Welsh Journals

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[We add what V. E. Nash-Williams writes about the Llan- rhidian Stone in his Early Christian Monuments of Wales (p. 138) A fragmentary sculptured slab (? part of a monolithic sacro- phagus or hog-back). The slab is decorated with carved ornament in low relief, representing human and animal (?) figures, all highly stylized. In the centre are two draped male (? or male and female) figures, standing facing front, with vestiges of two similar smaller figures (? Angels-incomplete) in the upper field between. To left and right are two curvilinear forms possibly representing grotesque animal forms, both in a rampant posture The human figures are rendered in the Celtic manner with pear-shaped faces and scroll-like semi-circles below (? for slippered feet) their drapery or vestments are reduced to a fretted or cruciform pattern (? repre- senting the hands clasped together in front with flowing sleeves of vestments). Rendering is generally in the Irish tradition and compares closely with figure representations in some late 9th century or early 10th century MSS. The significance of the figure-scene s indeterminable. Date 9th-10th century.] The Changing Profile of Swansea by M. CLAGUE TAYLOR IT is REALLY ONLY in the past two or three years that the profile of Swansea has changed radically. True, since the earliest days of the town's growth, the number of private houses has rapidly increased, office blocks and other commercial buildings have been erected, but with a few exceptions they have fitted more or less unobtrusively into the landscape. Although the rash of new buildings spread far and wide, even covering the hills guarding the town, because of their low height the profile of Swansea, seen from a distance, wasn't altered. In fact, although the colours of the hills changed from greens to reds and greys the contours weren't changed. Apart from Cefn Coed Hospital, the Water Tower, Mayhill School, and the Guildhall, with its admonishing white finger pointed skywards, I can think of little that was unduly noticeable. But recently all that has changed. Blocks of multi-storey flats rear skywards erratically-not erratically in a Leaning- Tower-of-Pisa sense, but erratically in the sense that, unlike Manhattan's grouped skyscrapers, they do not soar in a designed pattern but break brutally into the skyline, just as the symmetry