2020: sgwrs Dyffryn Peris conversation

dod o hyd i dir cyffredin: finding common ground


Dyffryn Dialogues 3.jpg

Be’dy’r goeden hynaf yn y dyffryn?
Which is the oldest tree in the valley?

Click on the image for more/to nominate

Yn y prosiect ‘ma, dw i’n sgwrsio efo pobl yr ardal, i ffindio allan pethau fel:

Be’ ydy eich perthynas efo Dyffryn Peris?

Sut ydach chi’n teimlo am Dyffryn Peris yn y cyd-destun newidiadau ‘Yr Anthropocene’, Brexit, COVID-19 ac ati?

Pa mewnweliadau/achosion/traddodiadau/sgiliau/adnoddau/syniadau/gobeithion sgynnoch chi am y dyfodol yma?

… a ffindio allan lle mae hynny’n mynd.

In this project, I am chatting to people in the area (now doing this by walking together at a safe distance/on skype!), to find out things like:

What’s your relationshiop with Dyffryn Peris Valley?

How do you feel about Dyffryn Peris in the context of changes like ‘The Anthropocene, Brexit, COVID-19 etc?

What insights/concerns/traditions/skills/resources/ideas/hopes do you have for the future here?

… and to find out where that leads.


NEWYDDION - NEWS!

A year after this project started, a new organisation, GwyrddNi have set up a Community Climate Assembly in Dyffryn Peris! I have been delighted to support them in developing their process, and running the Climate Assembly in 2022. I am multi-tasking facilitating and being a participant and you can see here how it is all going.

Our Action Plan can be seen here (English)

Cynllun Gweithredu Hinsawdd Cymunedol Dyffryn Peris (Cymraeg)

I am involved in the Dwr a Thir group, taking forward actions around water and land. And with Angharad Owen and Emily Meilleur we are running a new project called ‘Stori’r Tir Dyffryn Peris’, inviting contributions to a creative project gathering and sharing stories of our relationship to land in Dyffryn Peris


More about the project


“This is a very picturesque vale,
bounded by the base of Snowdon, Cefn Cwm Gafr, the two Glyders,
and two Lliders, each of them first-rate mountains.
It is strait, and of nearly an equal breadth, filled by some meadows, and two magnificent lakes, which communicate to each other by means of a river. The venerable oaks, spoken of by
Leland [1536] are no more.
Avarice, or dissipation, and its constant follower, poverty, have despoiled much of our principality of its leafy beauties.
Among the numberless errors of this performance, I fear the word is IS cloathed with trees, must be supplied by the traveller with WAS.
But this shadeless tract is still worthy his attention.
A road, once a succession of rude and stony stairs, made with much labour, ran on one side, high above the lake, and was often cut out of the rock, to form the way.
This is, I am now informed, changed into a road, which too much facilitates the approach, and lessens its propriety, and its agreement with the wild environs. 

“In this valley are two groupes of wretched houses.
The farthest is near the upper lake, with its church, dedicated to St Peris,
who was, we are told, a cardinal.
Here is to be seen the well of the saint, inclosed with a wall.
The Sybil of the place attends, and divines your fortune by the appearance or non-appearance of a little fish,
which lurks in some of its holes.

“From hence I took a ride above the lakes, to their lower extremity.
The upper is the lesser, but much the most beautiful piece of water.
It is said to be in places a hundred and forty yards deep;
to have abounded with char,
before they were reduced by the streams flowing from the copper mines,
which had been worked on the sides of the hills.”

Thomas Pennant – A Tour in Wales, 1778


Dyffryn Peris o Goed Gwydr: Looking across Dyffryn Peris from my bedroom window, 2019

Dyffryn Peris o Goed Gwydr: Looking across Dyffryn Peris from my bedroom window, 2019