About 'The Hill of Dreams'

A Vision of an Enchanted Land

When I borrowed Arthur Machen's novel 'The Hill of Dreams' from the library as a youngster, upon reading the opening chapter I thought, "I know where this is..."

I was right. Years later I read 'The Selected Letters of Arthur Machen' and noted that he'd written to the poet John Gawsworth in 1930 saying that this opening chapter of 'The Hill of Dreams' was set in the sunken lane that leads from the back of Llanfrechfa Church to the farm at Common Cefn Llwyn in the parish of Llanddewi Fach.

The farm at Common Cefn Llwyn was where my grandfather lived whilst Arthur Machen was growing up in the Rectory at Llanddewi Fach. Machen's father, the Reverend Jones Machen, conducted his parents funerals during the 1870s.

That was one connection. Another is that Fred Hando (1888 - 1970) 'The Artist, Historian and Gentleman of Gwent' had married my Grandmother's aunty Alice Stanton. Hando had befriended Arthur Machen in his older age. Machen wrote very lyrically about the area where he grew up and wrote the preface to Hando's book 'The Pleasant Land of Gwent'

The notion to do something with this connection and material artistically has been with me since childhood. I have breathed the same air as Artur Machen - albeit one hundred years later on.

Mark Williams, May 2025