Jeremy Pryce's Glimpses of Llandinam, Montgomeryshire

Jeremy Price has had a keen interest in the local history of Llandinam for a long time now. A few years ago, he decided to collect some of those stories and put them together into a book.

Finally in 2002, Llandinam: A Glimpse of the Past was published, and is now available online through the TASC website.

The Pryce Family have been living in Llandinam for more than a century, and Jeremy Pryce is the town's blacksmith.

If you want to see some footage of Jeremy at work in his smithy, take a look at this interesting video at Google Videos.

Llandinam along with Llanidloes and Newtown are the three towns that are central to the lives of the Kinsey family of Montgomeryshire, Wales. Both Llanidloes and Newtown have a number of books covering their history. In contrast, till now there has been very little in bookform that tells the story of the village of Llandinam.

Llandinam: A Glimspe of Llandinam is Jeremy's first work and is organized into short themes rather than one long chronological narrative. The book is particularly strong in its coverage of the 1850's to 1950's. What is does best is introduce to many of Llandinam's interesting characters. Especially, the likes of Lord Davies and Geoffrey Bound but the one most of interest perhaps is that of David Kinsey.

David Kinsey (1816 - 1896), while not being a direct relative, was a man of many talents. Over his lifetime, he worked as the local Post Master, Parish Clerk, and stone mason. Today, perhaps his greatest legacy is his scrapbook/diary. The scrapbook covered many of the daily events in Llandinam and environs from the 1840's right up almost until his death.

David Kinsey's scrapbook is now kept at the National Library of Wales, and is also available on micofilm at you local LDS Family History Centre.

While Jeremy's book is chock full of photos, maps, etc., it does lack an index and a bibliography. Fortunately, Jeremy Pryce has just published a new book on Llandinam, and it too is available through the TASC website.

Jeremy Pryce's second book was published in March 2009 and is entitled Llandinam - Meandering Byways & Pathways to the Past.