Notes From The Common

Winter on the Common brings to mind frosty mornings, sharp-edged patterns of ice on blades of grass and low, deep-coloured sunsets in the evenings. The darker season also means increased rainfall, blustery conditions and periods of low laying cloud. As we...

In a field close to Coly Row in Bedlinog, on the lower slopes of Gilfach yr Encil ridge, there is a wonderful pond. Silver birches surround its waters and rushes and grasses grow along its edges. It is a haven for wildlife and an amazing...

There is something autumnal about foxes. Maybe it’s the fact that the colour of their coats reminds us of dried, fallen leaves. Or maybe it’s because, as the days shorten, there is more chance that we’ll be out walking at the same time as the fox wends his way back to...

Something Told the Wild Geeseby Rachel Field Something told the wild geeseIt was time to go,Though the fields lay goldenSomething whispered, "snow." Leaves were green and stirring,Berries, lustre-glossed,But beneath warm feathersSomething cautioned,...

The Curlew Nothing sounds more like spring and summer than the bubbling call of the curlew – or Pegi Big Hir - Peggy Long Beak - as she’s sometimes known in Welsh. (The Big in the Welsh name is pronounced in the same way as the English word Beak but with a ‘g’ at the...

A Brief Overview of the Geology of the Gelligaer and Merthyr Common At the summer’s zenith, there is nowhere more beautiful than the Gelligaer and Merthyr Common. It’s a moorland that lies at the north end of the South Wales Coalfields. Looking across the landscape,...

Rhos Las Pond (Rhaslas on the OS map). Beautiful scenes near the lost Pantywaun and Blaen Carno area. In June 1831, in the town of Merthyr, just beyond the Cefn Merthyr ridge, one of the biggest uprisings by workers against the ironmasters and the capitalist class...

May is here with summer fast approaching. The wildlife of the Common is flourishing and in full colour: the yellow of the gorse, the fresh green of the new grasses and rushes, the frothing and unfurling of pinks and lilacs, burgundy too in the hedgerows. The sound of...

The Skylark The Skylark (Yr Ehedydd) Daring hours belonging to the larkwhirling high from his home each day,early riser, bubbling golden on a post,poet of the heavens, April's guardian.by Dafydd ap Gwilym Towards the end of April, as the rushes are busily growing back...

Spring has arrived! And hopefully it will feel even more like spring by the end of the month. Saturday the 1st of March is, of course, Saint David’s Day in Wales: a day that for centuries has celebrated Wales and all things Welsh. Our national anthem is an important...