Corlan : Côr-ona

A walk in fy milltir sgwâr in search of Corlannau, following the bird song

Here’s a map of fy Milltir Sgwar (my square mile), with thanks to Iain Biggs for sending it to me in February 2020, and inviting some kind of collaboration around the idea of fanks/folds (Corlan in Welsh) during lockdown. His interest in these structures seems very timely, given our suddenly obvious nature of our precarious position in the world (I’m thinking of Coronavirus, eco-system collapse, climate change), we are ‘all seeking refuge’, trying to get used to the uncertain nature of the world we are now living in.

mynd am dro

I was thinking of this, as I walked in a circle in search of Corlannau from my house (which is directly above the n next to the north of the purple road), up to the north of LLANBERIS, and down to the sheepfolds bottom right…. Also on the map is Ffynnon Beris, the ancient well of Nantperis, which was said to have magical healing properties if one of the two (50 year old) eels came out to see you. Perhaps hordes of people will start, once again, to visit it? The series below are a record of that walk.

Mapping sound

After sending the walk, and mentioning sheltering in Corlan 1 to listen to the birds away from the noise of the wind, Iain asked me to map the birdsong - one in the upper part of the map, and the other in my garden/lower part of the map.

Here is my map of sound in the upper part - from garden gate to Corlan 1 to Corlan 8…

with accomanying sound piece… you could listen to this as you follow the journey below…

Corlan 1: Artist Round

Once, about a year ago, I found Bethesda-based landcape artist David Woodford perched on a rock above this corlan, complete with easel, hat and plastic bags over his shoes. Well into his 80s, he’s only person I’ve ever come across while wandering around other than our farmers. We had a lively chat about the state of art, the art world and whether painting and drawing were now old fashioned. He was contemplating the possibility of not being able to make a living from art for the first time in his life. Every day he goes out and climbs mountains to paint. This is the picture he was drawing. The half completed sketch, as I saw it, really captured the place (I begged him to sell it to me as it was, to no avail), but this finished one (shown at Royal Cambrian Academy) has wiped out all human signs, and seems to have done something strange to the trees… I wouldn’t recognise it as our valley I don’t think. Anyway, It is an artist’s view over the Corlan back up the valley: in the tradition of the long line of artists painting romantic ‘takes’ on Dyffryn Peris.

Corlan 2: Dinas Bach

Lying just the other side of the cliff from the first Corlan is this complex Corlan, of various rectangular shapes. My step-children, Odette and Edison used to play hide and seek up here. We found three old bedsteads and four skulls - 3 sheep and one goat. Do sheep and goats go back to the sheltered Corlan to die? The chough love to play here.

Corlan 3: Hafod

This is a wide oval shape, incorporating a bluff at the far end, with two square structures arranged around a cliff. It’s got a stream running through it and two bridges over the stream, and a couple of standing stones to one end. The walls of the central buildings are full of tiny micro-gardens of mosses and lichens and little pools of water. They feel like tiny versions of what this enclosure may have been like when it was a summer home? Now, within the enclosure, when it is wet like today, the streams create little enclosures of their own… the wren is the main voice here, with chough and sometimes a visiting seagull to distant sounds of the ring ouzels.

Corlan 4: Corlan Dwr

The stream runs full pelt through this enclosure, pooling around a scraggly ash tree and emerging in a waterfall from the near wall. We have taken pond plants from this enclosure to put in our pond, where they seem to be doing quite nicely. Frogspawn appeared amongst them earlier this week. The tree just behind me as I took this photo is where I once had a close encounter with two peregrine, who flew out from a branch about 6 foot from where I was standing, struggling to get airborne, before entangling themselves with a buzzard.

Corlan 5: The Badger Set Structures

These three, connected partially roofed structures seem to also have some kind of water gathering bunds. No idea what they are!. We call them the badger set structures because they are just above the badger set. The badger once visited Ed in his Caban! The set was abandoned after the drought in 2018 (no longer safe, or did they die unable to scrub up worms from the parched ground?), and I found a badger skull just outside one of the entrances to the set, which we keep in the caban.

corlan 6: tin corlan

This tin corlan is a favourite haunt of the ring ouzels and stonechats. And a robin lives here all year round. You can see the badger structures on the slopes in the distance. And a beautiful heart-shaped moss corlan. Moss feels very safe in these precarious times - able to deal with gales, wet, dry and the grazing of sheep and goats. I would like to live in a mossy ball like this.

Nearby, an ancient grove of hawthorns make themselves a Corlan with thorns (and moss)

Corlan 7: Not a corlan

Love this beautiful old gate + bedstead + view of Gwastadnant houses…. complete with new fence being layed out. I cannot work out what this new fence is going to do - presumably to control the movement of sheep. Is it to keep them in or out? Around here the wheatear and meadow pipits take over.

Corlan 8: not a corlan either

More fencing tools… circle of wire… a post tied safely to the rock …. and in the distance in front of the houses are Corlans 9 and 10. Behind me as I take this shot is a little wood with an ancient oak, a corlan of the redstart, greater spotted woodpecker and a cuckoo perching post.

corlan 9: Hen Gorlan

Isn’t this shaped like a woman? When I first found this, there was some pottery and old bottle in the walls, but I couldn’t find them this time. Instead, I found an old hinge and some thick piece of flat glass.

With the currently used Corlan 10 behind, and old sheep dip castle Corlan 11 in front of the barn.

Corlan 10: corlan Afon las

This is the Corlan that is still used by the farmer, John Morgan. The sheep go out over the bridge to be loaded into trailers.

There are “Crawia” fences made of slate - I’ve used these to make our Bin Corlan, keep it safe from the gales which like to take it on long trips down the road.

Meanwhile, the puddles in the Corlan are full of frog(toad?) spawn, each bubble, a tiny safe (ish) - or a nourishing - place for an inhabitant.

Corlan 11: Corlan Castell

When I had use of the barn (the building with the roof), I used the castle to store all the slate I had, to make marble runs. It must have been a sheep dip area? This is where we started playing with installations for Llif, which went on to shows in Pontio, Y ‘Steddfod Genedlaethol, MSParc and others… In the background, a hydro-scheme was being constructed on the river, Afon Las. This ended in (temporary) disaster, after a storm washed all the soil into the river, causing Eutrophication in Llyn Peris.

Garden Corlan Yr Ardd (Corlannau isaf)

5am recording from the garden/lower corlan… this is a 1.5 hour recording, reduced to 16 minutes