Latest news with #Yarrow
North Wales Live
5 days ago
- General
- North Wales Live
National Trust unveils 'mindful meadow' to boost mental health and help wildlife
A new "Mindful Meadow" has opened at Erddig in Wrexham offering a peaceful, free-to-access green space designed to enhance wellbeing and support local wildlife. The Mindful Meadow site is near Wrexham city centre and features four hectares of woodland with widened and repaired paths. National Trust Cymru have created the haven, helped by supporters, at the once overgrown, six-hectare site near the Felin Puleston Outdoor Centre on Hafod Road. Over the past 18 months, Erddig's ranger, volunteering, and community teams have worked alongside groups including Chester National Trust volunteers, Erddig Youth Club, Erddig Grow, Stepping Stones, We Mind the Gap, Wrexham Young Carers, Kim Inspire, Adferiad, and Ysgol Clywedog. Once filled with impassable routes, the site has been rejuvenated into a vibrant, accessible space that invites visitors to slow down, explore, and enjoy the benefits of nature. Katie Rees-Jones, Volunteer and Community Officer at Erddig, said: 'It has been important for us to work together with community groups who will access the space to ensure we create somewhere that meets their needs along with those of the wider public. "We all need to find some respite at times from the pressures of daily life and the Mindful Meadow gives everyone the opportunity to find some space, beauty and peace.' The team has restored around 250-metres of pathway, creating some accessible routes through the site. Around 40 native trees including oak, rowan and field maple have been planted alongside hedgerows such as hawthorn and spindle. Two hectares of meadow have also been revived: one area has been reseeded with a conservation mix of wildflowers including Yellow Rattle, Eyebright, Yarrow and Red Clover to attract birds and pollinators, while another has been scarified, cut and left to regenerate naturally. At the heart of the meadow stands a vibrant steel and stone sculpture by artist David Setter. Made of stacked positivity rocks, the installation symbolises community support and demonstrates how a place can uplift and support an individual. Free to access and open daily from dawn until dusk, the Mindful Meadow site lies close to Wrexham city centre and features four hectares of woodland with widened and repaired paths. Visitors can also see nesting boxes, a pond, benches for seating with willow screens, way-markers, quiet reflection spaces and flat looped walks - all within easy reach of the nearby Trust's Felin Puleston Mindful Garden and Outdoor Centre. Wildlife is also helped. Steven Dorsett, Area Ranger for Erddig, said: 'With over 97% of the UK's hay meadows lost since the 1930s, protecting and restoring these habitats has never been more urgent. "Hay meadows are vital for biodiversity, supporting a rich variety of wildflowers, pollinators, and endangered species. They also play a key role in improving soil health, capturing carbon, and sustaining traditional farming practices. 'Beyond its ecological value, this Mindful Meadow offers a peaceful space for people to reconnect with nature, and we look forward to the community using it.' The project has been developed by National Trust Cymru and funded by Welsh Government's Landfill Disposals Tax Communities Scheme, administered by Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA). National Trust Cymru has also worked in partnership with Public Health Wales's Hapus project, which aims to help people in Wales protect and improve their mental wellbeing.
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
From the archives: Recalling Austin folk singer Carolyn Hester and her ties to Bob Dylan
On Jan. 11, loyal reader Kathleen Bergeron dispatched this note: "When I was a youngster growing up in Austin — in the late '50s and early '60s — a local girl appeared several times on an afternoon TV show. Carolyn Hester was trying to become a folk singer. "She would later move to Greenwich Village and make a bit of a name for herself. A few years ago, I recalled Carolyn's great voice, and located her in Los Angeles. I was later able to chat with her at a gathering of folk music people in Virginia. Today she's in her late eighties." When the biographical movie about Bob Dylan, "A Complete Unknown," opened, Bergeron recalled Hester as a youth and later in life. "Carolyn had an interesting connection with Dylan: She asked him to play harmonica on an album session," Bergeron wrote, "and apparently it was there that he met John Hammond, who signed Dylan to Columbia Records." News to me. More From the Archives: From the Statesman archives: Walsh family keeps popping up in compelling Austin history Born in Waco on Jan. 28, 1937, Hester spent much of her youth in Austin. The folk music revival that populated coffee shops and college campuses across the country during the late 1950s and early 1960s, embraced her as the "Texas Songbird" or "Queen of the New York Folk Singers." Norman Petty produced her first album in 1957. She helped launch Gerde's Folk City, a key West Village music venue, in 1960. In 1961, Hester asked Dylan to appear on her third album for Columbia Records. It was his first on-the-record studio recording. Hester turned down a chance to join Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey, who instead drafted Mary Travers to form the super-folk group known as Peter, Paul and Mary. It might have instead been Peter, Paul and Carolyn. A quick check reveals that a couple of dozen Hester recordings, including reissues of her early work, are still available. The American-Statesman archives show that Austin did not forget Hester — or Hester, Austin — after she moved on to folk glory in Greenwich Village and beyond in the mid-1950s. Here are a few samples reports about her return visits: June 18, 1966: "New Bag of Tricks: Carolyn Hester Back in Town" — "In the 11 years since she left her home town to become a full-time professional folk singer, Carolyn Hester has come home six times to perform in concert. In Austin for a four-night stint at the Eleventh Door where she opened Thursday night, Hester packed the house with a whole new bag of tricks. In answers to requests, there were some famous songs so well identified with the auburn-haired singer-guitarist composer, songs like 'Yarrow'' from Scotland and 'That's My Song,' but for the most part Miss Hester sang new songs. Somewhere, somehow, along the way, Hester has come across a blues influence which is the most subtle and yet most exciting new development. The new blues nuances in her oft-performed 'Summertime' were enough to make your hair stand on end." More From the Archives: From the Statesman archives: April 1961 wildfire devastated Davenport Ranch Sept. 14, 1969: "Folk Concert Lineup Adds Carolyn Hester Coalition" — Sporting a new electric look, former Austinite Carolyn Hester will return to her home town as one of the headliners of a folk-oriented concert at Municipal Auditorium. Internationally known for the past decade as a performer of traditional and contemporary folk songs, Miss Hester has swung recently into the folk-rock column. Her backup in this vein comes from a band led by her husband, Dave Blume, an accomplished instrumentalist who plays bass, piano, organ and vibes. The Carolyn Hester Coalition has recently released an album on the Metromedia label, making it the eighth nationally circulated LP for Miss Hester." Aug. 24, 1973: "Carolyn Hester Returning to Austin for Folk Concert" — In her first hometown concert appearance in a number of years, Carolyn Hester will come back to Austin to appear in concert with Peter Yarrow, Allen Damron, the Royal Light Singers and the Bluegrass Ramblers in 'An Evening from the Kerrville Folk Festival.' During the 1960s, Miss Hester also returned to Austin to appear in concert with Gordon Lightfoot, Joan Baez, Godfrey Cambridge, several of Rod Kennedy's KHFI-FM Summer Music Festivals, and for three appearances at the old Chequered Flag folk club on Lavaca." For more insight into Hester's career and personal links to Austin, see the late Margaret Moser's profile, "Double-Barreled Beautiful," which was published in the Austin Chronicle on Dec. 19, 2008. Please send your tips and questions about Austin past to mbarnes@ This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin loved Carolyn Hester, but what happened to the folk singer?
New York Times
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Peter Yarrow's Manhattan Duplex Is Listed at $4.44 Million
The longtime Upper West Side home of Peter Yarrow, who rose to fame as part of the popular folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, is being sold by his estate, nearly four months after his death from bladder cancer. The asking price for the apartment, a loftlike duplex at 27 West 67th Street, known as an artists' studio building, is $4.44 million, according to the listing broker, Michael Graves of Douglas Elliman Real Estate, who was also a personal friend. Monthly maintenance is $7,291. Mr. Yarrow bought the unit, off Central Park West near Lincoln Center, in the early 1980s and raised his children, Christopher and Bethany, there. He held group rehearsals in the double-height great room and hosted fund-raising events and get-togethers there with musicians like Pete Seger, Harry Belafonte, and Neil Sedaka, along with politicians and activists. 'It was a hub of music and art and culture and activism,' said Bethany Yarrow, who runs two nonprofit environmental groups and is herself a folk singer. (Christopher Yarrow is a songwriter.) 'There was an extraordinary wave of human beings passing through and singing all the songs of the great movements,' she said. Noel Paul Stookey, part of the trio, fondly remembers his time there, too. 'The size of the living room was comfortable for the three of us,' and their arranger and bass player during rehearsals, he said in an email, 'and at the same time, large enough for the special events that Peter would host, drawing as many as 100 folks.' Measuring around 2,500 square feet, the apartment sits on the ninth and 10th floors of the prewar building. There are three bedrooms and three full bathrooms, plus a home office/den that could be converted into another bedroom. The unit also comes with storage space in the basement and a small 'penthouse' office on the rooftop where Mr. Yarrow's personal assistant had worked. ('It was once used as a sleeping room before the co-op changed the rules,' Mr. Graves said of its past iterations.) The home's main entrance is on the lower level. A foyer opens to the enormous great room with vaulted ceilings and a wood-burning fireplace with a carved stone mantel. An extra-large window provides an abundance of sunlight, along with panoramic cityscape views. 'You have a floor-through, so light floods in from the north and the south,' Mr. Graves said. Off the great room, through folding French doors, is a spacious formal dining room, which Ms. Yarrow said her father had closed off and for awhile turned into a den with his favorite massage chair there. Over the years, Mr. Yarrow made few other changes to the apartment. 'My dad didn't do much remodeling, it was more like he did a lot of restoration,' Ms. Yarrow said, noting that he had restored the window in the great room and other prewar details like the cast iron sinks, textured plaster walls and ceilings. 'He loved the authenticity of that apartment,' she said. Beyond the dining room is a windowed, eat-in kitchen with a barrel-vaulted brick ceiling and pantry. The kitchen is outfitted with wood cabinets, a butcher block center island and terra-cotta tile floors. The lower level also contains a guest bedroom with plenty of closet space and a full bathroom. Leading up to the second level, the staircase wall displays several photographs of Mr. Yarrow and his family. These include performances with Peter, Paul and Mary at Carnegie Hall and the trio's participation in the March on Washington, the site of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream' speech. 'These were his favorite moments in life,' Ms. Yarrow said. Peter, Paul and Mary was one of the most popular folk acts of the 1960s, with a string of hit songs including 'Puff the Magic Dragon,' which Mr. Yarrow co-wrote; and 'Day is Done.' (The group started in 1961, during the Vietnam War, and disbanded in 1970; it reunited in 1978 and continued to perform until Mary Travers's death in 2009.) When the Yarrow children were growing up, they had a front-row seat to the private concerts held in the apartment. 'The acoustics were extraordinary,' Ms. Yarrow, who splits her time between Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and West Fulton, N.Y., said of the great room. 'It's like when you're in church — it echoes.' On the second level are two more bedrooms and two bathrooms, which can also be reached via the building's elevator. The primary suite, with glass panels that look down onto the great room, features an en suite bathroom and a home office/den. Ms. Yarrow has fond memories of her childhood bedroom. 'I would play Led Zeppelin very loud from my boom box,' she said.
