Welsh Journals

next chapter, again covering the period 1800-1875. One would query the use of the title 'Chapel Schools': it is a convenient antithesis to 'Church School', but these schools were not usually known as such. In referring to Nonconformity, Seaborne quotes the interesting surviving example of the Quaker meeting house built in 1717 at the Pales, near Llandegley, where a school was held in 1867. He states that few remaining examples of British schools survive (in South Wales), but Bwlchysarnau (1870), Pencerrig (1865) and Presteign, Hereford Street (1859 or 1869) could have been mentioned. Some brief reference is then made to the 'Works School' system, which filled in the gaps left by the National and the British Schools. Chapter 6 is entitled 'Middle Class Schools 1800-1880'. The author tells us that the most useful sources of information about private schools may be found in trade and other directories. Brief reference only is made to Radnorshire, to Cwmdeuddwr and to Presteign. In the last chapter 'Board Schools and the County Councils' 1870-1902', Seaborne has made use of The Builder and The Building News, for some of his sources of information. He tells us that 'EH Lingen Barker, who had a very wide practice based in Hereford, had designed several National schools in Radnorshire.' The book concludes by looking at the fruits of the Welsh Intermediate Education Act of 1889, the County, or Intermediate schools: 'Finally in Radnorshire, the sixteenth century grammar school at Presteigne had acquired a new building in 1860, but it was poorly endowed and was replaced by a new county school,in 1898. Another county school was built at Llandrindod Wells.' This is, in many ways, a most refreshing book, because it does not dwell on the political and religious controversies that have affected education throughout the centuries. The book has 61 photographs of schools from almost all parts of Wales. Unfortunately, there is no photograph of a Radnorshire school and yet there are more than 40 examples of elementary schools extant in our county. The book is also useful in the tables which it has, giving lists of schooling throughout Wales from the sixteenth century to 1902; and the plans of schools are informative, too. What are especially, too, are the appendices, which name the different types of schools which existed in the old counties of Wales, and where to find the plans of the nineteenth century schools, for example. At the National Library of Wales, visit the Department of Pictures and Maps: ask for Gregynog Box 20, and you will have the pleasure of viewing some excellent plans of the National Schools, in particular, in Radnorshire. This is the kind of book which makes you want to go out and find out about your own county's schools. That is a positive recommendation of this book. Colin Hughes Llandrindod Wells Ruth Bidgood, Selected Poems, Seren Books, pp. 138. E6 95. To read Ruth Bidgood's poetry is to be immersed in the landscape of Mid-Wales. More, for the immersion is a baptism and the landscape