A blue plaque has been unveiled in Barmouth in honour of poet Gerard Manley Hopkins.

The Hopkins society unveiled the plaque on Aber House on 31 May.

Gerard Manley Hopkins Day marked the 150th anniversary of the poet and Jesuit priest’s visit to the town.

A day of events to mark the occasion started with an 11am lecture by poet Hilary Davies at The Dragon Theatre.

A coach then left Barmouth for lunch at the George III Inn, Penmaenpool, where Hopkins wrote his poem ‘Penmaen Pool’. A reading and discussion of the poem by the Hopkins Society took place.

The coach then travelled to Aber House at 3.30pm, formerly the Jesuit Villa where Hopkins stayed in 1875 and 1876, for a 4.15pm unveiling of a Blue Plaque, followed by tea/coffee there, and a concert at the Dragon Theatre at 7.30pm.

There was also a raffle in which No 1. of 150 bottles of a special Hopkins Ale, brewed by Myrddin’s Brewery and Distillery in Barmouth, was one of the prizes.

Before the plaque was unveiled, a number of speeches and prayers were said outside Aber House.

The blue plaque had been covered by the Welsh flag, ready for the grand unveiling by the Lord Lieutenant of Gwynedd, Edmund Seymour Bailey.

Unfortunately, the flag got caught and refused to reveal the plaque, but a gentleman of the town came to the rescue with a ladder and pulled the flag free, to the delight of the crowd assembled outside Aber House.

In 1875, when Gerard Manley Hopkins was studying at St Beuno’s College, St Asaph, he visited Barmouth and stayed at Aber House, which was then a villa used by the Jesuit community.

He sailed up the Mawddach to Penmaenpool’s George III Inn, where he inscribed the poem, Penmaen Pool, in the visitors’ book.