Naturalist, antiquarian and self-proclaimed ‘curious traveller’, Thomas Pennant of Downing, Flintshire, was renowned in eighteenth-century Europe and beyond. This year marks the tercentenary of his birth. As part of our activity to mark Green Libraries Week 2026, the University of Wales Centre for Welsh and Celtic Studies and the National Library of Wales invite you to the launch of new digital editions of Pennant’s pathbreaking Tours in Wales, which laid the foundations for Romantic tourism in Eryri (Snowdonia) and the rest of north Wales. An accompanying exhibition showcases some of the Library’s most fascinating examples of his work.

Pennant’s writing captures the accelerating energies of a period which saw the entangled development of British tourism, industrial revolution, and new forms of Romantic engagement with the natural world. Launching new digital editions of the Tours in Wales (1778 & 1781) with a series of introductory talks will be Mary-Ann Constantine, Elizabeth Edwards, Rhys Kaminski-Jones, and Ffion Mair Jones.

15 October 2026
National Library of Wales (and online)
3.30 p.m.– 6.00 p.m. [Online from 4:30 p.m.]

3.30 p.m. A chance to see the exhibition in Hengwrt

4 p.m. Tea and bara brith (Drwm)

4.30–5.45 p.m. Launch in the Drwm (and online)

RSVP (and to receive link for online event): angharad.elias@cymru.ac.uk