Abergavenny - Culture

Culture

  • Abergavenny hosted the National Eisteddfod of Wales in 1838 and 1913.
  • Lord Abergavenny is a character in William Shakespeare's play Henry VIII.
  • In 1968 Abergavenny was the title of a UK single by Marty Wilde. In 1969 it was also released in the US, under the pseudonym "Shannon", where it was also a minor hit.
  • In 1996 a film, Intimate Relations starring Julie Walters, Rupert Graves, Les Dennis and Amanda Holden was filmed at many locations in and around Abergavenny.
  • The town's local radio station is currently Sunshine Radio, broadcasting on 107.8 FM, although an application to provide a new service was made by a competing broadcaster Xfm South Wales.
  • Abergavenny is twinned with Östringen in Germany, Beaupréau in France and Sarno in Italy.
  • The pop-rock band Ruby Cruiser came from Abergavenny, releasing an album on One Little Indian records in 1999.
  • Abergavenny is home to an award winning brass band. Formed in Abergavenny prior to 1884 the band became joint National Welsh League Champions in 2006 and SEWBBA and again joint National Welsh League Champions in 2011. The band also operate a Junior Band training local young musicians
  • Sherlock Holmes refers, in The Adventure of the Priory School, to a case he's working on in Abergavenny.
  • In the book Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Abergavenny is mentioned by Stan Shunpike, the conductor of the Knight Bus when the bus takes a detour there to drop off a passenger.
  • In the classic 70s period drama Upstairs, Downstairs, a major character in the second season, which is circa 1909-10, is Thomas Watkins, the devious Bellamy family chauffeur. Watkins came from Abergavenny. In the 1979 spinoff of Upstairs, Downstairs entitled Thomas & Sarah, Watkins and Sarah Moffat, another major character, marry and return briefly to Abergavenny.

During September the town holds the Abergavenny Food Festival.

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Famous quotes containing the word culture:

    “The time will come when the evil forms we have known can no more be organized. Man’s culture can spare nothing, wants all material. He is to convert all impediments into instruments, all enemies into power.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “Without metaphor the handling of general concepts such as culture and civilization becomes impossible, and that of disease and disorder is the obvious one for the case in point. Is not crisis itself a concept we owe to Hippocrates? In the social and cultural domain no metaphor is more apt than the pathological one.”
    —Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)

    “The fact remains that the human being in early childhood learns to consider one or the other aspect of bodily function as evil, shameful, or unsafe. There is not a culture which does not use a combination of these devils to develop, by way of counterpoint, its own style of faith, pride, certainty, and initiative.”
    —Erik H. Erikson (1904–1994)