Lisa's World

Sunday, 1 February 2026

Grade II-listed watermill home that inspired priceless Turner masterpiece goes on sale for £1.5million

Updated: 11:44, 1 February 2026

A watermill immortalised in a watercolour masterpiece by famous English Romantic painter JMW Turner has gone on the market for £1.5million.

The 450-year-old Grade II-listed Rossett Mill in Wrexham was the inspiration behind Turner's Marford Mill in 1795.

Turner is considered one of Britain's greatest ever artists and is famed for his dreamlike landscapes, ethereal sunsets and turbulent seascapes. His paintings often grapple with the burgeoning industrial technology of the time and its newfound presence in the natural world.

He did four tours of Wales in the 1790s, studying and documenting the country in stunning, warmly lit paintings.

Turner's famous Welsh works include castles at Dolbadarn, Harlech, Flint and Conwy and the industrial setting of Aberdulais Mill, in South Wales.

Now his Marford Mill painting hangs in the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, while the home it is modelled on is up for sale.

Current owners, couple Brendan and Celia Wilson, have renovated the historic Rossett Mill and are now selling it to move closer to their children.

They bought it for £660,000 and have spent 17 years and £250,000 doing up their 'work of art' home.

The 450-year-old Grade II listed Rossette Mill is up for sale for £1.5million near Wrexham, Wales

The mill was the inspirations for JMW Turner's painting Marford Mill from 1795 (pictured)

Couple Brendan and Celia Wilson were the first to live in the mill and bought it 17 years ago for £660,000

Former company director Brendan first got wind of the mill after they saw an advert selling it in a newspaper while living in Chester.

'I've always liked water mills, who doesn't? They're very picturesque and romantic. But we didn't pursue it, we had no intention of moving,' he said.

'But then, coincidentally, about a fortnight later, we happened to be driving through this area in Rossett, and we said, "Wasn't that water mill round here somewhere?"

'Before we had finished the sentence, we came around the corner and saw it. We knew within five minutes that we wanted to buy it.

'We take it for granted, I suppose, living here, but there is history in every corner of this building. We were the first people to live in it.'

The renovation was a careful labour of love for the couple, the father of three said. They had to import wooden beams from France to repair the building as well as fit it with central heating, a kitchen, four bedrooms, four bathrooms, four reception rooms and an extension.

They even taught themselves how to use the mill despite initially fearing it would 'collapse or explode.'

Whoever owns this mill has the privilege of being allowed to take as much water from the River Alyn to run it because of an ancient covenant and deeds that come with it.

The owners have even learned how to use the mill, despite worries they it would 'collapse or explode.'

Painstaking renovations were carried out by the couple during the time they lived there, importing wooden beams from France to restore the building

Their renovations tastefully brought it into the modern age with central heating and a new kitchen

They also added an extension to the home which now boasts four bedrooms, four bathrooms and four reception rooms

The owners of the mill have the right to take as much water as they need to run the mill by law due to ancient deeds that come with the place

Retired teacher Celia, 71 said: 'We'll be very sad to leave, but it is quite big for us now. We want to move near our children to future-proof.'

Nicola Moorby, curator of historic British art from 1790 to 1850 at Tate Britain, told BBC Wales, 'He was looking for picturesque subjects which were very popular with an antiquarian market at the time.'

There is currently an exhibition at the Tate Britain pitting Turner against his contemporary competitor John Constable - Turner & Constable Rivals & Originals.

Constable is another English Romantic painter, though his paintings often display the beautiful English countryside in a much darker, earthier palette.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/property/article-15517363/watermill-home-Turner-masterpiece-sale.html

Saturday, 31 January 2026

Jenny Joseph - Warning

English Literature

Joseph’s most celebrated poem, “Warning,” was written in 1961, when she was just twenty-eight. It first appeared in The Listener in 1962 and was later included in her 1974 collection Rose in the Afternoon, The Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century English Verse, and her Selected Poems (1992).

The poem gained remarkable popularity in the United States in the early 1980s after Liz Carpenter—former executive assistant to Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson and press secretary to First Lady Lady Bird Johnson—ended an article in Reader’s Digest with “Warning.” The article reflected on rediscovering joy in life after recovering from illness, and the poem’s inclusion struck a powerful chord with readers. Soon after, the greeting-card industry embraced the poem, led by graphic designer and calligrapher Elizabeth Lucas. Joseph herself credited Lucas for much of the poem’s success, writing:

“To her business acumen and energy I owe a hospitable following in California and later throughout northern America, more social, as I said, than literary.”

In 1996, a BBC poll named “Warning” the United Kingdom’s “most popular post-war poem,” confirming its lasting cultural impact.

Its iconic opening lines—

“When I am an old woman I shall wear purple,

With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me”—

went on to inspire the Red Hat Society, an international social organization celebrating aging with boldness and joy.

Such was the poem’s popularity that an illustrated gift edition, first published by Souvenir Press in 1997, has since been reprinted forty-one times. “Warning” was also included in the anthology Tools of the Trade: Poems for New Doctors (Scottish Poetry Library, 2014), and a copy was gifted to every graduating doctor in Scotland that year.

Ironically, Joseph herself disliked the colour purple, which is precisely why she chose it for the poem—a quiet act of rebellion that mirrored the poem’s spirit of playful defiance.

In 2021, the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford announced that the one-millionth image digitised for the Digital Bodleian project was Joseph’s first handwritten draft of “Warning,” a fitting tribute to a poem that continues to inspire readers across generations.

Fulvio Rinaldi

Ravenous Butterflies

“This is the time to be slow,

Lie low to the wall

Until the bitter weather passes.

Try, as best you can, not to let

The wire brush of doubt

Scrape from your heart

All sense of yourself

And your hesitant light.

If you remain generous,

Time will come good;

And you will find your feet

Again on fresh pastures of promise,

Where the air will be kind

And blushed with beginning.”

John O’Donohue

Fulvio Rinaldi

Minera Hall Wrexham

Historical Interest Of Wrexham And Surrounding Area

Minera hall was built in the late 1700s. It was the residence of the Burton family. The hall is a three storey structure with two pane sash windows. Featuring a single storey extension and pendiment with an oval plaque. It is listed as a Royal commission of the arts and museam group ( RCAHW ) property and is a significant historical site of the area