In July 1798, a Cambridge student set out on a botanical tour and wrote
the first guidebook to North Wales. Wearing spectacles and carrying a
rucksack, Yorkshire-born William Bingley made notes, sketched and looked
for rare plants. He befriended a Welshman with whom he made the first
recorded rock climb in Britain on the north flank of Snowdon. Three
years later they climbed the iconic mountain Tryfan. Bingley also helped
establish the legend of the faithful hound Gelert.
In retracing Bingley's steps through the historic counties of Flint,
Denbigh, Caernarvon, Anglesey, Merioneth and Montgomery (as well as the
town of Oswestry), the reader will discover a landscape and people of
over two hundred years ago. They will clamber with Bingley up
waterfalls, ride in a waggon into a candle-lit copper mine, sail on a
cutter to Ynys Enlli, suffer the fleas at an inn in Beddgelert, ponder
the necessity of taking a pint of rum up Snowdon, or blissfully rest in
the shade of Montgomery Castle during harvest. Perhaps also, like
Bingley, they will be fired by the Last Bard's curse on Edward I, while
gazing across the water at sunset towards the isle of the Druids.
This first edition since 1839 includes a newly researched biography, and
background on the Picturesque, the Sublime, slate quarries and pickled
puffins.
