Snowdonia has attracted painters and printmakers for more than 250 years. While working on this programme I was astounded by the sheer quantity of artists who have visited the area. Different generations have been drawn by different things. Some, like the pioneer Welsh landscape artist Richard Wilson, highlighted the majesty of its peaks and castles, imposing his own order onto the landscape. Others, like J.M.W. Turner, went in search of drama, relishing the stormy, changeable weather and the stunning light effects that this produced.

When we arrived with our camera, there wasn’t a cloud in sight, let alone a Turneresque storm. Standing on the edge of Llyn Nantlle, where Wilson viewed Snowdon in 1765, the sky couldn’t have been bluer. And this was exactly how Wilson liked his landscapes; he bathed Wales in the warm, glowing light that he had experienced while living in Rome.

What excited Turner was something many of us will have experienced in the mountains. I certainly did when my father led my teenage self across Snowdonia’s famously rocky ridges. Clinging on for dear life, I came to know that combination of terror and exhilaration often found in paintings, particularly Turner’s: the Sublime. It’s one thing to admire the immediacy of Turner’s sketches in an art gallery, but experiencing the actual views that inspired him brings a very different kind of insight and understanding.

Surprisingly artists also came to Snowdonia for company rather than solitude. From the mid-nineteenth century, a vibrant artistic community established itself in Betws-y-Coed, meeting at the Royal Oak Hotel. Filming there, it was easy to imagine the convivial gatherings of visitors from all over Europe. But it’s the stay of a Welsh painter that stands out for me.

In the early twentieth century, J.D. Innes regularly visited the area between Ffestiniog and Bala. In this remote district, he and Augustus John applied the colourful language of modern European art to the Welsh landscape, to dazzling effect. Standing at the foot of the imposing mountain that inspired him, Arenig Fawr, was a highlight of the filming. Apart from the fact that two of my grandparents hailed from nearby, it’s always thrilling to stand on the spot where an artist has worked and see how their renditions compare with the view that inspired them.

And maybe that’s what makes these Snowdonia landscapes so compelling – for everyone. They present familiar and much-loved views at different moments in history and through very distinctive artistic filters, always casting the familiar in a new and revelatory light.

Inspired by Snowdonia is on BBC Two Wales, Saturday 13 June 2015 at 10pm

To find out more, and catch up with other programmes you may have missed, visit: bbc.co.uk/realnorthwales or join the conversation on social media #RealNorthWales.

Portmeirion (Photo by Siany)

He was born at Gayton in Northamptonshire on 28 May 1883. His father, however, was Welsh - possibly being related to and descended from Owain Gwynedd - and when Williams-Ellis was just four years old the family moved back to north Wales to live. The young boy was educated at Oundle School and, later, at Cambridge where he studied natural sciences.

He left Cambridge without taking his degree, however, and being interested in architecture and buildings, began working for the Architectural Association. He only stayed there a for a few months before gaining more experience with a private company of architects. But when he was just 22 years old he decided it was time to 'bite the bullet' - he set up his own architectural business.

It was a brave move. Clough Williams-Ellis was not trained in architecture and was entirely self-taught. Fortune certainly favoured the brave because the young man never looked back.

He became one of the most popular and most innovative architects of the 20th century. He believed that it was entirely possible to create buildings that were in tune with the environment, that you could build houses or even a whole series of them without destroying the site on which they had been built; an unusual stance or viewpoint in the 1920s and 30s.

In 1908 Williams-Ellis had inherited a country house, Plas Brondanw, from his father. He began to re-model and re-design it (practising on it, in fact) and spent the rest of his life working on what became a long-term project. In 1915 he married the writer Amabel Strachey, daughter of the owner of The Spectator magazine, and had a distinguished war career in the Welsh Guards. He was awarded the Military Cross for bravery.

He began to build Portmeirion in the 1920s, opening it to the public in 1926. The village was far from completed and he continued to design and build more phases until the 1970s. However, some of his other buildings did not elicit quite the same level of approval as Portmeirion.

He also designed the café and summit building on Snowdon, a creation that was later to earn the disapproval of Prince Charles. The Prince called it "the highest slum in Britain" - although, to be fair, the building he saw was not the one designed by Clough Williams-Ellis. It had been vastly altered and redesigned by others in the 1960s.

One building of his that was well received was Lloyd George's house at Llanystumdwy, Ty Newydd. The house, now a writer's centre, still boasts a long room with a wonderful curved ceiling that seems to pick up sound and transmit whispers at one end to listeners at the other: a remarkable piece of engineering and architecture.

Bertram, Clough Williams-Ellis was awarded a CBE and knighthood in 1972. He died on 9 April 1978, renowned as one of the most important architects of his day. And anyone who visits the village of Portmeirion will testify to that fact.

I took this photo today of a slight dusting of hail/sleet/snow on the wind farm above Llandinam. Image by Bill Pugh.

The rate of cooling isn't constant but on average, temperature drops by around 2 deg C per 300 m (1,000 ft) of ascent. This means that at the summit, the temperature will be much cooler than in the valley below.

At 900 m (3000 ft) the wind speed is on average double that on low ground, and the overall wind-chill effect on a wet or perspiring human body can be very large. A wind of 40 mph and an air temperature of 3 °C will give a wind-chill temperature of -10 deg C.

Snow on Snowdonia again above Llyn Padarn with the 'window' in the Llanberis Pass which means more rain for us locals. Image by Brian Wakeham.

Mountains produce a number of potentially hazardous weather phenomena including: gales, storm-force winds, persistent heavy rain or blizzards raging at the summit whilst it's calm lower down.

You might also encounter ice and snow lasting well into spring and summer, especially on north-facing slopes away from the warmth of the sun.

So, do take care if you're heading off for a mountain walk. It really pays to be prepared for all weather conditions if you're out trekking at any time of the year but especially so in winter.

You can get the latest weather forecasts for Snowdonia and the Brecon Beacons.

South Snowdonia Mountain Rescue

Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team

Tal y Braich was a complete restoration

When asked, most visitors to the location found it impossible to distinguish between the 'real' cottage and the 'replica' one.

As for the Jones' cottage, 'Tal Y Braich', is a Grade II listed structure that we had painstakingly restored in partnership with CADW. It's available to view by appointment with the property owner. One thing to note is that the cottage interiors, as seen in the series, were furnished with hired props - all of which were removed at the end of the filming period. To arrange a visit contact the Kate Roberts Heritage Centre, Cae'r Gors on 01286 831715 or 01286 831245.

Mark and Alisa Braddock

So, for one month, they lived as closely and as realistically as possible to the experience of 1890s smallholders. There was no escape back to the 21st century. Food supplies and money were rationed so as to realistically reflect what their Victorian counterparts would have had to contend with. When Alisa Braddock broke down because she was running out of food her distress was real, as was the families' concern that they wouldn't be able to meet their rent.

But it's not just viewers that have questioned just how real the 1890s experience actually was. Before they embarked on their time-travelling journey, we warned both families not to expect 'pretend living'. We even used the phrase in the series application form! Both the Joneses and the Braddocks had to agree to live as closely as they could to experience of 1890s smallholders. But some individuals, Mark Braddock in particular, were genuinely shocked that we were true to our word. He was fully expecting 'fluffy robes, location catering and a Winnebago'. The actual conditions on the smallholding came as a bit of a shock to him!

One of the biggest problems the families struggled with wasn't the animals, and it wasn't the tough dawn to dusk work routine. It was the food. With limited supplies, generous helpings of offal, no supermarket to pop out to and every meal having to be prepared from scratch, Alisa and Catrin faced a tough challenge to keep their broods fed.

Part of the planning for Snowdonia 1890 included extensive research into 1890s food and cooking methods, and the problems modern day families might have coping with them. We employed nutritionist Dan Kings to advise about what the main difficulties might be and were told to warn the families that planning and portion control would be vital.

Alisa, in particular, had a real struggle on her hands. The Braddocks were strangers to portion control and two ravenous teenagers, Jordan and Jamie didn't help matters. As a result Alisa worried constantly that they were about to run out of food, and a few corking arguments ensued!

It should be a decent day for the Snowdonia marathon near Llanberis tomorrow after today's rain and gales.

The runners may bump into a shower but I can promise some sunshine as well. The temperature ideal around 12 Celsius with a south to south-westerly breeze.

Tomorrow evening will be generally dry with mist patches forming in the north. However, for mid Wales and the South expect rain after midnight.

On Sunday morning the rain will spread into the north. Drier weather should follow from the south with scattered showers. Temperatures about average 11 to 14 Celsius with a south-easterly breeze.

By Halloween it should be dry. The wind light by then and not too cold! If you fancy a spooky Sunday check out Gull's blog for some ideas.

Have a great weekend and enjoy the extra hour in bed on Sunday. I plan to go for a walk but I am not sure where yet!

Derek

The open day is from 11am to 4pm and there are guided tours at 11.30am and 3pm. It is otherwise shut during the winter season.

Read more about the open day in this BBC North West Wales News article.

View a slide show of the hospital on the BBC North West Wales News website.

Don't miss Snowdonia 1890, tonight, Monday 25 October, 7.30pm, BBC One Wales.

The National Slate Museum of Wales in Llanberis

Snowdonia 1890 Day

A fun 1890 themed workshops and events featuring Una the steam train in full steam, members of the Snowdonia 1890 supporting cast and slate splitting demonstrations. It takes place at the National Slate Museum of Wales, Llanberis, Tuesday 26 October, 11am-3pm.

The Big Pit museum will hosts two events next week

A Taste of 1890

Find out about life in 1890 in the mining communities of south Wales. The Big Pit National Coal Museum, Blaenavon, Monday 25 October 25 and Friday 29 October, 12pm-4pm.

Don't miss the latest episode of Snowdonia 1890, tonight, Friday 22 October, 7.30pm on BBC One Wales.

Ceri Rowlands is series producer for Snowdonia 1890

Recreating the world of 1890 was a big ask. We started with pretty much a blank page but over the course of the next six months, the idea rapidly took shape.

The series development team had already found a suitable smallholding, Tal y Braich, just outside the village of Rhosgadfan near Caernarfon. Job done I thought. But a memorably rain-soaked site visit soon revealed that the property was a virtual ruin, with no running water supply or decent access road, and there was still the small matter of finding a second cottage nearby.

We quickly decided that our best option would be to renovate Tal y Braich and build a neighbouring cottage from scratch in the network of fields that made up the smallholding. That's easier said than done when you're dealing with a windswept, sodden mountainside in the depths of winter.

I thought it best to gloss over the worst of the detail when briefing our very capable set designer. The hysterical laughter that punctuated his conversation with me after his first site visit said it all. But, good egg that he is, he got on with it.

Add to this the challenge of finding a Victorian slate quarry, school, village shop and chapel, and you quickly realise the scale of the task that we'd taken on. If a structure or feature couldn't be sourced then it had to be built.

There was also the matter of finding period accurate livestock, sourcing heritage crops for the vegetable garden, researching and making period costumes, props and tools.

What and how much would families eat and drink? How should they behave? How do you build an authentic earth closet without polluting the water table? Cue more laughter from the long suffering set designer.

The list seemed never ending. Worse still, we were informed that we would also be shooting the series in high definition, so every detail, no matter how minute, had to be period accurate.

Finally, there was the important matter of finding and selecting our two brave families, not to mention populating a whole community in which they would live. They wouldn't be entering a different era so much as a whole new world.

Psychologists, nutritionists, historians and animal experts were all consulted to ensure that the selected families would be equipped to survive what would be a truly authentic experience.

The challenge we faced was immense, not helped by the worst winter in a decade, a location in which the wind could flatten a grown man, and me discovering I was pregnant.

While the production and build teams battled the elements, I grappled with morning sickness and a raft of health and safety regulations which would effectively bar me from the smallholding when lambing started.

But despite all the obstacles we did it and in March 2010 the cameras started rolling.

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Snowdonia 1890 shows the hardship of tyddyn (small holding) life.

Produced by the same team that recreated life in Blaenavon in the 1920s and '40s, this new series will chart the trials and tribulations of two families in the slate-producing region of north Wales, in conditions as closely resembling the 1890s as possible.

Hard as it may be to believe, 1890 is only just over 100 years in the past, yet the differences between then and now are remarkable. There was no electricity and, in rural Wales, there were no gas supplies either. No television or radio, no motorcars or central heating - conditions were pretty primitive. Transport was by horse, if you were lucky - otherwise you walked.

Man had not yet taken to the skies, and ships had only just moved out of the era of sail. Machinery to work the slate and coal mines of the country were basic in the extreme, with most jobs being done by hard graft and by hand.

The year 1890 was a significant one for Wales. In February an explosion in the colliery at Llanerch near Pontypool killed no fewer than 176 miners, one of many such disasters to afflict south Wales. On 14 June that year David Lloyd George, later to become Wales' only prime minister, delivered his maiden speech in the House of Commons, while on 20 July Wales' first millionaire, David Davies of Llandinam, died. Only the previous year his huge new dock at Barry had opened for use.

A year later the first language census in the country revealed that 898,914 people (over the age of three) spoke Welsh. That represented 54% of the population and, of these, 30% were monoglot Welsh speaking. In the slate mining districts of north Wales those figures were considerably higher - 91% of people speaking Welsh, 69% having no English at all. Clearly, then, the effects of the new educational system and the use of deterrents such as the Welsh Not had only limited success (if success is the right word) in Snowdonia.

The slate-producing area of Snowdonia, where the series is set, offered men a combination of industry and agriculture for employment, with one occupation or job supplementing and adding to the other. Neither could really offer enough financial reward for people to survive by just one alone.

That meant that many of the men who worked in the slate quarries also ran small-holding farms. These were tiny affairs, perhaps only three or four acres in size, with fields divided up by dry stone walls. Here men, and their wives, kept cattle and sheep, bringing them down from the high grazing pastures in the winter, and tried to cultivate the unyielding land to produce extra vegetables like potatoes and beans to supplement their diet.

It was a hand to mouth existence. Work in the slate quarries was hard and dangerous but at least such work was plentiful. By 1890 there were nearly 100 such quarries in the Snowdonia area alone.

It was a situation that was replicated in many of the south Wales valleys where miners all had their gardens and vegetable plots. Open land was not so plentiful in the south so not many could run to small-holdings of three or four acres, but the need to add meat and vegetables to the diet meant that cultivating the earth and keeping a few chickens - or even pigs - was a common occurrence.

Children will experience school life in the 1890s.

By 1890 the British Empire was nearing its zenith. Britain was already the richest and most powerful country in the world but to the miners and farmers of Snowdonia there were more important issues than grabbing land in South Africa and India. For them it was a case of surviving from one day to the next - something that the two families in Snowdonia 1890 are about to discover for themselves.

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The Jones family from Denbigh

The Jones family have a huge range of ages, from Heulwen, 75, right down to her grandson Jac - who at nine is the youngest entrant to the farmhouse, along with the Braddocks' daughter Leah.

Jac's sister Ela, 11, joins him in thinking there will be "nothing to do" without a computer, while Ela faces other issues as a vegetarian in a time where meat from a family's own animals was the staple food.

Their big brother Ben, 18, and parents David, a partner in a law firm, and Catrin, a tribunals officer, make up the rest of the Jones family.

The Braddock family from Abergavenny

The Braddocks are couple Mark and Alisa, and children Jamie, 19, Jordan, 16, Tommy, 13 and Leah.

Before entering the farmhouses which will be their homes for almost four weeks, the families were realistic about the hardships they could face.

"I thought it would be good to be out in a house where you've got no mod cons... to really get back to basics and bond as a family," said Alisa.

And Mark, a medical technician, was realistic about the hardship of the days he was about to face:

"If we don't have enough slate or make enough tiles, we don't get paid; so of course then if you don't get paid, you haven't got money to buy food for the family, so there's a different kind of pressure. Back then they had that worry - if they didn't work, they didn't eat!"

The families will be helped along by a host of local north Wales individuals, such as the butcher, the preacher and the teacher, who appear as 1890 versions of themselves.

Filmed mainly in Rhosgadfan on the slopes of Snowdonia, as well as other locations around the area, the landmark series starts on BBC One Wales on Monday 18 October, 7.30pm on BBC One Wales, and continues every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening for three weeks.

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Filmed mainly in Rhosgadfan in Gwynedd, Snowdonia 1890 sees two specially selected families embark on an epic journey, as the men, women and children commit to living as closely as they can to a 19th century way of life.

The two families will swap their current comfortable lives for the austere existence of life as smallholders. Living in cramped cottages with no running water or electricity, the families will need to survive by keeping animals, working the land and selling home produce to supplement the wages of the men, who will be experiencing the harsh life of quarrymen.

The families will be helped along by a number of local north Wales residents, who appear as 1890 versions of themselves.

Llanfairfechan farmer Gareth Jones who can currently be seen in the television trailer, is central to the families' efforts to survive. "It was a huge ask of them," says Gareth, who farms Ty'n Llwyfan farm in Llanfairfechan, near Conwy.

"They came to it not having any experience with livestock whatsoever. And that in itself presented challenges, and then the added twist of doing it as they would have in 1890... I honestly didn't think they were going to last a day."

Snowdonia 1890 has been created by the makers of the popular living history series Coal House and Coal House At War. The series begins on Monday 18 October at 7.30pm on BBC One Wales, and continues every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening for three weeks.

On Sunday 17 October at 8pm on BBC One Wales, viewers get a chance to take a peek behind the scenes in a one hour special programme, Making of Snowdonia. The programme charts how the restoration of the farmhouses, the selection process and has interviews with the two families.

BBC Wales History will also be featuring a number of blogs written by Snowdonia 1890 series producer Ceri Rowlands, who will shed light on the thinking behind the series.

The Snowdonia 1890 website is now launched and contains interviews, features and details of the series.

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