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To celebrate the internationally renowned Hay Literature and Arts Festival in Hay-on-Wye in Wales, the book-lovers at Country House Library have hand-picked a selection of vintage books with their primary considerations being the dramatic landscape, rich history, and cultural heritage of the area. From the romantic and rugged Brecon Beacons to the wildlife-rich and idyllic River Wye, Hay is a festival of all the senses.
The Bartholomew cartography business started life in 1797 in Edinburgh and continued through five generations until 1989 when it was merged with Collins. Bartholomew’s managed a prolific output and variety of maps and atlases for academic, commercial and travel purposes, including the popular 62-sheet Half-Inch to One Mile map series of Great Britain. John Bartholomew (son of the founder, John, senior) invented the hypsometric system of colour tinting contours on a map – high areas in brown, lower areas in green, which is now standard cartographical practice. The half-inch scale maps are now generally recognised as the finest of their kind ever produced. Country House Library has selected this one of the Wye Valley, but we recommend you peruse the whole vintage collection here - perfect for picture-framing or absorbing historical study.
If you’re planning a visit to the Hay Festival, or perhaps a holiday or day trip to the area, this little gem of a guidebook will help you find the perfect walk. To quote from the book itself,
“Within easy reach are the fertile farmlands of Hereford, the foothills of Brecknock, and the exciting reaches of the Upper and Lower Wye, where nature at its best offers an endless variety of attractions. As a centre for the hiker, the pony-trekker, the motorist; for the fisherman, the historian, and the antiquarian, Hay has no serious rival”We couldn’t have put it better ourselves!
The mouth of the River Wye is located on the Severn Estuary, just below Chepstow in Wales, and the River Severn in turn empties into the subject of this vintage book, The Bristol Channel. Separating Devon and Somerset from South Wales, the largest inlet to our island’s coast is surveyed as a whole, from the mouth of the Wye to beyond Tenby, across to Lundy, and from Hartland Point to Bristol. Until Tudor times the Bristol Channel was known as the ‘Severn Sea’, and it is still known as this in both Welsh: Môr Hafren and Cornish: Mor Havren. This wonderful edition is illustrated throughout with black and white photographs, and perfect for the home library of books focusing on Wales and South-West England.
Written in 1962 by Sir David Williams, professor of Welsh history at University College of Wales in Aberystwyth, this rare vintage edition covers four and half centuries of modern Wales from 1500 AD to the mid-twentieth century. Encompassing the main developments in the political, religious, economic, and social history of this most fascinating of countries and peoples, this illustrated reference books will grace any home library and provide the lover of Wales with a lifetime treasure.
"the sloeback, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat bobbing sea"
A famous line taken from the classic radio drama Under Milk Wood, written by one of Wales’s literary giants, Dylan Thomas. Commissioned by the BBC in 1954, Thomas had written its beginnings as a 17-year-old schoolboy. An omniscient narrator invites the audience to listen to the dreams and innermost thoughts of the inhabitants of the fictional small Welsh fishing village, Llareggub. In the debut radio broadcast, the ‘first voice’, or narrator, was played by Hollywood actor Richard Burton. With his gravelly, Welsh-accented undertones, the play became an instant success, and the script has never since been out of print. As a treasure of Welsh literature, Country House Library is proud to offer Under Milk Wood in a variety of vintage formats, together with other works by Dylan Thomas.
"An anthology selected from the comparatively unexplored fields of Welsh literature. Compositions by Welshmen of the 13th century onwards, originally written in their own musical tongue and here competently translated with admirable feeling; and literary tributes paid by English men of letters. Delightfully illustrated with 46 carefully selected illustrations which do full justice to the wild beauty and variety of Welsh scenery." (From the jacket)
A vintage book of poems, ballads and songs from the mountains and valleys of Wales. An ideal addition to the bookshelves of Welsh cultural history lovers and anyone who loves the musicality of words.
Britain’s mapping agency, the ‘Ordnance Survey’ has its roots in military strategy: mapping the Scottish Highlands following rebellion in 1745. Later, as the French Revolution rumbled on the other side of the English Channel, there were real fears the bloodshed might sweep across to our shores, so the government ordered its defence ministry of the time – the Board of Ordnance – to begin a survey of England’s vulnerable southern coasts. It was an innovative young engineer called William Roy who was tasked with the initial small-scale military survey of Scotland. Starting in 1747, it took eight years to complete what was known as the Great Map at a scale of 1:36 000 (1.75 inches to a mile). Roads, hills, rivers, types of land cover and settlements were recorded. Fast forward almost 250 years and the modern Ordnance Survey still produce these amazing guides to the British Isles. This one of the Hereford area (No 142 from 1971) is a fascinating look back at this most beautiful of border counties.
This attractive and rare guide from 1881 follows the Cambrian railway from “Dee to Sea”, from the English border town of Shrewsbury, westwards to Aberystwyth and Pwllhelli in Wales. This wonderful, patterned edition comes illustrated throughout with pull out maps and a pull-out endpaper of Tenby, from the North Cliff. This is a real collector’s piece – the perfect treat for lovers of railways, Wales, or simply of fine antique books.
Helen of the roads, The mountain ways of Wales And the Mabinogion tales, Is one of the true gods
These lines from the poem ‘Roads’ allude to ‘Sarn Helen’, the mythical Roman road linking fortresses in the north and south of Wales.
Welsh by descent and a regular visitor to his family in South Wales, (Philip) Edward Thomas (1878 – 1917) is considered a ‘war poet’, although relatively few of his poems relate directly to his war time experience. Thomas's poems are written in a colloquial style and frequently feature the British countryside. In 1915, he enlisted in the British Army to fight in the First World War - his short poem In Memoriam exemplifies how his poetry blends the themes of war and the countryside. Thomas was killed in action in 1917, soon after he arrived in France. The English Poet Laureate Ted Hughes described Edward Thomas as “the father of us all.”
Dorothy May Fraser (1902-1980), adopted the pen-name Maxwell Fraser and became a prolific author of popular travel books. In 1951, she married Edgar Phillips of Pontllan-fraith, Monmouthshire, better known as the poet 'Trefin', who was later to become Archdruid of Wales. She wrote several books of Welsh interest, including Wales (1952), West of Offa's Dyke (1958), Welsh Border Country (1972) and edited the anthology In Praise of Wales (1950). (Watch out for these in Country House Library’s ever-changing stock). Cultural and coastal West Wales is home to Wales’s second city, Swansea, the magnificent Gower peninsula, and the home of Wales’s patron saint, Saint David. Read about the ancient legends that inspire contemporary creativity, and the geographical and historical interest of Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire.
Whether you’re planning to attend events at the Hay Festival, visit the local or wider area, or if you’re simply a lover of Wales and the borders, Country House Library has something for everyone. Cultural, historical or geographical, this handpicked list of vintage books, guides and maps, has it covered.
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