Tessera
Folgen

Curious Travellers

@curioustravellers.bsky.social

‘Curious Travellers 2: Digital Editions of Thomas Pennant’s Tours of Wales and Scotland’. An AHRC-funded research project (CAWCS, University of Glasgow, Natural History Museum London) Histories of Enlightenment Travel https://curioustravellers.ac.uk/en/

142 Posts2968 Follower1289 Folgt
Curious Travellers@curioustravellers.bsky.social · 2mo ago

"Proceed two miles farther; pass under a high hill, with a precipitous front, styled Sgor-more, or, the great projection; and immediately after reach Dun-tuilm castle, or, the castle of the round grassy eminence, placed at the verge of a high precipice over the sea" Pennant's 1772 Scottish Tour

Illustration of Duntulm castle, Skye, by Moses Griffith, as described in the post, projecting over the sea with cliffs and a cloudy sky in the background, from the extra-illustrated 1772 Tours of Scotland held by the National Library of Wales.
Curious Travellers@curioustravellers.bsky.social · 2mo ago

For one of the earliest popular descriptions of Fingal's Cave and Staffa, comparing it to the Giant's Causeway ("a new giant's causeway, rising amidst the waves; but with columns of double the height of that in Ireland"), see our online chapters from Thomas Pennant's 1772 'Tour in Scotland'!

Curious Travellers editions

Curious Travellers editions

editions.curioustravellers.ac.uk

Elizabeth Boyle@thecelticist.bsky.social · 2mo ago

"they were able to definitively connect the 1st lava flows on the N. Irish plateau to the same volcanic activity that formed the giant basalt columns in Fingal’s Cave on the Scottish Hebridean island of Staffa – rocks that were previously thought to have formed millions of years after the Causeway."

UWTSDlib@uwtsdlib.bsky.social · 2mo ago

1/3 Join Professor Mary-Ann Constantine of the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Welsh naturalist and travel writer, Thomas Pennant.

A square image with a teal background. At the top there is text describing the title of the open day at the UWTSD Special Collections about Thomas Pennant. The text includes the date of the event. In the centre of the image there is an image of a title page of a Thomas Pennant book. It has the title “The Journey to Snowdon” with a block print image of a body of water with boats, and a castle in the distance below.
UWTSDlib@uwtsdlib.bsky.social · 2mo ago

1/3 Ymunwch â’r Athro Mary-Ann Constantine o’r Ganolfan Uwchefrydiau Cymreig a Cheltaidd i ddathlu 300 mlynedd ers geni’r naturiaethwr a’r awdur teithio o Gymru, Thomas Pennant.

A square image with a teal background. At the top there is text describing the title of the open day at the UWTSD Special Collections about Thomas Pennant. The text includes the date of the event. In the centre of the image there is an image of a title page of a Thomas Pennant book. It has the title “The Journey to Snowdon” with a block print image of a body of water with boats, and a castle in the distance below.
Curious Travellers@curioustravellers.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Happy to report that we're full-up for our talks and launch in Edinburgh on Thursday, but there is a waiting list to join if you've been left disappointed!

Curious Travellers@curioustravellers.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Join us at the National Library of Scotland (@natlibscot.bsky.social) for a presentation on Thomas Pennant and the Origins of Scottish Tourism - and the public launch of the first parts of our new online editions of Pennant's Tours! Book for free via the link, 5:30-6:30 on Thursday June 4th.

Curious Travellers@curioustravellers.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Any ideas about the Ladies of Llangollen's 'powdery tallow candles' much appreciated!

Claire Connolly@claireconnolly.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Anyone have any idea what is going on with the candles in this early c19 account of 2 women walking, wearing 'vulgar long waisted blue riding habits, with beaver hats, and their powdery tallow candles hanging dangling down their backs'? The women in question are the so-called Ladies of Llangollen 🤔

Curious Travellers@curioustravellers.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Join us at the National Library of Scotland (@natlibscot.bsky.social) for a presentation on Thomas Pennant and the Origins of Scottish Tourism - and the public launch of the first parts of our new online editions of Pennant's Tours! Book for free via the link, 5:30-6:30 on Thursday June 4th.

Thomas Pennant and the origins of Scottish tourism | National Library of Scotland

Learn about Thomas Pennant's natural history focussed tour of 1769 and the 1772 voyage to the Hebrides illustrated by images from artist Moses Griffith.

nls.uk

Curious Travellers@curioustravellers.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Sign up to hear one of our tour editors, Elizabeth Edwards, talk about queerness, Welsh tourism, and the Ladies of Llangollen! (Hybrid online/in-person session)

Canolfan Uwchefrydiau Cymreig a Cheltaidd / CAWCS@yganolfangeltaidd.bsky.social · 7mo ago

📢Seminar Hybrid Seminar 🗓29/01/26 🕔5.00pm 🗣 Dr Elizabeth Edwards (CAWCS) ‘Home Circuits: the Ladies of Llangollen, queer temporalities and Welsh landscapes’ 📧E-bostiwch canolfan@cymru.ac.uk i gofrestru / Email cawcs@wales.ac.uk to register @curioustravellers.bsky.social

Canolfan Uwchefrydiau Cymreig a Cheltaidd / CAWCS@yganolfangeltaidd.bsky.social · 9mo ago

A conference in London on 7 November explores the scientific legacy of Thomas Pennant (1726–1798) from Holywell, Flintshire - an internationally renowned naturalist whose specimens form a core part of the Natural History Museum’s collections. Read more here: www.uwtsd.ac.uk/news/confere...

Conference Reveals Welsh Naturalist’s Major Contributions to London’s Natural History Museum

The upcoming ‘Curious Collections’ conference at the Natural History Museum, London (November 7th) will shed new light on one of the oldest collections in the museum’s archives and explore the scienti...

uwtsd.ac.uk

Curious Travellers@curioustravellers.bsky.social · 9mo ago

We're looking forward to our conference at the Natural History Museum (@nhm-london.bsky.social) on Friday - read our press release to find out more!

Conference Reveals Welsh Naturalist’s Major Contributions to London’s Natural History Museum

The upcoming ‘Curious Collections’ conference at the Natural History Museum, London (November 7th) will shed new light on one of the oldest collections in the museum’s archives and explore the scienti...

uwtsd.ac.uk

Curious Travellers@curioustravellers.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Two members of the Curious Travellers team will be launching books including Thomas Pennant at the Gorwelion Conference this week!

Canolfan Uwchefrydiau Cymreig a Cheltaidd / CAWCS@yganolfangeltaidd.bsky.social · 11mo ago

📢Cynhadledd GORWELION Conference 🗓 17-19/09/2025 📍Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru @librarywales.bsky.social 🗣Prif siaradwyr / Plenaries: Mererid Hopwood, Barry Lewis, & Ian Stewart. 🔗Rhagor o fanylion / Further information: www.wales.ac.uk/cy/canolfan/...

sophie | PhD student@sophiecairns.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Very excited and grateful to have been given the chance to present at the ‘Journeys of Curiosity’ symposium, where I’ll be chatting a bit about curiosity, the sublime, and imperial anxieties in Romantic travel accounts of the Himalayas. Really looking forward to hearing all the other papers as well!

Curious Travellers@curioustravellers.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Curious Travellers are delighted to be partnering with the long-running Liverpool Travel Seminar to host an Early Career Symposium dedicated to ‘Journeys of Curiosity’ Bluecoat, Liverpool, 25/09. Free (including lunch), registration by September 19th curioustravellers.ac.uk/journeys-of-...

Curious Travellers@curioustravellers.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Thomas Pennant's writings shed light on Welsh aspects of this "workhouse-plantation nexus" - in the Greenfield Valley in north east Wales, Pennant gives a whitewashed account of the conditions of child labourers, sent from distant parishes to work in the plantation-supplied cotton mills of Holywell

Pennant, who leased land to one of the Greenfield companies and was himself an entrepreneur with mining interests in the area,46 devotes a full page in the History of the Parishes of Holywell and Whiteford (1796) to the excellent work and living conditions of the 400 children working for the Holywell Cotton Twist company. They have clean, whitewashed, and ventilated purpose-built accommodation; a good dinner of soup, beef, pork, or herrings and potatoes, milk, bread, and porridge; access to a doctor; and regular Sunday school. This information, he notes, comes directly from ‘one of the partners’, Mr Christopher Smalley, the eldest son of the late founder. Mention of the factory in a recent study of child labour, however, suggests that this may not have been the whole story. In 1792 an agent to the Holywell cotton mills had to explain to the parish board of St Clement Danes in London (which had supplied the child workers): ‘that of the children bound to that company, seven out of nine had run away. He admitted that they were worked from 7 in the evening to 6 in the morning that they were not relieved during the night’. The common practice of factories sourcing children from distant parishes adds another thread to this story of interconnected dislocations.
Antipode@antipodeonline.bsky.social · 11mo ago

"Workhouses in England and Wales linked to transatlantic slave trade, study suggests" -- Antipode authors @williamsapj.bsky.social and Jon May discuss their published work www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s... doi.org/10.1111/anti...