Mayor invites people to his annual Civic Service

The Town Mayor of Llangollen, Councillor Damon Richards-Gwilliam, has issued an invitation to everyone in Llangollen to attend his annual Civic Service to be held at St Collen's Church on Sunday August 9, starting at 11am.

The service will be led by Father Lee Taylor.

The Mayor said: "I’m looking forward to welcoming our community, local organisations and visiting guests and to my Civic Service. It will be a wonderful opportunity to come together, celebrate our community spirit and strengthen the connections that make our community so special. I hope to see many familiar and new faces there."

After the service light refreshments will be served at Llangollen Town Hall, to which all members of the congregation are invited. 

The Mayor added: "All are welcome - individuals, community groups and so on."

* To accept the invitation, email to: deputytownclerk@llangollentowncouncil.gov.uk by July 27.

Dream comes true for Aled at the Royal Welsh Show

* Aled Morris sings with the Hawkstone Farmer's Choir.

A Llangollen town councillor has revealed what it was like to achieve a dream by singing with his TV-star choir at the Royal Welsh Show.

Back in May former town mayor Aled Morris - himself a working farmer - stormed to victory in this year's Britain's Got Talent competition with the Hawkstone Farmer's Choir, which was formed by Jeremy Clarkson to boost mental well-being amongst the farming community.

Their prize was £250,000 and an appearance in the Royal Variety Performance.

The amazing run of success continued last week with a coveted appearance at the prestige Royal Welsh in Llanelwedd where they performed a rousing version of Welsh classic Calon Lân.

And Aled, who also got married recently to partner Sarah Griffiths, has told llanblogger exactly what it felt like to sing to thousands of adoring fans at the home of Welsh agricultural pride.

He said: "It was an incredible experience to have stepped into the main ring at the Royal Welsh showground.

"Many of the choir members had never been to the Royal Welsh Show before, so for many of them, it was their first experience, and what an experience to have!

"There was a real buzz around the place and I was stopped a number of times by members of the public asking what time we would be singing, which was 5.30, which is quite late in the day, but we were all blown away by the amount of people that had come to see and hear us. The grandstand was full, the bank was covered in members of the public, and it was five or six deep all around the ring.

"As we walked around the ring before the performance, we were cheered on with plenty of well wishers and high-fives a-plenty!

"We sang our three Britain's Got Talent songs and then sang Calon Lân, with the Welsh members singing the verses and the other members singing the chorus. It went down really well with a standing ovation from the members' stands."

During their performance, the 30-strong choir shared with the crowd that they are soon to release their first album and that their debut single will be This Is Home, the song they performed during BGT.

Aled added: "It was definitely a dream that was achieved that day and we have been all working incredibly hard down in the recording studio - real world studios - last week and will be there again this week to finish off our album with a single release planned for late August/early September and the album to launch- mid September."

Latest local roadworks update from Denbighshire County Council

Latest local roadworks update from Denbighshire County Council is: 

2m south of entrance to slurry pit JUNCTION OF A539 LLANGOLLEN ROAD, 03/08/2026 - 05/08/2026, Gwaith BT/ BT Works MJ QUINN, Goleuadau Traffig Dros Dro/ Temp Traffic Lights

TRACK TO LLANDYN HALL FROM A539, 03/08/2026 - 05/08/2026, Gwaith BT/ BT Works MJ QUINN, Ffordd ar Gau/Road Closure

JUNCTION OF TRACK TO LLANDYN HALL FROM A539 TO APPROX 85M FURTHER EAST A539 LLANGOLLEN ROAD, 03/08/2026 - 05/08/2026, Gwaith BT/ BT Works MJ QUINN, Goleuadau Traffig Dros Dro/ Temp Traffic Lights

ADJACENT DRILL HALL, WERN ROAD 09/09/2026 - 11/09/2026, Adnewyddu Polyn / Renew Pole PLATINUM TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT

Heol y Farchnad / Market Street, MARKET STREET, 10/10/2026 - 11/10/2026, Gwyl Fwyd Llangollen / Llangollen Food Festival CHAPTER 8 SOLUTIONS LTD, Ffordd ar Gau/Road Closure

FELIN BACHE PONT, BACHE MILL ROAD, 11/08/2026 - 21/08/2026, Gwaith Ar Bont / Bridge Works QUANTUM TM (DCC), Goleuadau Traffig Dros Dro/ Temp Traffic Lights

FELIN BACHE PONT, BACHE MILL ROAD, 22/08/2026 - 23/08/2026, Gwaith Ar Bont / Bridge Works KM CONSTRUCTION (QUANTUM LLANGOLLEN) Ffordd ar Gau/Road Closure

FELIN BACHE PONT, BACHE MILL ROAD 10/08/2026 - 11/08/2026, Gwaith Ar Bont / Bridge Works KM CONSTRUCTION (QUANTUM LLANGOLLEN) Ffordd ar Gau/Road Closure

OUTSIDE PROPERTY GLANABER 2 BACHE MILL ROAD 29/07/2026 - 31/07/2026, Gwaith Dwr / Water Works HAFREN DYFRDWY, Ffordd ar Gau/Road Closure

North Wales Opera lays on an evening of scintillating song

* Ladies’ choir Lleisiau’r Afon perform the witches' chorus from Macbeth.

The International Eisteddfod is famous as the place where Llangollen meets the world. And last night its Pavilion home greeted and played perfect host to a Night at the Opera.

For one night only the marvellous North Wales Opera, under the consummate direction of Anne Williams-King, filled the famous auditorium with a colourful cavalcade of scintillating singing where we could drink in the very best from the immortal pens of Verdi, Mozart, Puccini and and Verdi. 

As a bonus, towards the conclusion of a packed programme, came a tantalising taste of Rodgers and Hammerstein and Bernstein.

This feast was laid on in fine style by a hugely talented cast of professional and emerging singers from both near and far, all to the skilled accompaniment of musical director Andrew Charity. 

Priscilla Fong from Singapore and Linus Lai from Hong Kong let us hear well-known arias from operas such as the Magic Flute and Marriage of Figaro while also duetting with North Wales Opera's two youngest and most promising singers, 17-year-old Grace Worrall and Llangollen’s own Rose Burgon, 16, fresh from her recent success of being crowned the Eisteddfod's 2026 Young Voice of Musical Theatre.

Adding the voices of rich experience were acclaimed baritone Robin Gruffudd Hughes, who has sung with leading companies including the Royal Opera, and classical tenor Lee J Cander. By them we were treated respectively to the Father's Aria from Hansel and Gretel by Humperdink and Puccini's La Bohème. 

And it was Lee, from South Wales, who provided the evening's stunning grand finale with the timeless Nessum Dorma - once sung into legend from a stage just the other side of the Pavilion partition by Maestro Pavarotti himself. 

Also swelling the North Wales Opera ranks for this special occasion were Yorkshire-based soprano Victoria Price and North Wales soprano Eve Marie who skilfully performed arias from Marriage of Figaro, La Bohème, and Carmen.

Leigh Mason, musical director of the Fron Male Voice Choir and ladies’ choir Lleisiau’r Afon, and Lizzie Clifford, a regular in local productions by the Llangollen Operatic and Twenty Club, entertained with songs from musicals such as Carousel and Cabaret. 

Lizzie's Mr Snow was particularly sweet and fine and who can readily forget Leigh's clawsome Cat Duet with Katie Nilsbird. 

Only minutes earlier Leigh had been on stage at the helm of her choir for a spectacularly atmospheric version of the witches' chorus from Verdi's Macbeth.

It was truly an occasion for exquisite solos - Rose Burgon's hauntingly touching O Mio Babbino Caro, for instance - dazzling duets and powerful chorus pieces.

All this combined to create an evening of entertainment not easily to be forgotten.

But perhaps it can be somewhat relived as next up from North Wales Opera at the Pavilion comes Madame Butterfly this December. Booking: llangollenpavilion.co.uk or call 01978 862001.

* Robin Gruffudd Hughes with some expressive Mozart.

* Linus Lai journeyed from Hong Kong to perform.

* Priscilla Fong duets with Rose Burgon.

*  Katie Nilsbird, left, sets to in the Cat Duet with Leigh Mason.

* Lizzie Clifford's sweet on Mr Snow.

Police update on smell of smoke in Llangollen

Police have issued information on their Facebook page following numerous reports about a smelly of smoke in the area, which says:

New technology will improve access to museum’s collection

Museum news latest update from David Crane ...

Here at Llangollen Museum we are delighted to announce that we have been successful in securing funding to allow us to improve access to, and care of, items in our collection via digitisation and conservation. The £42,778 award is from the Welsh Government.

The programme will allow us to employ exciting new technology to create new displays in the Museum, as well as conserving and recording more of our artefacts and improving the information that we can make available online.

The main new display in the Museum will be a Dreamoc ‘holographic’ display cabinet. This will allow us to show 3D imagery of items in our collection that are not normally on display. We hope to have the first ones showing later in August. Alongside that will be Victorian stereographic viewers. These were the 19th century equivalent of Meta Quest, and will allow visitors to view 3D photographs of scenes around Llangollen, that we hold in our collection, as they were in the late 1800s.

Another new addition will be a touchscreen timeline display, available in the Museum and on our website, helping visitors to understand where items in our collection, and local landmarks, originated – both in time and space.

Importantly, we will also purchase a Braille printer, letting us make all of our display material available for those with visual impairments.

We will increase the number of images of items in the Museum database by over 1,000. We will also purchase a new 3D photogrammetric scanner, allowing us to add more than 100 items to our 3D digital archive. A new collections management PC will be purchased, helping us to future proof our collections management system. Prior to digitisation, selected items will have critical restoration work carried out.

Finally, we will digitise microfilm records that we hold of the Llangollen Advertiser newspaper, between 1920 and 1945 (that are not yet available digitally), enabling everyone to access this vital source of information. The digitised versions will be made available on our website, and given to the National Library of Wales to be included on the Welsh Newspapers Online web pages, alongside the existing 50 years that they already have.

Our next talk will be on July 29, when Andy Harrop-Smith will give a presentation about The Folklore of Birds. In August there will be no talk, but on September 30 Professor Howard Williams will give a talk entitled What’s Watt’s Dyke? Do come along and enjoy finding out about these diverse subjects, and keep an eye on our social media for announcements about future talks. All talks start at 7:00pm at the Museum. Tickets are £3 at the door with refreshments provided. Do get the dates in your diaries - we hope to see you there!

The next exhibition in the Janet Wakefield Gallery at the Museum will start at the beginning of August and will be an exhibition of paintings by the Llangollen Art Group. They will be followed in September by a display by the Pen y Cae Art Group and then by local artist Tricia Lea in October.

For all of the latest information about what is happening at the Museum, do keep an eye on our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/p/Llangollen-Museum-100057657969751/.

Finally, as with many voluntary organisations, we need more volunteers, especially to cover the weekends. If you want to be more involved with the history of the area, and become a volunteer at the Museum, please contact our manager Gill Smith at gilliansmith2@hotmail.co.uk or on 07516 023524.

* After a very successful first six months, the Clwyd and Dee Valley Young Archaeologists Club (YAC), finished for the summer holidays. The session in July focused upon The Pillar of Eliseg, Offa's Dyke and the Bronze Age burial mound beneath the Pillar. 

The youngsters were taught about finds from the burial cairn and how to record them. Arrangements are underway to take the group to the open day at the Bryneglwys dig in August and to host members of that dig for a finds’ session. We are in the process of arranging the sessions for the next six months beginning in September, dates to be announced. 

We are excited to have storyteller Andy Harrop-Smith joining our team in the near future. Please email Gill Smith on gilliansmith2@hotmail.co.uk for more information and membership details. For details of the themes for upcoming meetings please look at our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/share/14TB2VbYbL6/.

Our window displays change every month. August will see a display about medicine in Llangollen, followed by a display of medieval items from our collection in September. October will feature the Ladies of Llangollen, November will focus on Remembrance Day and December will celebrate Christmas.

Inside the Museum, the item of the month for August will be a stone Tudor head, discovered at Pentre Hall in Bronygarth near Chirk, home to a branch of the Edwards family in the 17th century. The type of stone and the appearance of the head, along with the connection of the Edwards family to Valle Crucis, make it possible that the head originated at the Abbey.

Double tragedy unfolds involving man, 46, who died in River Dee

* The headline on the Daily Post story.

A mum died on her way to identify her son's body in a heartbreaking double tragedy involving the 46-year-old man who died in an accident on the River Dee in Llangollen, according to a story in the Daily Post.

* For the full story, go to: https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/mum-dies-crash-travelling-north-34340182