In this session, Tom Bullough will be discussing his book Sarn Helen: A Journey Through Wales, Past, Present and Future: an account of a long walk up a former Roman road between the south and north coasts of Wales. He will explore some of the issues around the climate and nature emergency, as well as drawing lessons from the 5th and 6th-century Age of Saints that may help us navigate the next few decades. 

Based near Brecon, Tom is a writer of fiction, non-fiction and, most recently, the film Mr Burton. Sarn Helen won the 2024 Wales Book of the Year and the 2023 Waterstones Welsh Book of the Year.

Photo of Sarn Helen (Roman road), south of Ceridigion. Credit: Roger Kidd.

Duration: 1 hour

Tickets: £15

A lunchtime organ recital by Callum Anderson to include music by Buxtehude, Cima, Gibbons and Sweelinck plus some of Callum’s own compositions.

Callum Anderson is a harpsichordist and organist based in London. In 2020 he completed a Master's Degree in Historically Informed Performance at the Royal Academy of Music with a distinction, studying the harpsichord with Carole Cerasi and Brecon Baroque Festival star, James Johnstone.​ Callum is the Assistant Director of Music at St. Mary’s Church, Putney. He was previously the organist of St. Peter’s Church, Acton (2020-2022), and has held organ scholarships at St. Mary Redcliffe (Bristol), St. Mary's Church (Battersea) and St. Marylebone Parish Church.

Programme:

• Dieterich Buxtehude (1637-1707) - Praeludium in G minor (BuxWV 148)

• Giovanni Paolo Cima (1570-1622) - Ricecare per organo

• Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621) - Fantasia chromatica 

• Callum Anderson (b. 1996) - Passacaglia in A minor (2024) 

• Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625) - Fantasia for Double Organ 

• Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643) – Toccata Quinta (Toccate e partite d'intavolatura, Libro 2) 

• John Bull (1562-1628) - Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La (FVB 51) 

• J.S. Bach (1685-1750) - Toccata and Fugue in D minor, 'Dorian' (BWV 538) 

Duration: 1 hour with no interval.

Tickets: £15

A talk by his daughter, Daisy Prendergast-Wilson

Peter Prendergast (1946–2007) was a Welsh painter known for his dramatic landscapes. Born in South Wales, he overcame early academic struggles—later attributed to dyslexia—and was inspired by a teacher to pursue art. He studied at Cardiff Art School and the Slade in London, then settled in North Wales, where he lived and worked for the rest of his life. Alongside painting, he taught art and helped establish the Bangor Art Foundation course. He exhibited widely and received several awards, including from the Welsh Arts Council and National Eisteddfod.

When Peter died in January 2007 he was widely recognised as one of Britain’s leading landscape painters and his work was acknowledged both nationally and internationally.

Photographs are reproduced with kind permission of Bernard Mitchell, Ken McCoy and Len Tabner

Duration: 1 hour

A talk by the book’s author Gareth Russell

James Stuart, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland did not always love wisely, but he never failed to do so boldly.

He fell in love three times – with a Scottish lord, a knight and George Villiers, ‘the handsomest man in the whole world’. He was infatuated three more times – with a Highland earl, a Welsh lord and an English spy.

We know so much about the six wives of Henry VIII, why not the six loves of James I?

This groundbreaking new book puts James – genius, liar, spendthrift, idealist, witch-hunter – and the men he loved at the centre of one of the most dramatic stories in British royal history.

Duration: One hour plus book signing.

Tickets: £15

Join us for a beautiful pre-concert supper. Booking essential.

Jonathan Morgan and Brecon Cathedral invites… Abbot Brendon Thomas of Belmont Abbey to talk about The Benedictines

This is a free event. All welcome

Get your Jazz weekend revelry off to a fabulous start with Folk Fusion collective Enw. An alt hybrid folk fiesta for your hips, head and heart under the ancient sycamores on the Cathedral Green

Enjoy our Pilgrim’s Repast and a glass of wine before the concert, in the beautiful grounds of Brecon Cathedral…

Friends, Breconians, Book-lovers...

This Summer we are committed to bringing you Author events that enlighten, enthuse and perhaps most importantly, soothe. The world is a tricky, testing and tenuous place right now (to put it lightly) and we hope to provide you with a still-point, a haven, a spot to sit, listen, breathe and think (or not think!). And all our Author events are free - there shouldn't be any barriers to healing should there?

So...

On Thursday June 26th at 6.30pm we are thrilled to be hosting Jay Griffiths for the next in our series of Summer Author events to discuss her new book How Animals Heal Us (Penguin).

Originally from Manchester but a long-time resident of Mid Wales, Jay is an award-winning Author of Fiction, non-Fiction, Memoir and Journalism. A fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Jay is a recipient of the Hay Festival International fellowship, a member of Academi and is a Tutor and Reader across many disciplines.

Pet-owners and animal-lovers instinctively know that animals heal. This new book offers the evidence, drawing widely on scientific discoveries, history, and Indigenous knowledge...

We meet a pot-bellied pig who saved her owner's life, lions who guarded a girl from kidnappers, dolphins and whales rescuing people in danger, and dogs who can smell cancer and phone the Emergency Services.

Animal sounds, from insects to birdsong and the purring of cats, are directly medicinal and their presence can heal the pain of loneliness. Animals, including donkeys, can be natural therapists for the hurt psyche, alleviating trauma, fear and depression. In this original, revelatory and exuberant book, Jay Griffiths explores how animals can have a role in every level of healing, from the individual to the collective, guiding us in how we might create societies that are healthier, fairer and kinder.

Wolves may be teachers of ethics; monkeys and dogs can object to unfairness and bees take collective decisions. Animals are irresistible medicine for a healthy culture, animating the arts with spectacular vitality and verve, as poetry knows.

Open-hearted, playful and wise, How Animals Heal Us puts animals at the heart of a restorative vision of health.

We do hope you will join us 

Leigh & Nicky Xx

Praise for How Animals Heal Us

'No book has changed my thinking about Nature more quickly and more fundamentally than this moving, essential work. Nobody writes about Nature - the world and us in it - with more beauty and grace than Jay Griffiths. She senses connections so deep and so resonant that they ring on and on in my mind.'

- Brian Eno 

‘A wise, deep, and tender account of animal healing for humans, written in lyrical language that sings with compassion. This is one of my favourite books of all time’

-Pascale Petit

'A pure praise poem to the more than human world, a poem filled with love, respect and joy. It thrums with wit, wisdom, understanding and research. But mostly the joy of being connected to life, from the smallest insect to the great whales.'

-Jackie Morris

How Animals Heal Us is a book of boundless passion and compassion. As she explores the worlds of animals, Jay Griffiths make the case for a different way of living: a joyous, vital inclusivity. This is how a book should be - genuinely mind-expanding.'

- Tom Bullough, author of Sarn Helen

We are thrilled to be hosting Horatio Clare this November to discuss his new book 'Your Journey Your Way - How to Make the Mental Health System Work For You' (Penguin Books).

A highly acclaimed bestselling Author, Broadcaster and Lecturer whose very many works cover travel, memoir, nature and children's fiction, Horatio Clare grew up on a remote hill farm in the Black Mountains - an idyllic but isolating childhood that has informed all his writing since. His first book 'Running For The Hills' documented a beautifully almost lawless childhood in the Welsh hills including the breakdown of his parents marriage and their subsequent divorce with an honesty that startled his own family.

Whatever his subject, Horatio's writing is lyrical, immediate and brutally honest. His 2021 memoir 'Heavy Light' - aptly subtitled 'a journey through madness, mania and healing' is the candid often shocking account of his own breakdown at the end of 2018 and his subsequent sectioning and treatment at Wakefield Hospital.

'Your Journey Your Way - How to Make The Mental Health System Work For You' is it's natural follow-up - a deeply researched and visceral exploration of the current mental health system that asks serious questions about whether it is working and how things might change.

International Velvet - How Wales Conquered the 90’s Charts

Jazz infused Delta Blues? Hot dang! Paul Keddle and his cool as cats band of musical men assemble to bring you a foot-tapping, hip-swinging, scrumptious Festival weekend closer to remember

What are Jazz Weekend Sunday afternoons made for? Bella Blue of course. Join us for delectable Jazz and Blues from one of the smokiest soul-filled voices around. An outside bar, sun-streaked skies (?!), and one girl and her Blues guitar celebrating four decades of incredible music in beautiful Brecon

One of the UK's hottest Jazz ensembles led by the gorgeous Susanna Warren bring us an exhilarating feast of sassy Hot Club Jazz, Gipsy, Swing and sooo much more for an absolutely simmering Jazz Saturday evening on the Close

We are thrilled to bring you an exciting new quartet - Blue Haddock - featuring Composer, Improviser and Pianist Rod Paton; Coren Sithers on saxophones; Liz Exell on drums and lan Cooper on bass

Book a table

Our Jazz Festival Weekend revelry begins with new Folk Fusion collective Enw

An alt hybrid folk fiesta for your hips, head and heart under the ancient sycamores on the Cathedral green