Top arts and culture things to see in Wales — that give you a real sense of our shared history
In our series, Charlotte Mullins continues her list of the fifty most important cultural and historical things to see in the British Isles – this time in Wales.
Side effect
Jesse sculpture, St Mary’s Priory Church, Abergavenny, Monmouthshire
St Mary’s Priory Church in Abergavenny is home to a twice life-size figure of Jesse — King David’s father and ancestor of Christ.
Imagine how impressive this Tree of Life reredos, or altar screen, would have seemed when first made for St Mary’s Priory Church in Abergavenny in the 15th century. A twice life-size figure of Jesse — King David’s father and ancestor of Christ — reclined along the base. He has a long beard and is heavy set, strong enough to support a 30ft family tree that once grew from his side. As the carved oak branches reached higher, they revealed the lineage of Christ, from Jesse to the Virgin Mary. Sadly, in 1646, Parliamentary troops destroyed the screen during the Civil War and only the figure of Jesse remains. The whole altar screen would have originally been painted, but, today, we can see the grain of the oak trunk from which Jesse was carved. A new tree now rises above him in the form of a modern stained-glass window by Helen Whittaker, unveiled in 2016.
Follow your art
The Davies Sisters collection, National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
'La Parisienne' by Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
Gwendoline and Margaret Davies were once the wealthiest women in Britain. Inheriting an industrial family fortune at the age of 25, the unmarried Welsh sisters travelled across Europe, studying art and making select purchases of works by Turner, Jean-François Millet, Auguste Rodin and James Abbott McNeill Whistler. From 1912, they focused on Impressionism and post-Impressionism (a decade before Samuel Courtauld did the same), acquiring such paintings as Renoir’s La Parisienne (1874), Cézanne’s Midday, L’Estaque (about 1879), van Gogh’s Rain: Auvers (1890) and Monet’s Waterlilies (1905). Their collection is now on display at the National Museum of Wales, but as early as 1913 they were lending it (anonymously), so it could be shared with a wider audience.
The sting of rejection
British Empire panels, Frank Brangwyn, Brangwyn Hall, Swansea
Brangwyn Hall — home to 16 painted panels by Frank Brangwyn.
In Swansea’s Brangwyn Hall, 16 vast painted panels reflect the diversity of flora, fauna and people in the British Empire in the 1920s. They were originally destined for the House of Lords in London, but the beleaguered panels were rejected before eventually finding a permanent home in Wales. Brangwyn was a Welsh figurative artist who was well versed in communicating sweeping narratives in paint. He had initially been commissioned to create two war paintings commemorating the fallen relatives of those who sat in the Palace of Westminster, but his A Tank in Action (1926–28) was deemed too violent and realistic and, consequently, was turned down. The British Empire commission was supposed to be a salve, but this, too, was rejected, this time for being too colourful and vibrant.
Read our previous instalments on what to see in London, the East of England, Ireland, Scotland and the North of England.
This feature originally appeared in the December 31, 2025, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.
