Welsh History - A Chronological Outline

I recently got my hands on a review copy of Welsh History - A Chronological Outline by Glyn E German from the nice people at Y Lolfa on the premise that I'd read it, review it and then give it away in a competition. What I've instead decided to do is read it, review it, run a competition and then buy a brand new copy and send that one to the winner. Firstly it's very good so I want to keep it and secondly I'd rather give away a new one than the one I've been thumbing through for the last month.

The idea behind the book is that it's a concise compilation of Welsh history, drawn from various sources starting with the oldest recorded signs of intelligent life in Wales and the rest of this island and then moving forwards until present day. The book is split into chapters covering the different periods of Welsh history.

The front cover

Terry Jones' Great Map Mystery

Whilst looking up Colwyn Bay's born Monty Python member Terry Jones, I came across his 'Great Map Mystery'. In this four part series he traces the roads shown in John Ogilby's 'Britannia', the world's first road atlas.

The first episode sees Terry travelling on the road to Aberystwyth. Although in the episode we learn it's more likely a road from Aberystwyth as it highlights the silver mines that funded the military of the time.

The show was made by the EBC so you have to expect an Anglicisation of Welsh history. Based on the strength of episode one I have downloaded all four from youtube and will watch them all in due course. In the meantime I will share them here for those, like me, who missed them the first time around.

Cymru Fydd

I came across a Cymru Fydd leaflet on the People's Collection of Wales website and thought it was worth sharing. The leaflet itself is from 1890 but much of it could have been written yesterday.

Page 1

'Home Rule for Wales' (1890)

The Battle of Llwchwr

January 1st marks the anniversary of the battle of Llwchwr. Where the Welsh stood up against the would be colonists and defeated them. As we know Wales eventually lost the war and we has been a colony of our neighbour to the east ever since.

Star marking the commemoration stone - Google map link