The Trust is excited to announce its publication of The Dyfi Estuary – An Illustrated History by author Richard Mayou.

The Dyfi estuary looks peaceful and unchanging, but this book tells a different and dramatic story. There have been armies, great estates, a centre of seaborne trade, a great woollen industry, cattle droving, fishing of salmon and herring, and internationally renowned mines and quarries. Now its post-industrial landscape is a place of sheep farming, conservation, and tourism.

This book is first to tell the whole story and does so in a way that is highly readable. It is an essential companion for all those who know and visit the Dyfi.

Handsomely designed, the book has 160 illustrations of maps, paintings, drawings, and photographs. It puts the local history of the estuary and the lands around Machynlleth into a much wider context of thousands of years as a strategic centre of Wales and of European trade.

Sections cover Geography, Travel, History, Towns and Villages and Overviews of farming, forestry, fishing, industries, trade, and historic houses.

Richard Mayou was Professor of Psychiatry and Fellow of Nuffield College at Oxford University and is now retired. He has visited the Dyfi area every year of his life since 1952, staying at a family house on the very edge of the estuary between Aberdyfi and Pennal.

Richard is a regular visitor to, and treasured supporter of, the Trust’s work. This is Richard’s second book looking at local history. His first, Shabbington: A Thousand Years of Village History was published in 2015 and explores the Oxfordshire village where Richard and his late wife Ann lived.

The book is priced at £18, available from the gallery and our online shop.