Places of England: Ross-on-Wye (Season 1 : Episode 10)
Released very quick, wasn't it?
Here is the tenth episode of the first season of the Places of England, which this episode takes place in the market town of Ross-on-Wye, which that is in the county of Herefordshire. Watch this video as I guide you through Ross-on-Wye's brilliant history.
Norton House Gold Award Bed and Breakfast, Ross-on-Wye
Norton House Gold Award Bed and Breakfast, Whitchurch, Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, HR9 6DJ, England
Click on the blue link above to read more about the Norton House Gold Award Bed and Breakfast or to book your stay there.Or visit for bargain prices on many more hotels in Herefordshire in the UK and around the globe.
The Tiny Welsh Town That's Brimming With Books | Atlas Obscura
Hay-on-Wye was once declared an independent kingdom of books by the man who appointed himself its king. The United Kingdom's mecca for bibliophiles is less than one square mile in size, but it’s packed with independent booksellers curating all kinds of used and antique reading material. Today, the area doesn't just provide a safe haven for books—the books actually help to preserve their home.
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Recommended Books on British Paganism: Romano-British, Welsh, Arthurian
These are books I recommend for anyone wanting to learn more about British Paganism, divided into the categories of Pagan Britain, Wales, and Arthurian Legend. You might also want to check out my video on books about the Celts in general, at
The photo in the opening and closing cards is from
Pagan Britain:
This covers the period in Britain before the rise of Christianity. This means the Romano-British period because we have so little evidence before then.
Pagan Celtic Britain/Anne Ross
Celtic Religion in Roman Britain/Graham Webster
Shrines and Sacrifice/Ann Woodward
Wales:
In a way, Welsh Paganism is a meaningless term, because by the time the word Welsh becomes appropriate the country is Christian. I'm using it here to refer to material in Welsh that may contain stories from the pre-Christian era, or that may be useful to those wanting to create a Welsh form of Paganism.
Trioedd Ynys Prydein/ed. and tr. Rachel Bromwich
The Mabinogi and Other Medieval Welsh Tales/ed. and tr. Patrick K. Ford
The Mabinogion/tr. Jeffrey Gantz
A Celtic Miscellany/Kenneth Jackson
The Celtic Heroic Age/ed. John T. Koch and John Carey
Celtic Heritage/Alwyn Rees and Brinley Rees
Arthur:
The stories around Arthur contain some Pagan material, although it is hard to figure out what's what. Because there is so much on Arthur, I don't discuss all of the following in the video, but these are all texts I recommend. These are all primary sources, because there is little secondary sources that are easily available that I can recommend without reservation. I suggest grounding yourself in the primary sources before approaching the secondary ones.
The Romance of Tristan/Beroul
The Celtic Sources for the Arthurian Legend/Jon B. Coe and Simon Young
Arthurian Romances (including Perceval)/Chrétien de Troyes
The History of the Kings of Britain/Geoffrey of Monmouth
Le Morte D'Arthur/Thomas Malory
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Sir Orfeo/tr. J. R. R. Tolkien
Parzival/Wolfram von Eschenbach
The Mabinogi(on) contains some Arthurian material as well.
I didn't mention it, but this website: is a translation of Preiddeu Annwn.
If you have any questions, please either comment or send me a pm.
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Ross England age 10 showing you how its done!!
My 10 year old cousin giving us a demo of his Street dancing :) KEEP IT UP!
The Royal Forest of Dean
HQ ? - click bottom right 360p & go to 480p.
Forest of Dean
The view north towards Ross-on-Wye from Symonds Yat Rock, a popular tourist destination in the ForestThe Forest of Dean is a geographical, historical and cultural region in the western part of the county of Gloucestershire, England. It is a roughly triangular area bounded by the River Wye to the west and north, the River Severn to the south, and the City of Gloucester to the east.
The area is characterised by over 110 square kilometers (42.5 sq mi) of mixed woodland, one of the surviving ancient woodlands in England. A large area was reserved for royal hunting before 1066, and remained as one of the largest Crown forests in England, the largest after the New Forest. Although the name is often used loosely to refer to that part of Gloucestershire between the Severn and Wye, the Forest of Dean proper has covered a much smaller area since mediaeval times. In 1327 it was defined to cover only the royal demesne and parts of parishes within the hundred of St Briavels[1], and after 1668 the Forest comprised the royal demesne only. This area is now within the civil parishes of West Dean, Lydbrook, Cinderford, Ruspidge, and Drybrook.[2]
Traditionally the main sources of work in the area have been forestry including charcoal production - iron working and coal mining. Evidence shows that the area was extensively mined for coal from about 8000 BC to 1965 AD.
The area gives its name to the local government district, Forest of Dean, and a Parliamentary constituency. The administrative centre is Coleford which is also one of the main towns in the area, together with Cinderford, Lydney and Newent.
Foresters
If born within the hundred of St Briavels, an ancient administrative area covering most of what is now considered the Forest of Dean, one is classed as a true Forester. This classification bestows a unique right for males who are over 21 and have worked in a mine for a year and a day—they can register to be a freeminer. Residents of the hundred who are over 18 can also graze sheep in the Forest. These ancient rights that were put on the statute books in the Dean Forest (Mines) Act 1838, the only public act to affect private individuals.
Famous natives
Dick Whittington, also known as Richard Whittington, who later became Lord Mayor of the City of London, was born in Pauntley, now part of the Forest of Dean district. The writer Dennis Potter was born near Coleford and frequently used the region as a setting in his work, most notably in The Singing Detective, Blue Remembered Hills and Karaoke/Cold Lazarus; the local accent and dialect can be heard at some length in the BBC productions of these shows. The BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2 DJ Jimmy Young is one of Cinderford's most famous sons, as are the indie band EMF. J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, lived on the southern edge of the Forest at Tutshill from 1974 to 1983 and used the forest as a setting in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Jane Couch living at Lydney who is a female world boxing champion.Jason Allen who has the world record for the volume of cheese baps eaten in 1 minute (27).
Ross-on-Wye Busking Festival 2018
A memento of the fantastic Ross on Wye Busking Festival 2018
HAY ON WYE THE TOWN OF BOOKS
A Visit to the Town OF Books Hay On Wye, a pretty market town
The Gruffalo - Ashfield Park Primary, Ross-on-Wye
A retelling of the story by the two reception classes at Ashfield Park. We used Green Screen app and iMovie on iPads.
HAY-ON-WYE, Wales
Hay-on-Wye - famous as the world's first book town - is home to the Hay Festival of Literature & The Arts as well as Hay Castle - one of the great medieval strongholds of the Welsh Borders. (Music by 10 Mewn Bws)
Orles Barn Hotel, Ross-on-Wye
Orles Barn Hotel, Wilton, Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, HR9 6AE, England
Click on the blue link above to read more about the Orles Barn Hotel or to book your stay there.Or visit for bargain prices on many more hotels in Herefordshire in the UK and around the globe.
70s and 80s Lolly Ice and sweet wrappers
I collected lolly and sweet wrappers in the late 70s and early 80s. all these photos are from that collection so some are a little worse for wear! the scrap book is kept in the loft gathering dust. accidently re-discovered it a couple of days ago so i thought i'd share it among you good folks. enjoy and please comment
Alan Wilson Historian - The Hidden History of Britain
Turn on captions for English subtitles.
Alan Wilson is a British historian specialising in the origins and ancient history of the British and the history of the ancient British kings including two real King Arthurs.
Arthurian research:
In 1976, after a chance meeting with historical researcher, Anthony Thomas 'Baram' Blackett, at the public library in Newcastle upon Tyne, the two men decided to put up many thousands of pounds of their own money to fund full-time research into the origins of King Arthur. The Arthurian stories, so popular today, came out of South-Eastern Wales into France, via the Normans, in the 12th century and this encouraged them to start their search in the same place. The search soon moved beyond Wales to include the English Midlands which had been dominated by the old Welsh Kingdoms for centuries.
To date, Wilson and Blackett have published seven books that provide information based upon Old Welsh records that date to the 12th Century. They believe that these provide a final solution to the King Arthur story and have clearly identified the true sites of the battles of Badon (Mynydd Baedan) and Camlann.
In 1983, Wilson and Blackett discovered what they believe to be King Arthur's memorial stone at the small ruined church of St Peter-super-Montem on Mynydd-y-Gaer in Mid-Glamorgan, which they subsequently purchased. The stone was offered to the National Museum of Wales (Amguedda Werin Cymru) for analysis, but the offer was not taken up. Subsequently it went on public display in various venues for some time. Following this, they employed the services of two archaeologists, (Professor Eric Talbot and Alan Wishart) in 1990, to lead a dig at the same place. During the excavations, which were authorised by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, several artefacts were discovered including an ancient axe, a knife and a small cross weighing two and a half pounds, that reads Pro Anima Artorius (For The Soul Of Arthur). The cross was subsequently tested by an independent metallurgical house, Bodycote PLC, and found to be made of electrum, and so certified. The cross was offered up to the National Museum of Wales for public testing, but this also was declined.Wilson and Blackett had already identified the church as an ancient historical site possibly originally dating from the first century A.D. Other major Welsh kings are buried locally.
More recently, Wilson and Blackett began a search for what was known as 'The Greatest Work of the Cymru' - Cyfrangon. This is allegedly a massive, hollow, man-made hill concealed somewhere in Wales (similar to Silbury Hill). Treasure hunters in Wales have long sought this fabled hill in which, it is believed, lie several objects of tremendous historical and archaeological value, many of which may be covered in gold or copper.
The use of deep ground probing metal detection and analysis equipment revealed non ferrous metal artefacts some fifteen feet below the surface of the hill at Twyn y Glog, near Ynysybwl in mid Glamorgan. Further investigation by collaborators proved that the original height of the hill lies some 30 or more metres below the Ordnance Survey height, and that the hill is therefore an artificial construct. (Berkly, G., 2007).
No further tests have been made to date (10 September 2007).
Lecture tours:
Alan Wilson and his colleague lectured extensively in the United Kingdom, including Manchester and Jesus College at the University of Oxford, and Alan Wilson gave the prestigious Bemis Lecture in Boston in 1993. Research into claims that the Welsh settled in mid-western America in antiquity led to Wilson and his colleague, Baram Blackett, accepting invitations from American supporters to visit US sites of historical significance in 1994. The visit led to several television appearances and the deciphering of alphabetic inscriptions claimed to be in the old 'Coelbren' alphabet. Wilson also concluded that the many snake mounds in the American Mid-west were of ancient Khumric-British construction. Whilst in America, the two men were also commissioned to produce a detailed genealogy for the Bush family (friends and supporters of President George H. W. Bush).
Published works:
Arthur, King of Glamorgan and Gwent (with Baram Blackett, MT Byrd Partnership, 1980)
Arthur and Charter of the Kings (with Baram Blackett, MT Byrd Partnership, 1981)
Arthur The War King (with Baram Blackett, MT Byrd Partnership, 1982-3)
Artorius Rex Discovered (with Baram Blackett, MT Byrd Partnership, 1986)
The Holy Kingdom (with Adrian Gilbert and Baram Blackett, Bantam, 1998)
King Arthur Conspiracy (with Grant Berkley and Baram Blackett, Trafford, 2005)
Moses in the Hieroglyphs (with Grant Berkley and Baram Blackett, Trafford, 2006)
The Discovery of the Ark of the Covenant (with Grant Berkley and Baram Blackett, Trafford, 2007)
A Day in Hay-On-Wye + Book Haul
The gent and I went to Hay-On-Wye to explore! This video has footage of beautiful Welsh countryside and books and bookshops and the two of us being total derps. It was a good day :)
Hay Cinema Bookshop:
The Cwtch Cafe (in Builth Wells):
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Hyperfun by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (
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Exploring Hay-on-Wye: Britain's Booktown
Hay-on-Wye is the most famous booktown in Britain. It lies on the border of England and Wales, next to (my hometown of) Hereford. Take a wander and explore the magic of this glorious and tranquil booktown.
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Visit our full website here: booksandbao.com
An Amazing Welsh Walk
Prepare to see some perfect scenery, old buildings, two rivers and a few cows!
Places for anybody following on Google Maps:
Opening Shot taken on Pistyll Hill
Passing Trevalyn Manor
to Village of Rossett
Then roughly following the River Alyn until it meets the River Dee.
From the Dee I then cut across the fields and follow country lanes roughly back towards Pistyll hill!
Walking route as found online:
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Hay and Back
Four go off on a micro adventure to Hay-on-Wye and back again - summer 2012.
Rehash of the 2012 movie because YouTube muted the original KOC audio track due to a claim by EMI. Let's see how we get on with a cover version.
Broome Farm, Ross-on-Wye
Broome Farm, Peterstow, Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, HR9 6QG, England
Click on the blue link above to read more about the Broome Farm or to book your stay there.Or visit for bargain prices on many more hotels in Herefordshire in the UK and around the globe.
Hope and Greenwood
A traditional sweet shop in Covent Garden and Dulwich. A book of splendid old-fashioned confectionary published by Ebury press. Film by Cristian Barnett, music by Jake Wing.
A Quick Spin Around Hay-on-Wye
Hay on Wye is famous for its bookshops, but here is a quick tour of some of its other shops and markets. This was recorded during the Hay Does Vintage event, November 2014