Brian Davies will be telling stories from his book Land of Lead of four generations of one north Ceredigion family, illustrated with paintings by the first of them, Captain William James (1842-1917), and photographs from Brian’s family archives.

Captain James went to sea; his son William Richard James (1895-1968) then served during the First World War with the Egyptian Expeditionary Force. John David Davies (1876-1942) was a lead miner locally and later a coal miner in south Wales; and Isaac Jenkins (1883-1966) worked on the Vale of Rheidol Railway to Devil’s Bridge.

The family’s history illustrates how the land around Aberystwyth and into the Cambrian Mountains developed over the century through agriculture, mining, maritime and tourism activity.