G21 EUROPE - WELSH TAKE
The Saving of Snowdon
Marie Irshad
G21 Staff Writer
To read this article in Deutsch, Francaise, Italiano, Portuguese, Espanol, copy and paste the complete URL("http://www.g21.net/welsh3.htm") and enter it in the box after you click through.
CARDIFF, WALES - Wales is well known worldwide for its hills and mountains which can seem strange to a city dweller like me. Countless times I've stood waiting for the tube when visiting London feeling mystified by a Wales Tourist Board poster across the platform advertising "This Green and Pleasant Land" or something like that. But while the Welsh try and lose this stereotype we also run the risk of taking our countryside for granted. It came as a shock to many people in July when it was announced that a large part of Wales, highest mountain, Snowdon, was being put up for sale. The four thousand acre estate, including the summit itself, had been owned by farmer Richard Williams and his family for fourteen generations, and includes not only Wales's most significant tourist attraction but also a fully working and profitable sheep farm. But with a heavy heart, Mr Williams decided that he needed to spend more time with his family, and maintaining the farm on Snowdon as well as his home on the island of Anglesey was preventing this. It,s very strange to realise that something like a mountain can be owned. In fact a friend of mine remarked that you tend to think of a mountain as being its own entity.
Snowdon is the highest mountain in Wales and bigger than anything in England at 3,560 ft, which gives us a great deal of Celtic pride over our neighbours who tend to think they're superior in every way to us Welsh! Every year the Snowdonia mountain range, which is designated as a National Park, records ten million visitors, with half a million people trying to climb to the summit of Snowdon, and many others preferring to let the 100 year old Snowdon Mountain Railway take the strain. Its beauty has inspired countless authors and poets including Hilaire Belloc, and a couple of years ago, a baby was even christened at the summit! But last year the difficulties of managing a mountain were highlighted when Gwynedd County Council unsuccessfully attempted to charge climbers £2 to climb Snowdon, partly to pay for the cost of maintaining public footpaths and to prevent serious erosion of the mountain.
With this important estate on Snowdon up for sale there was a panic as to who might buy it. It was feared that the land would be purchased by a foreign developer who would either let it fall into disrepair or build some kind of a theme park. There's also continuing concern about the European Commission's idea of constructing so-called "super-highways" making it easy to drive to major ferry ports like Holyhead, one of the main sea routes from Wales to Ireland. Any such road would almost certainly have to be built through or around the Snowdonia mountain range, which in theory at least should be protected by its designation as a National Park. And although groups like the Ramblers, Association pointed out that public rights of way on the mountain shouldn't be affected by the sale, in reality access to the summit could be made more difficult if the estate fell into the wrong hands.
With all this uncertainty in the air, Britain's foremost conservation society The National Trust announced that they wanted to buy the mountain recognising it as an important part of the nation's heritage. This meant the need to raise the asking price of just over £3 million ($5 million) and an extra £1 million ($1.6 million) to pay for urgent repairs and improvements. Mr Williams was generous enough to give the Trust first option to buy his estate and gave them 100 days to find the money, even though news of the sale attracted worldwide interest and interest from around a hundred rival groups and private buyers, many of them ready to pay the asking price there and then.
The appeal was slow to get off the mark until Wales's Oscar-winning actor Sir Anthony Hopkins came home from America to announce that he was giving £1 million ($1.6 million) of his own money to help the campaign. Already known as a keen mountaineer and friend of the National Trust, Sir Anthony had previously made a television series for the BBC about Snowdon, and became President of the Trust's appeal to buy the summit. He revealed that one of his prime reasons for joining the fight to save Snowdon was the destruction of the countryside around his home town of Port Talbot in South Wales through coal mining and other industry, including the construction of a massive steelworks which is sadly the town,s main landmark today. Sir Anthony said he wanted to help protect Snowdon from the sort of development which had spoiled Port Talbot.
Sir Anthony's hefty donation publicised the appeal but the campaign took a while to take off. A credit card hotline was set up to deal with public donations, with money being contributed by Prince Charles and Welsh international soccer star Ian Rush among others. Several top Welsh rock bands including famous names like the Stereophonics took part in a charity concert arranged by singer Mike Peters, one-time frontman of Eighties band The Alarm, who felt moved to help because he could see Snowdon from his house in North Wales. A sponsored walk around Wales was also staged to raise more funds. Even so, there were doubts that the National Trust would be able to raise enough to buy the land outright, and Richard Williams had already received many offers from private buyers who made firm bids on and over the asking price.
But this week it was confirmed that the National Trust had succeeded in raising the money needed to buy Richard Williams, estate covering a third of the mountain, with an estimated quarter of a million people making donations. As a result climbers and walkers will be still be able to approach the summit of Snowdon as they have done for centuries, and a great landmark has been preserved. However, the Trust warns that it'll still need to keep raising cash to pay for restoration and maintenance work on the mountain. Of course The National Trust is not able to buy every piece of green that's put up for sale but even a cynical city dweller like me recognises that something unique will have gone from our lives forever if every last patch of unspoiled land is covered with tarmac in the name of "progress".
+++ The Previous WELSH TAKE +++ The NEXT WELSH TAKE +++
The MAIN EVENT
TALK BACK TO THE G21
©1998, GENERATOR 21.
E-mail your comments. Send your snide remarks to Our Editor.
