Keep your eyes on the sky if you’re in North Wales on the night of October 23rd.

Video artist Chris Oakley will beam a blue-white searchlight into the night sky, illuminating a lesser-known gem of North Wales and allowing its small band of devotees to see it in a new light.

We’re talking about the Jubilee Tower atop atop Moel Famau in the Clwydian Range.

A new light

The public-art event has been commissioned to celebrate 200 years since the ceremonial laying of the Jubilee Tower’s foundation stone and 25 years of the Clwydian Range as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).

The tower was designed to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the King George III. It was envisaged a rectangular base with an Egyptian obelisk, the first of its kind in Britain, but the final construction, unveiled in 1817, was a scaled-down version of those grandiose plans.

A sense of spectacle

Most people hurry through Clwydians country in their haste to go walking in the Snowdonia National Park. The October event is a chance for a oft-overlooked part of North Wales to showcase its charms to a wider public.

“I want to create a sense of spectacle,” explains Chris Oakley. “But I also hope people go away having realised the Jubilee Tower is not just a dilapidated pile of stones on a wind-swept hill. It reflects the way history has evolved around us.”

Watch this space

I’m currently copywriting a new brochure for the Range and will be posting more material online over the next few weeks.

Check back here for more or follow me on Twitter for images and video from the event.