River of Slate

Howard Bowcott invited me to his workshop to see the final touches to the giant jigsaw, the River of Slate. River  - because that’s how all the sediment gets washed down to create the mudstone which morphs into slate. River - because the Dwyryd was where the slate used to be boated out to the waiting ships.

This stunning work will soon be in the centre of town for people to walk on. What sacrilege! I hope they take off their shoes.

Here’s Howard busy with the slate:

Princess dragged out of Porthmadog pub

The world’s first narrow gauge steam engine Princess is to be pulled out of the pub at Porthmadog’s harbour station and taken to the workshops for a 150 year service. In the new year she will travel to Paddington where she will be on display for 6 weeks from St David’s Day. The back wall of the pub will be removed on Saturday 10^th November but customers have been reassured it will be back to normal by 1pm with a replacement to look at while they drink their beer – a steam powered, horse drawn fire engine from Anglesey.

Pengwern Food, Casque Mark and Events

Lots of changes at Y Pengwern. The kitchens are now open serving great food at the weekends. Details of opening times and menus can be found on the Pengwern website. Bookings are now being taken for Christmas lunches. Groups and societies have been booking the ‘committee room’ for small meetings with refreshments. The Function Room is open for larger events and between this and the Dining Room the kitchen can cater for up to 80 people.

I always thought the bar was good but there’s now an independent hallmark of goodness – the Casque Mark was recently awarded by one of the 45 assessors who called in unannounced and sampled the various cask beers for temperature, aroma, appearance and taste. It’s one thing getting good beer from the brewery but the final step of getting it to the customers’ lips is equally important  and this is what the Casque Mark recognises. Da iawn! 

There has been a steady stream of events organised by Y Pengwern since it re-opened and one of those was last weekend’s nature walk led by Twm Elias from the pub to the Plas (Tan y Bwlch). Next events are Halloween and Fireworks. Publicising a programme of events can be a challenge but to make things easier we have installed an events listing page on the pub’s website. Organisers of events are going to be trained to use this system and pretty soon there will be a long list of things to choose from and put into your diary. Here is the events page.

Onwards and upwards. 

Worktown: The Drawings of Falcon Hildred

This exhibition of Falcon’s work, who lives in Blaenau Ffestiniog, opened at the Coalbrookdale Gallery, Ironbridge Gorge Museum, on 5 October 2012 and will run until 30 April 2013. It is free to enter and will be open 10am-5pm, Monday-Friday. For further details, please call 01952 433424 or visit the Ironbridge website.