A while back I commented on an engraving at Nottingham castle as it didn’t make sense to me to create a work of art using a nonsensical text.
I compared it to the phrases embedded in the streets of Chepstow, which I’ve always rather liked; these seem to make grammatical sense, and are mostly associated with the commerce and history of the town.
I was back in Chepstow recently, and saw the tile above, which I didn’t remember having seen before. The title is Fetching water from the well and, rather aptly, the illustration is by Linda Waters. Clicking on the photo should enlarge it enough to show the text, so I won’t write it all out here.
Nearby are a couple of curved stone benches which are also engraved. One says counting by the wall, and another a place to weigh and measure:
It’s true that I can’t be certain the Welsh is correct, but it does look plausible. Unlike the out-of-office reply that ended up on a bilingual road sign in Swansea a couple of years ago.
