The Stars, at Our Feet

Remy Dean

Remy Dean on ‘The Stars, at Our Feet’

As Writer in Residence at Plas Tan y Bwlch, Maentwrog, I was seeking to celebrate the Snowdonia National Park being designated the world’s tenth International Dark Sky Reserve in 2015, and searching for a suitably poetic link between the sky and the land.

Iron : forged in the hearts of stars, gifted to the universe upon their deaths. More plentiful than any other metal. It is in our blood. It is in the land. The acid waters from the high, peated moorland carried the iron down to deposit it as pans of bog-iron in the extensive marshlands that once surrounded the village of Maentwrog. This iron was discovered and worked by the ancient smiths of the Bronze Age, ushering in a new Age of : Iron.

Whilst I was delving into the extensive archives of the house, I came across a box of uncatalogued bits and pieces. There were assorted old photographs, newspaper cuttings, garden planting plans, hunting itineraries, along with old…