Hay Castle Events

Print Club is run by our resident printmaker - Aidan Saunders - AKA Prints of Hay.

This fortnightly Print Club will take place in our Clore Learning Space every other Wednesday between 4pm and 6pm

The idea is to provide a place for any other people who are looking to develop their printing skills including students working on their GCSE 2nd year, A levels, BTEC or Foundation course - with a friendly atmosphere where ideas and the joy of printmaking can be shared by all.

Print Club costs £5 per session - so only £10 a month. Some materials will be provided and there will be access to the printing press when accompanied by Aidan.

This club will develop according to the needs and requirements of the members of the group - so why not come along and become a part of Print Club.

DONATIONS FOR MATERIALS ARE MUCH APPRECIATED - WE HAVE A DONATION BOX

Life drawing takes place in the Clore Learning Space every other Monday from 11am until 4pm.

PLEASE NOTE LIFE DRAWING SESSIONS ARE NOW FORTNIGHTLY


Please bring your own materials
The sessions cost £16 for the full day from 11-4pm and £10 for a morning or afternoon session only.
The morning session starts at 11am so please arrive at about 10.45am
The afternoon session starts at 1:45pm so please arrive at least 10 mins beforehand

11 - 12 - Drawing
12 - 12.15 - Break
12.15 - 1.15 - Drawing
1.15 - 1.45 - Lunch
1.45 - 2.45 - Drawing
2.45 - 3pm - Break
3 - 4pm - Drawing

Next sessions will be:

Mon 13 May

As scientists have recently warned, the root cause of the climate and ecological emergency is a “human behavioural crisis” - that is, a crisis in our culture. In this session, writers Owen Sheers and Tom Bullough will discuss the River Wye, the landscape of Wales and the role that cultural practitioners must play, if humanity is to have a future. Both writers will share readings and clips from their recent work in this area and sign books after the event.

In this workshop you will learn how to create flower templates, how to combine paper cutting and wire work techniques to create 3D plants and how to paint your sculptures using watercolours. You will be able to have a go at making your own paper flower from reclaimed papers, using the tools and templates provided.

You can find out more about Kate on her website

All materials provided

There is no write way to right. Talk writing with bestselling author Jasper Fforde. Irrespective of your genre or style there are broad conventions we can all listen to in order to make your writing engaging and publishable. A unique opportunity to learn and be inspired.

Come and find out what can help you with your writing in an informal chat-led workshop with Jasper who will introduce you to some tips that helped him with his writing and some ideas that he has picked up over the last 25 years of creating novels.

There will be breaks for tea/coffee and an hour for lunch. Please feel free to bring a packed lunch or you can order lunch from the café downstairs. Once booked we will get in touch to see if you would like to order lunch.

What to bring: Ideas, problems, thoughts, paper, pens, other writing devices.

Printmaker Sarah Kirby will be demonstrating simple print techniques using our 1853 Columbian Press.

Come along and have a go - you can even take away a print on the day.

This will take place surrounded by Sarah's beautiful prints which are featured in our Printmaker in Focus exhibition on the first floor.

Join bestselling author Barbara Erskine - The Lady of Hay - to learn about researching a historical novel in our one day writing workshop.

There is much fascination and surprise to be found in historical research. Whether you are an established writer of historical fiction, a beginner or just a lover of history, the subject is addictive and rewarding.

Barbara will share her own experiences of what she has learned and failed to learn over her years of writing history-based novels and encourage an informal discussion about the intricacies and pitfalls involved; the excitement and danger of diving down rabbit holes; the best ways of channelling a passion for meeting the real or imagined inhabitants of the past: when to take short cuts and when that can spell disaster; how to pull up messages from hoofbeats and gas lamps and stones; the fine line between fiction and biography ; whether it’s better to use books or on-line sources and much more.

And maybe there will be talk of ghosts . . .

In this workshop you will have the opportunity to learn how to do the following:

Form a range of hand embroidery stitches

Apply fabrics together using fusible webbing

Attach beads and sequins in embroidery

Make simple cords and tassels

Stitch shisha (traditional Indian mirror-work)

Attendees will need basic sewing skills and embroidery kit with needles etc. Sequins, mirrors and other materials will be provided.

Come and make a foraging basket which you can use to collect fruit, vegetables or flowers.

This workshop runs all day with breaks for tea and coffee and lunch.
Please feel free to bring a packed lunch or have lunch in our cafe.

All materials provided.

Barbara Erskine is the author of sixteen bestselling novels and three collections of short stories that demonstrate her interest in both history and the supernatural. Lady of Hay, her first novel, has sold millions of copies worldwide.

Her forthcoming novel The Story Spinner is a time-slip set in the heart of the Welsh countryside. The reader meets poet and would-be novelist Cadi Jones as she researches her latest project – the story of a Welsh queen who has been lost to the pages of time. As Cadi writes, she stumbles across an undiscovered chapter of history. This takes the reader to Roman Britain, Arthur’s Legend and even the Holy Grail as Cadi finds herself fighting for everything she holds dear, even her own life. The novel will be released on 1^st August 2024.

Barbara will be in conversation with Mari Fforde, Learning and Activities Manager at Hay Castle.

This event will give exclusive early insight into Barbara's next novel - The Story Spinner

Following writer and photographer Phil Cope's last packed-out visit to Hay with his illustrated introduction to the living wells of Wales, he is now returning to introduce his latest wellspring publication, The Oldest Music / Y Gerddoriaeth Hynaf / An Ceoil is Sine.

This book celebrates the poetry inspired by Welsh and Irish sacrecd spring and holy well sites, and their often incredible tales. The poems in The Oldest Music range between our earliest-known works by Gwynfardd Brycheiniog [born c.1170], Lewys Glyn Cothi [c.1420-90] and Ieuan ap Rhydderch [c.1430-1470], as well as contemporary responses by Angela Graham, Tony Curtis, Seamus Heaney, Dafydd Williams, Cathal Searcaigh, Julian Cason, WB Yeats, Phil Carradice and Phil Cope, himself.

"Poetry is one of the most powerful tools we have for the expression of our feelings. and the wellsprings of both Ireland and Wales have from earliest times inspired, confused and angered our writers".
(from the book's Introduction)

Phil Cope's "evocative photographs of wells in Wexford and Pembrokeshire are little works of art in themselves / the sort of beautiful object you might well turn into an offering, a gift of thanks for helping you see things better, to understand the world a little more clearly".
(from Jon Gower's Western Mail review)


The Oldest Music is the first in a series of five small trilingual volumes linking Wales with Ireland through the responses of our painters, printer-makers, story-tellers, poets and photographers (as part of the Ancient Connections Project). It is published in Wales by Parthian.

Sunday Times bestselling author Anne O'Brien was born in West Yorkshire. After a BA Honours degree in History at Manchester University and a Master's in Education at Hull, she lived in East Yorkshire as a teacher of history. Today she has sold over a million copies of her books in the UK and internationally. She lives with her husband in an eighteenth-century timber-framed cottage in the depths of the Welsh Marches in Herefordshire. The area provides endless inspiration for her novels about the forgotten women of medieval history.

Why write about medieval women? What is so special about Joan de Geneville?

Medieval women are for the most part invisible other than as wives, sisters and daughters of the men who rode out to war and manipulated power in their own interests. History was invariably written by men who had little interest in the role of women. But surely some of them, intelligent, well-informed and generally clever women, were involved and played a major role in their family history, and even in royal Court intrigue. These are the jewels of history waiting to be discovered and used in historical fiction. They deserve to be brought onto centre stage.

Why Joan de Geneville? The Mortimer family dominated the Welsh Marches in the Middle Ages, with their widespread ambitions, the often tragic consequences of their political choices, and their important marriage alliances. Joan de Geneville was the wealthy heiress wife of the notorious Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March. A woman of courage, of resilience, she was also a woman imprisoned and betrayed. Could she survive the taint of treachery, for herself and for her children? A Court of Betrayal is her story.

Hay Castle and its mansion have bee in the town for nearly 1000 years. What do we know about the people who lived there? Peter Ford will explore some of the following inhabitants:

• The Norman baron.
• The lady who entertained the Duke of Beaufort.
• The Sheriff of Breconshire who sold the castle to his son for £5.
• The mercer whose descendants were all called Richard or Henry.
• The vicar who turned down promotion to continue to stay in the castle.
• The dowager lady whose granddaughter lived to be 111 years old.
• The fisherman.
• The fairground operator.