Overview

In July 1798, a Cambridge student set out on a botanical tour and wrote the first guidebook to North Wales. Wearing spectacles and carrying a rucksack, Yorkshire-born William Bingley made notes, sketched and looked for rare plants. He befriended a Welshman with whom he made the first recorded rock climb in Britain on the north flank of Snowdon. Three years later they climbed the iconic mountain Tryfan. Bingley also helped establish the legend of the faithful hound Gelert. In retracing Bingley's steps through the historic counties of Flint, Denbigh, Caernarvon, Anglesey, Merioneth and Montgomery (as well as the town of Oswestry), the reader will discover a landscape and people of over two hundred years ago. They will clamber with Bingley up waterfalls, ride in a waggon into a candle-lit copper mine, sail on a cutter to Ynys Enlli, suffer the fleas at an inn in Beddgelert, ponder the necessity of taking a pint of rum up Snowdon, or blissfully rest in the shade of Montgomery Castle during harvest. Perhaps also, like Bingley, they will be fired by the Last Bard's curse on Edward I, while gazing across the water at sunset towards the isle of the Druids. This first edition since 1839 includes a newly researched biography, and background on the Picturesque, the Sublime, slate quarries and pickled puffins.

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9781800422438

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Monica Kendall's new edition of Bingley, which is as lucid as it is deft, is a most welcome addition to the literature of the 'Welsh tour'. Modern Wales in many ways is indebted to him. (Professor Prys Morgan)

Author Information

Monica Kendall was born in north London. She gained a Master's degree at St Hugh's College, Oxford University in Arabic and went into publishing, sorting through the slush pile at Victor Gollancz in Covent Garden. After a second Master's degree at University College London in Medieval Studies (with distinction) she focused on editing academic books, latterly for Oxford University Press. There were also periods as an actress, as a Hansard reporter in the House of Lords and as an editor of books on archaeology. She has travelled widely, from the hippy trail to Nepal through Afghanistan in the 1970s, to walking the Owain Glyndwr trail and her son's Snowdonia Way in the 2010s. She climbed Snowdon up the Pyg Track and moved to North Wales, inspired by her great-great-grandfather's hiraeth am Gymru. Her article on her ancestor Rev. Evan Jenkins is in the Dictionary of Welsh Biography. He went to Ystrad Meurig school in Cardiganshire in the early 1800s under John Williams, who was taught by Edward Richard. Richard also taught the scholar and poet Evan Evans (Ieuan Fardd) and corresponded with Lewis Morris, whose children were at the school.

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