You want for nothing is this luxurious Swedish hybrid SUV

Volvo XC90 T8 plug-in hybrid drive by Steve Rogers

With Volvo going full pelt on electric vehicles you might wonder what’s the point of a plug-in hybrid for its big seven-seat SUV.

Well, the Swedish brand is sticking with the dual fuel option and has shown its commitment with a longer range model. I don’t want to be a party pooper but if you are considering a plug-in XC90 I would hold off until the new year when a 99 mile range model will hit the showrooms.

This is significant because the current model’s range is a meagre 40 miles….. If you are lucky, it is more likely to be in the low thirties if journeys are of the up hill down dale type. Some rivals can manage nearly twice that.

Not that you are going to be disappointed if you have shelled out close on £90,000 for the best Volvo has to offer. XC90 marked the start of the company’s premium journey way back in 2002 and has become one of the most appealing family SUVs on the market with its understated Scandinavian styling, a luxurious and practical cabin, the ability to drive on electric power for short hops, and seven seat versatility which gives it the edge over its main rivals.

The big move came in 2015 with a bold new shape and a switch from switches to touchscreen which was a nightmare of confusion back then. But the car’s objective was clear: Get in the face of Land Rover and the big three from Germany, and it has been doing it ever since.

Take a look inside the cabin for part of the story. There is nothing flash, it is just all very calm, typically Swedish, with a variety of modern textures covering the dashboard. The central touchscreen still dominates, and still gets stick from some quarters for being over elaborate but I found it easy to navigate. One touch takes you into a menu of large icons and there are a few physical switches below the screen for quick demisting and radio volume control. Best of all two dabs on the screen turn off lane assist which I find irritating other than on motorways.

If you can’t be bothered dabbing use voice control which does just about everything, apart from finding a radio station which was very odd.

Passengers are lavished with luxurious seats, heated, of course, and ventilated for driver and passenger. There is also plenty of legroom, as there should be for a car nearly five metres long. That said the third row is tight for space unlike the Kia Sorento which steals a march on the Volvo with electric motors to shift the middle row forward. There is a bit too much heavy lifting to get things sorted in the XC90.

The legroom issue might be linked to reasonable boot space with all seven seats in place. It almost matches a supermini with 262 litres to the roof and tops 300 litres without the hybrid gubbins.

With such a high price tag you want for nothing and there is the added luxury of air suspension which gives a superb ride and lowers the car by 50mm to help with loading. That said, the XC90 gets a bit lively on B roads if pushed but who needs to be charging round in a car hauling all but 2300kg of weight. Just soak up the comfort.

The hybrid power is more than electric only driving, even if for a short period. It boosts power and believe me it makes the Volvo an effortless rapid machine giving the driver plenty of confidence when overtaking.

As for economy, well it is a mixed bag. This is a heavyweight so best not to take too much notice of the advertised 235mpg which is only relevant if charging at home regularly. Once the modest electric range is used it is over to petrol power and at best that is around 32mpg although I did hit 39mpg on a leisurely 100 mile motorway round trip.

Yes, the top of the range Volvo is an expensive buy but it is one heck of a car and dare I say you get a fair bit for your money and there is no car I have ever felt more safe. There are so many safety aids the car is like a fortress. Auto braking at junctions if it detects the risk of a prang from an approaching vehicle is very reassuring.

As I said at the top of the article, if you are going down the plug-in route, wait until the new year for the 99 mile electric model.

Here is something else to consider. At the same time the smaller and excellent XC60 will have an electric range of 124 miles.

Fast facts

XC90 Ultra Pro AWD

£88,160 (range starts £66,270)

2-litre petrol; 406bhp

0-62mph 5.4secs; 112mph

Electric range 40 miles

36g/km. 1st tax £115

Insurance group 42

Boot: 244-1816 litres

Towing: 2400kg

Ponderosa Café has been sold, says story

* Ponderosa Café on the Horseshoe Pass (Picture: St David's Commercial)

Llangollen's famous Ponderosa Café atop the Horseshoe Pass has been sold, according to the Leader.

* For the full story, see: https://www.leaderlive.co.uk/news/26677248.ponderosa-cafe-sold-exciting-new-chapter-awaits/

Llangollen Kickboxing Club goes from strength to strength

* Members of the kickboxing club in action.

Steve Stockdale (left) reviews the latest events and activities at Llangollen Kickboxing Club

It has now been almost two years since Llangollen Kickboxing Club expanded to begin to take place every Thursday in Llangollen Leisure centre.

Since then, by demand, we have opened our ever-expanding kids' club every Thursday and our town's kickboxing clubs have gone from strength to strength. 

We have had competitors representing Llangollen in various events around the country with our own Ellen Capstick receiving a second place in the World United Martial Arts Championships. 

A few months before four of our members travelled to Gloucester to fight in the British interclub championships and all came back with medals. Meanwhile, I received my Second Dan after a gruelling 14-hour weekend of training in Somerset and I am looking forward to the third!

We have received an impressive grant from the Pact Small Grant form which has enabled us to upgrade our equipment and buy some excellent pads and equipment whilst sponsorship from the excellent Riverbanc Café and Hotel has helped us make the kids look very cool indeed in their uniforms.

I am proud to say that the clubs are very much a part of the community and that the support from parents for the kids' club is amazing as is the work ethic shown in the adult’s club. I hope to see our members continue to grow and achieve their training goals and I look forward to our first club black belt being awarded in the near future. You can do it, Liam!

The club has a friendly, supportive and positive atmosphere but it is also one where you are pushed to be your best. The doors are always open to new members and if you are interested in more information see llangollenkickboxingclub.co.uk.

Latest news from Llangollen Museum

Llangollen Museum will be closed over Christmas and New Year, and then for some housekeeping tasks. 

We will close on Wednesday December 23 and re-open on Saturday January 16 2027. From Tuesday November 3 the opening times will change slightly. On Tuesdays, the Museum will close at 3pm instead of 4pm – all other days will remain the same. 

Our talks programme continues. On Monday November 2, Professor Tim Grady, from Chester University, will give a talk entitled The Other Dead – Britain and the Memory of the Two World Wars. There will be no talk in December or January, but in February Professor Howard Williams will give his second talk about Wat’s Dyke, to accompany his exhibition in the gallery (see below). Watch our Facebook page for details of this. 

Looking further ahead in 2027, on Wednesday March 31 Dr Jonathan Worton will give a presentation about the Civil War, and on Wednesday April 28, Julian Davies will talk about Stone Lifting, a sport rooted in ancient traditions. All talks start at 7pm 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 November and will consist of pictures and sculptures depicting Myths and Legends from the area around the Dee Valley. This exhibition is being put on in collaboration with the Dory Gallery. 

December will see Gary Jones display some of his fantastic wildlife photography, and this will continue to be shown after we re-open in January. In February 2027, Professor Howard Williams will mount an exhibition about Wat’s Dyke. Other artists who will be exhibiting in 2027 include Sarah Chapman and friends (March), Lyn Hodnett (April), Clint Chaloner (May) and Grace Hughes (June).

 

Our current window display shows some spooky tales from Llangollen and the area. November’s window will show some of the local stories of the First World War and then we will have our Christmas display in December. In 2027, subjects will include the Ladies of Llangollen and a Medieval themed display. 

Our present Item of the Month, an Elizabeth I coin, will be followed by a Flanders Poppy in November, and then December will feature a Christmas card theme. Items for 2027 will include medieval spindle whorls and a stock book used at the tannery and leather works that was formerly on Church Street.

 

The Clwyd and Dee Valley Young Archaeologists Club (YAC), based at the Museum will be holding their final two meetings of 2026. November’s session will take place on the 26^th of the month, with the theme still to be decided. For membership details or further queries please email cdv.yac@gmail.com.

 

Under our Welsh Government funded programme to improve access to, and care of, items in our collection, via digitisation and conservation, we have carried out a number of different strands of work. Some are behind the scenes and some have resulted in new displays.

Our Dreamoc ‘holographic’ display cabinet is presently showing an interim display depicting 3D imagery of a small number of items. In November, the full display will   be implemented, allowing visitors to view 21 items in  3D, along with full descriptions. Alongside that will be two Victorian stereographic viewers for visitors to try. These were the 19^th century equivalent of Meta Quest, and 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. This will be installed later this year or early in 2027.

The digitisation of the microfilm records that we hold of the Llangollen Advertiser newspaper, that are not yet available digitally, has begun. They will be made available on our website, giving everyone a chance to access news stories from 1911 to 1913 and 1920 to 1944.

Next spring, Llangollen Museum will be holding two open events for anyone that may be interested in becoming a volunteer, or indeed just have an interest in what goes on behind the scenes at a small independent museum.

* Watch our Facebook page and llanblogger, early in 2027, for details.

 

Llangollen Museum has been an accredited museum for 14 years. Accreditation is run as a partnership between Arts Council England, the Welsh Government, Museums Galleries Scotland, and the Northern Ireland Museums Council. It is the official industry standard that evaluates and certifies whether a museum or gallery is well-run, cares for its collections properly, and provides a safe, engaging experience for visitors. 

Due to backlogs during Covid, and more recently, closure for Museum improvements the Museum was re-awarded Provisional Accreditation, but now have our full re-accreditation visit on Friday November 6. We hope very much that we will be able to keep our fully accredited status.

 

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.

Berwyn and District u3a hear of Welsh women's determination

Five years after the end of the First World War, in 1923, the women of Wales tried to ensure the frequently quoted phrase "never again" was turned into action.

Berwyn and District u3a heard Alison Aspinwall tell how determined women from Corwen and Llangollen tramped round the roads and streets of the towns and villages in Edeyrnion asking women to sign the petition demanding an end to the trafficking of women and children, an end to drug trafficking and an end to war.

In this area alone they collected more than 1,700 signatures, and then the whole petition was taken across America and presented to the women of the United States. The total for the whole of Wales was 390,296.

The oak box in which the petition was carried across the Atlantic and then across the United States was returned to the National Library of Wales in time for its 100th anniversary.

More information can be found on the National Library of Wales website.

Berwyn and District u3a has a meeting open to all on the third Monday of every month. See the website at https://berwyn.u3asite.uk/welcome/ for details.

Horseshoe Pass closed following collision

 

Can you help find portrait missing for a century?

* Can a portrait from Llangollen's distant past at last be found?

Llangollen Museum's Peter Jones has been asked to help trace a missing portrait, possibly lost for up to a century. Here, he describes details of his fascinating quest to "find the lady"

"I have been asked by a descendant to find a portrait of his ancestor- ALABAINA WOOD. She was a member of the Welsh Gypsies.

She is described as a tiny personage, with the beautifully chiselled features, small mouth Grecian nose, coal black hair, and a very tawny skin. 

She married William Jones, popularly known as Wil y Cŵn, in 1823, thereby becoming Alabaina Jones. She died in 1848. There was said to be a painting of her in a doctor’s house near Llangollen Bridge, wearing a red cloak down to her feet, and sitting on a bench with a basket, pipe and begging sheet telling fortunes by the cards – which according to Siani Wood she never did. 

Nor did she trust to the hand reading, saying, “Thy fortune is not to be read in thy hand, but in thy face.” 

The unearthly quality of her voice struck terror as well as derision into the gentile mind, and a Welsh Englyn descriptive of these hollow tones “the mouth that begs for bread, the noise of a cold the whole summer long, are in the head of Alabaina”

We are therefore looking for doctors who lived in the vicinity of Llangollen Bridge in the late 19th or early 20th Century.

There are several contenders.

Dr John Robertson

A brother of Henry Robertson, who lived at Siamber Wen from 1870 to 1883. He had been a surgeon in the 1st Anglo-Afghan war of 1839 to 1842, and was the superintendent of a sanitorium in Dublin during the potato famine. When he retired, he moved to Siamber Wen with his mother and three sisters. 

His eldest sister, Christina, was an accomplished artist, who painted this picture of Siamber Wen. John was a director of Llangollen Railway. He died here in 1883, and his last sibling in 1897. The contents of the house were auctioned off and the property re-let.

Dr David Hughes

There had been a doctor at Minnfordd since at least 1788. From 1861 until his death in 1895 it was Dr David Hughes. In 1898 the property was sold.

Drs James Pratchett Drinkwater, and Richard Drinkwater.

In September 1897 the property was bought by Dr James Pratchett Drinkwater. Dr Drinkwater was surgeon and general practitioner, who been in Llangollen since the 1860s. He lived in Geufron, but he bought the property for his son Richard. Dr J P Pritchard died June 1906, and his son Richard retired in the early 1930’s when he moved to Plas Tegid on Abbey Road. He was succeeded by Dr Gwilym Francis Benjamin. Gwilym died here in 1983, and his wife Glenys in 1995."

* Has any heard of this picture, or can they suggest any other potential doctors? Any information which could help to trace this picture would be welcome. Please contact Peter Jones at Llangollen Museum.