includes a UNESCO Global Geopark and is an International Dark Sky Reserve. And soon the Park will reclaim its’ original Welsh name and become Bannau Brycheiniog National Park. We encountered a way of preserving land into a National Park that was very different from American National Parks. In the US, we tend to value wilderness and little development in our parks. Here, local agriculture is preserved along with the stunning views and remarkable landscapes. Roman forts and Celtic settlements were part of the park along with the rich natural beauty and remote rugged mountains of the area.

Merthyr Tydfil took its name from a martyred daughter of a Christian King in 480 CE. It is noted for its industrial past and was known as the “Iron Capital of the World” in the early 19^th century. The world’s first steam-powered railway journey happened in Merthyr in 1804 appropriately from an ironwork to a canal. By the mid-1850s, Wales became the world’s first industrialized nation, as more people were employed in industry than agriculture, with Merthyr the biggest town in Wales at the time. The Donetsk region in Ukraine was originally developed as a mining and iron work area by a man from Merthyr in 1870. By the early 20^th century Merthyr began long decline as mining and smelting jobs left the area culminating with a TV report listing Merthyr as one of the worst places to live in the UK.

Our interest in this post-industrial area was, of course, the story of its library. The new library was built on land donated by the local ironworks in Dowlais neighborhood and opened “with a flourish and a key made of gold” in 1907 with funding by Andrew Carnegie. The neighborhood today was a little rough, and the library reflected the faded beauty of its former glory days. Inside were many paintings of the area’s industrial past. Some romanticized the history, and others suggested a worker’s hellhole. One writer in 1850 while visiting Merthyr observed “It is like a vision of Hell, and will never leave me, that of those poor creatures broiling, all in sweat and dirt, amid their furnaces, pits, and rolling mills.” We later learned that in the epic series The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien, who lived in Wales, used the image of industrial Merthyr for the place he called Mordor. Even the names are similar. I had a fascinating conversation with a local man who was a socialist and very aware of the struggles of the workers in Merthyr. He suggested that I learn more by reading a book called Merthyr Rising which describes one of the world’s first industrial worker’s resistance to the inhumane working conditions of the newly emerging Industrial Revolution. He was a delight, and I will certainly read that book when we get back. We finished up the day photographing another Carnegie funded library in the struggling former-industrial town of Treharris. This one was undergoing a beautiful restoration and will reopen soon.

The Welsh capital of Cardiff was a delight. It feels like a very comfortable place to live, and we were impressed by the sparkling culture and cuisine. But like in San Francisco, the booming economy of the city is also leading to increasing income inequality and an unaffordable cost of living for many people here. Like the province of Quebec in Canada, Wales is proudly and thoroughly bi-lingual.

The next day we went to the Big Pit National Coal Museum. Set in the Blaenafon Industrial Landscape, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is considered one of the best mining museums in the world. It is one of the oldest and most important of all the large-scale industrial coal mining developments in South Wales and one of the last working coal mines in the area. The history of this place was hard and came alive through the wonderful use of historical photographs posted throughout the tour. We did the hour-long underground tour with an ex-miner and a group of other interested folks. There is no better way of understanding the claustrophobic world of a miner than being in a mine when they turn out lights and you stare into blackness. This well-formed museum touched me with its good use of history, photography, illustrations, installations and art. Plus, I will never forget the visceral tour of the mine.

Returning to Cardiff for our final night, we dined at the Botanist. There are a series of these throughout the UK and the last one we went to was in Birmingham, England. It is loosely based on a theme of early 19^th century woman’s illustrations for botanical texts. The food was delicious and both places were fascinating. The next morning, we bought some of the famous Welsh cakes that were originally the food for miners but now are slightly sweet delights needed to continue a long library road trip.

Next stop: Bath and beyond…

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Tagged as Big Pit National Park, Brecon Beacons National Park, England, history, labor history, Libraries, Library Road Trip, Merthyr Tydfil, Mining history, Photography, Public Libraries, Robert Dawson, travel, Wales

October 27, 2025 · 6:08 am

THE SOUTHWEST – Hereford and Hay-on-Wye

Our longest drive of the trip was from York in the central northeastern part of England to Hereford in Britian’s southwest near Wales. In the Hereford Cathedral Chained Library, we visited the largest surviving chained library in the world. In the early 17^th century, collections like this could be found in libraries and cathedrals, but this is the only one to survive and still to be chained. The chaining of books was the most effective security system in European libraries from the Middle Ages to the 18^th century. The library contains about 1,500 books, dating from around 800 AD to the early 19^th century, including over 200 medieval manuscript books. The books are still examined today by scholars who come from all over the world to study them.

The Hereford Mappa Mundi is unique in Britian’s heritage, an outstanding treasure of the medieval world. It records how 13^th century scholars interpreted the world in spiritual as well as geographical terms. The Mappa Mundi is drawn on a single sheet of vellum (calf skin) with the city of Jerusalem located on the map in the center of the world. Superimposed on to the continents are drawings of the history of humanity and the marvels of the natural world. It is considered one of the most important and celebrated medieval maps in any form. We were lucky to get a wonderful introduction to the history of the map by a well-informed, retired man who volunteers for the church.

Hay-on-Wye is a unique place located in Wales on the border with England. With over twenty bookshops, it is often described as a “town of books” and is the site of internationally acclaimed literary celebration called the Hay Festival. Bill Clinton has described the festival as “The Woodstock of the mind” and our friend, the writer Rebecca Solnit, has spoken there several times. It also hosts a philosophy and music festival called How the Light Gets In which aims to get philosophy out of the academy and into people’s lives. It even had a self-proclaimed “King of Hay” bibliophile Ricard Booth who in 1977 declared Hay-on-Wye to be an “independent kingdom” with himself as monarch.

The 11^th century origins of Hay-on-Wye began after the Norman invasion of Wales. Today it keeps its economy going through bravado, book selling, and tourism. Many of the old buildings have been beautifully preserved with great effort to keep some of the architectural heritage alive. The area around Hay is almost entirely devoted to agriculture.

We decided to take a walk along the beautiful River Wye River Walk (Llwyer yr Afon). This valley and river are considered one of the most beautiful spots in the UK and many people come here to swim and kayak. Some of the best salmon fishing in the UK is here in the River Wye. However, as we walked along this famous river to a beach called the Warren, we gradually became aware that something was wrong in this national treasure. The largest environmental lawsuit in the history of the UK has been recently filed to protect the River Wye and other rivers in the region. The lawsuit is against major corporate poultry producers including subsidiaries of the international pollution bad-boy Cargill, Inc. Big corporate ag pollution is also a major problem in my childhood home of the Central Valley in California. The San Joaquin River is considered one of the worst polluted rivers in the United States, mostly due to agricultural waste runoff from the productive fields of the San Joaquin Valley. It was shocking to see the same tragedy of greedy concentrated wealth overwhelming the local agriculture and environment in the bucolic valley of the River Wye in Wales.