Visitors to the Llanwrtyd & District Heritage and Arts Centre will have noticed the large 1920s London, Midland and Scottish Railway advertising poster encouraging travellers to visit the town for “the finest health spring in the kingdom and other medicinal waters.”

The work is signed by Montague Birrell Black (1884-1964), a well-known artist and illustrator of this era. Artistic licence was very much the style of the day, and while the shapes of the hillsides are strongly reminiscent of those of the upper Irfon Valley, the scene depicted presents Llanwrtyd as almost being an alpine resort.

The framed poster was donated to the Llanwrtyd Wells Heritage & Arts Centre, having for many years been on display in the Llanwrtyd War Memorial Institute on Irfon Terrace.

In 2022, the Heritage Centre trustees decided to explore the possibility of making postcards and printed copies of the work available for public purchase. Guidance on the technical background, provenance and copyright of early 20th century travel posters was generously provided by the curatorial team of the National Railway Museum.

It was by chance that during the process of obtaining a high resolution digital image of the work, it became clear that the work is actually the original painting rather than a print.

Typically, the original artwork would have been destroyed following the lithographic print production process.

For various technical reasons, an original painting is not necessarily any more valuable than a good quality production poster, but the fact that it survived to this day in Llanwrtyd is intriguing.

Prints and postcards of the LMS Llanwrtyd poster are now available for purchase from the Heritage Centre shop:

​Large (circa 14 x 17 cm) postcards - £2

​A3 size poster - £15

​A2 size poster - £25

All proceeds will go to the Llanwrtyd and District Heritage & Arts Centre.