What does Wales Look Like?

To enlarge the photos below, click on each.

What color is the margin on the left of this page?  Looks green to me. North East Wales is like  Ireland:  an island of green.  At least in May of 2004 Wales was totally green to me.

There may be other parts of Wales that do not look so green... at least not in the past.  Wales supplied much of the coal that was used by the Industrial Revolution in England.  Before people in the industrialized countries and Wales became aware of and sensitive to the environment much of the land had evidence of coal mining.  Today Wales, like the US regions of West Virginia and Pennsylvania, have worked to return the green to the region.

A "classic" novel that presents the industrial revolutionary era to the reader is How Green Was My Valley.  This is an excellent book by Richard Llewellyn.  The movie won the Oscar for best film in 1941. 

The novel focuses on the memories of Huw Morgan, a young man growing up in a South Wales mining community, and how the harsh lessons of his youth taught him there was little as beautiful as his memories of Wales.

Maybe I did not see the coal mining region of Wales.  The setting for the novel was in Southwest Wales and I visited Northeast Wales.

Mining does take place in Northeast Wales, however.  Before the development of modern roofing materials made from tar, roofs were covered with "slate."  Much of the world's slate came from Wales.  I heard the story that several years ago "something" major had happened in Australia.  Many roofs needed to be repaired or replaced.  Again the slate was ordered from Wales.  Roofing slate is rock that can be "mined" so that it will be about the size of a piece of notebook paper and about as thick as a hamburger.  A slate roof should last forever--- if it is not blown off during a storm.

In this photo we see at the top the worthless rocks that were removed in order to get down to the good and commercial slate.

  Something interesting:  it has been shown now that at one time the hills of Wales and the mountains of the Northeastern part of the United States were at one time connected.  Use google and read about "continental drift."

Look at the photo that goes with this narration.  How are you going to make a living if you live in a region where the land is almost vertical? It appears to be very difficult to use a team of horses or a tractor on a hillside like this.     What do you see on the green hillside?  From a distance we see little dots of white here and there.

People generally do whatever in order to maximize the return from their investment.  I've seen corn grow on hills in Guatemala that are as vertical as what we can see in Wales.  The culture and preferences of people in Guatemala and Wales are different.  The vertical hillsides in Wales are used for sheep production that might mean for wool or for slaughter.

Like people around the world, the farmers in Wales will use natural materials or the least expensive materials to construct the buildings and fences that will be used on the farm.  In Wales trees will grow but not of the size or the quantity that makes it easy to use wood.  Look at this photo--- what apparently is very plentiful in Wales?   Notice the "barn" and the fences are constructed from rocks that probably were picked up or collected from the farm.  With all the rain that Wales has, they need building materials that will survive all the wetness.

Following are other photos that show what the land of Wales looks like.  What words describe what you are looking at?

So, based upon the photos that we see on this webpage, what does Wales look like?  Two words should quickly come to your head.

Keep in mind-- we know that south Missouri and north Missouri look different.  Different types of land, different crops, different trees and so on.  Wales will be the same way.  Near the ocean the land might look different.  As we travel into England from Wales, the land will be more flat rather than with mountains.

Are you ready to look at something different in Wales?  Look on the left side of this page.  Open the page to the bottom of the page you are on right now or select a topic that seems interesting to you.