COUNTRY DIARY MAELOR SAESNEG

Wrexham, Wales

Jim Perrin

The English Maelor! It’s the appendix to Wales that dangles off the bulge of the Welsh north-eastern border and reaches almost as far as Whitchurch in Shropshire. DH Lawrence regarded this as a Welsh-flavoured county, and some of the earliest Welsh poetry, dating back to the sixth century, locates here. The great Welsh warrior chieftain Owain Glyndŵr, at the end of the 14th century, also rode this way, past the deep and phragmites-fringed lake, to marry Margaret Hanmer. Six centuries later, the outstanding feminist literary critic Lorna Sage (1943-2001) was brought up in nearby Hanmer, and her award-winning memoir Bad Blood (2000) leaves a vivid impression of the place and her childhood there. This country around Ellesmere is a haunting, fascinating place, terrific for birds, and not just for the waterfowl either,…

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Guardian Weekly (Digital) - 1 Issue, 23 August 2024

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