Welsh Incident in Criccieth

Jon Gower is in Criccieth in Gwynedd, to explore the area’s connection to Robert Graves’s 1929 poem, Welsh Incident. Robert Graves wrote the poem after inspiration struck on his train travels in the area with his father, after a Welsh policeman aboard told them a story of having recently seeing a mermaid from the sea caves of Criccieth. Jon Gower, a writer and poet himself, heads to the source to learn more, hearing about how the poem resonates with current local residents like the clerk of Criccieth Town Council, Catrin Jones, who then commissioned Howard Bowcott, a local artist, to make a playful sculptural interpretation of the poem for the town green. Producer: Eliza Lomas

You can listen to Welsh Incident in Criccieth online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Welsh Incident in Criccieth is an episode from Open Country by BBC.

This episode is 23:38 long.

This episode was published on Apr 23, 2026.

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