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Each year the Welsh Heritage Schools Initiative Committee (http://www.whsi.org.uk/) invites schools from all over Wales to enter heritage projects in its nationwide competition. The word "heritage" is interpreted in the widest sense, to include people and their social history, religion, traditions and culture; the world of work, agriculture, industry, finance, commerce, science, technology, arts and sport. These projects can be part of the usual curriculum-focused work carried out as part of the timetable, or they can reflect work done by the school to commemorate a local event, person or building.

With almost two million photographs and half a million pages of text in the National Monuments Record of Wales, the Royal Commission’s freely available public archive offers information on a wealth of historic sites in Wales. These include: Schools, Houses, Churches, Chapels, Farm buildings, Stone circles, Hillforts, Enclosures, Roman sites, Castles, Mottes, Canals, Railways, Ironworks, Coal mines, Mills, Lighthouses, Gardens, Wrecks, Mansions, Cairns and more. The list is endless and the possibilities are great. Much of this information is available on Coflein, our on-line database. For further assistance, please contact our enquiry team: nmr.wales@rcahmw.org.uk, Tel: 01970 621200.

Additional useful sites include:
People’s Collection Wales http://www.peoplescollectionwales.co.uk/
Britain From Above http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/

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Peter Smith, architectural historian, Secretary of the Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Wales 1973–1991, died on the 12 March 2013 in a nursing home in Devon.  He leaves a widow, Joyce, and three children.

Peter Smith FSA, architectural historian and author of the classic Houses of the Welsh Countryside, died on the 12 March 2013 in a nursing home.  Born in 1926 at Winlaton-on-Tyne, Co. Durham, the son of a schools’ inspector (H.M.I.), subsequent moves gave Peter Smith an early appreciation of the diversity of Britain but he never lost the regional accent acquired in his childhood.

After Oxford, where he read Modern History, there was a brief career as an Assistant Principal in Whitehall in the Ministry of Transport. His enthusiasm for historic buildings, however, led him to study successfully for the R.I.B.A. intermediate exam.  In 1949 he was appointed to the Welsh Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments, one of a small number of standing Royal Commissions, and began his long professional study of Welsh antiquities. In Wales, too, he was to find his wife, Joyce, bring up a family, and acquire a new language.

The Commission staff – the Secretary and four investigators – all then worked on monuments of every period.  However, encouraged by Cyril Fox, Peter Smith developed an enthusiasm for the interpretation of historic farmhouses, and his contribution to the Caernarvonshire Inventory shows him as a pioneer in a new subject - vernacular architecture.  Peter was to become one of the early members of the Vernacular Architecture Group and served as its President.

After Caernarfonshire, Peter investigated the stone houses of Glamorgan with forays into central and north-east Wales.  The opportunity for a broad study of Welsh architecture was presented by the transfer of the National Buildings Record in 1963, when Peter was moved from inventory work to the emergency recording of threatened buildings throughout Wales, including timber-built houses.

Peter Smith’s provisional views on the development of vernacular architecture were published in 1967 as a chapter on ‘Rural Housing in Wales’ in The Agrarian History of England and Wales, 1500-1640,  and then  developed into a remarkable full-length study arranged around original distribution maps and reconstruction drawings.  Houses of the Welsh Countryside was published by the Royal Commission in 1975 as its first thematic volume, was awarded the Alice Davis Hitchcock Medallion of the Society of Architectural Historians, and received many glowing reviews which recognised the book’s originality.

Peter Smith was appointed Secretary of the Royal Commission in 1973 (delighting in the antiquated title Secretary, which was confusing to some) and a steady output of Inventory volumes followed as well as several thematic volumes, all distinguished by their scholarship but also by explanatory illustrations of very high quality, including much admired cutaway drawings.

In retirement Peter Smith continued to research and write, reflecting on the European context of the vernacular architecture of England and Wales.   In 2010 a Welsh-language television series commissioned by S4C introduced a new generation to the themes of Houses of the Welsh Countryside.    The bilingual book of the series, Discovering Houses of the Welsh Countryside: Cyflwyno Cartrefi Cefn Gwlad Cymru (2010), has Peter’s reflections on some of the houses he had helped save.  This was Peter’s last publication and an appropriate coda to his life-long engagement with historic buildings in Wales, which has greatly influenced the contemporary appreciation of vernacular architecture.


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Abingdon Abbey, Berkshire, roof truss with pomegranate decoration on the infill.
For anyone that has seen our Twitter account, @RC_Survey, you may have picked up on #IfABursary that I have been using when out and about surveying or, in this case, when I was invited to the Oxford Dendrochronology Laboratory by Dr Dan Miles and Dr Martin Bridge. Over the last few months I have been fortunate enough to have spent time with Dan and Martin on fieldwork in Wales taking core samples, so the invite to see the next part of the process could not be missed. Having found their lab, hidden in the Oxfordshire countryside, the experience I gained was invaluable in understanding how each sample is prepared, measured, and then compared against their extensive database to produce a date or date range. Meticulous attention to detail was needed at all times, as missing a single tree ring or taking an incorrect measurement could potentially produce an inaccurate result and throw the date out by years, if not centuries. The following day I attended the Oxford Dendro Lab’s lecture and practical with the students from Oxford University’s MSc in Archaeological Science. Dan and Martin gave a very interesting lecture, with examples of how dendrochronology works and where the technique has been used to provide a definite date where dates have been disputed. This was followed by fieldwork taking samples at The Long Gallery, Abingdon Abbey, which the students were to prepare, measure and analyse as part of their course. The two days spent with Dan and Martin was very interesting and I hope to spend more time with them in the future to learn more about the tree-ring process.

Abingdon Abbey, Berkshire, exterior of the Long Gallery.
By Ross Cook, IfA/HLF Workplace Learning Bursary in Historic Building Survey and Interpretation.

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At the Royal Commission’s Digital Past conference, Dr Stephen Briggs gave an informative talk entitled ‘Enhancing the Archaeological Record from Digitised Newspapers’. He highlighted the fact that a vast amount of historic newsprint has been digitised during the past decade. Dr Briggs began utilising this resource whilst researching nineteenth-century archaeology and its practitioners. It eventually became apparent that newsprint could yield a great deal of vital information about archaeology and history. This includes contemporary accounts of artefact and site discoveries and even some early excavation accounts otherwise unrecorded elsewhere. Dr Briggs is currently looking for partners to help transcribe and publish some 1400 previously unknown medieval and later coin hoards, and accounts of over 450 mainly unknown Scottish early Bronze Age burials.
Dr Briggs points to an image from 1817, depicting a plan of a Bronze Age burial site at Crichie, Fife.
It was clear from Dr Briggs’s talk that old newspapers contain a great wealth of unique information, and that digitised newsprint is a remarkable neglected resource for archaeological and historical research. Increasing numbers of digitised newspapers are becoming available online from various sources, including the British Newspaper Archive and The National Library of Wales.

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Why Digitise Old Books?
The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales has been publishing books for over a century, and for the first time these important volumes are now available online. The digitisation project was undertaken to promote the fundamental recording work of the Royal Commission, and to make available books that have been cited many thousands of times in the last hundred years but are now often only available in libraries and command a high price in the second-hand market. But now all our out-of-print titles can be accessed via our website and viewed through Google Books. Most importantly, those published over fifty years ago are now free to download while those published later are available for purchase from Google Play.

Our first volume was the Inventory for Montgomeryshire in 1911, which listed all the monuments and sites of interest in the county, parish by parish. This was soon followed by volumes for Flintshire (1912), Radnorshire (1913), Denbighshire (1914), Carmarthenshire (1917), Merionethshire (1921), and Pembrokeshire (1925). After the publication of the Pembroke Inventory a more rigorous archaeological approach was followed and the first of these new-style volumes appeared for Anglesey in 1937 and was followed by three volumes covering Caernarvonshire (1956-64). All the titles are now available to download free via our website.

The later inventories for Breconshire (two volumes, 1986-97) and Glamorgan (seven volumes, 1976-2000) replaced the parish-by-parish approach and were arranged thematically instead. The last printed inventory was the Later Castles of Glamorgan published in 2000. These later volumes are available for purchase at £9.99 or less. Individual site records are available via our online database Coflein.

The publication of Houses of the Welsh Countryside in 1975 was the first thematic book by the Commission, and following its second edition in 1988 many smaller volumes appeared, including Brecon Forest Tramroads (1990), Lighthouses of Wales (1994), Collieries of Wales (1994) and Copperopolis (2000). All these titles and many more are now available via the bookshop on our website from as little as £1.99.

View: Bookshop

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The material will be available on the People’s Collection Wales website and Project Officer Carys Morgan said:

‘Collecting and sharing these very personal and often poignant items contributes greatly to our understanding of the War and is an important way of commemorating its 100th anniversary. People will be able to contribute by coming to the roadshow events and having their items scanned by our staff. Or, they can also upload items and memories to the People’s Collection Wales website themselves at any time if they can’t make it to one of the events.’

To get involved in the project, bring along your First World War letters, diaries, photographs and other memorabilia to one of the following events between 10am and 4pm.

12 March: Pontardawe Arts Centre
14 March: Brecon Library
18 March: Ruthin Library
20 March: Picton Community Centre, Haverfordwest

Further information:
Carys Morgan carysm@culturenetcymru.com or 01970632500

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Dinas Emrys, Gwynedd
AP_2012_0086   NPRN 95284
This year’s Uplands Archaeology Forum will be held at Plas Tan y Bwlch, Maentwrog, in the Snowdonia National Park on Friday 10 May 2013. The Forum will be a North Wales upland archaeology day-school entitled ‘Archaeology in the Mountains’ and will be organised by the Royal Commission, Snowdonia National Park and Gwynedd Archaeological Trust. During the morning session fieldworkers will give presentations on this year’s work in the uplands archaeology project, while in the afternoon there will be a series of talks detailing the results of recent work carried out by a number of organisations in the national park.

The day after the Forum, Saturday 11 May, there will be visits to archaeological and historical sites in the area of Llyn Cwmystradllyn and also in Cwm Ciprwth (kilometre square SH5247).

Further details and booking arrangements for both Forum and site visits will be posted here nearer the time.

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St David’s Cathedral, Pembrokeshire.NPRN: 306   DI2008_1029
St David’s Cathedral in Pembrokeshire is considered the holiest site in Wales. It stands on the site of a sixth-century monastery founded by St David, whose relics were kept in the Cathedral until the reformation when they were confiscated along with the relics of Justinian. The Cathedral itself is an iconic building, but while the eyes of visitors are often drawn upwards to its impressive nave ceiling and stonework, some of the delightful details of St David’s Cathedral can be overlooked.

Misericords are seats usually found in the quire of a church or cathedral, designed to fold away when not in use. The underside of the seat has a small shelf that a user can lean against to reduce discomfort during long periods of standing during services. Their name is derived from the Latin ‘misericordia’, meaning mercy. As a result, they are sometimes known as ‘mercy seats’ or ‘pity seats’. As with much woodwork in churches and cathedrals, misericords are often skilfully carved, showing a wide variety of subjects.

Each of the misericords in St David’s Cathedral were carved from a single block of oak. The hidden position of misericords freed craftsman from the constraints of traditional ecclesiastical art and allowed them to be freer in their work. They were inspired by bestiaries, fables and folk tales and were often rather irreverent! The images below show some of the misericords that can be seen in the quire at St David’s:

Misericords were used my members of the clergy to provide respite during long services. The words painted above each one refer to the name and/or office of the person using them at a particular time.
NPRN: 306   DI2012_2607
This misericord shows pilgrims in a boat, and was taken by Mrs. Trenchard Cox in 1948. NPRN: 306   DI2008_0016
A misericord showing a ‘ship’s carpenter’, also taken in 1948.
NPRN: 306   DI2008_0162
Faces like this one were popular subjects of misericords.
NPRN: 306   DI2012_2603
Fantastic beasts such as this one were often inspired by medieval bestiaries.
NPRN: 306   DI2012_2604
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In addition to “Inside Welsh Homes” Gallery Talk and People’s Collection Wales event to be held in Bangor Museum on Saturday 2 March, the Royal Commission will also be attending two other events in Carmarthen on that day, supporting other heritage organizations. In the first of these, Royal Commission military historian, Medwyn Parry, is the guest speaker for the Dyfed Family History Society AGM at St. Peter’s Hall, Carmarthen, between 10am―3pm. The title of his talk is Twentieth-Century Military Remains in Wales with an emphasis on World War I, and will no doubt prove most entertaining. For further details, please contact: Dyfed Family History Society.



The second event on that day, also in Carmarthen, is the Carmarthenshire Archaeology Day organised by Dyfed Archaeological Trust. Here, Dr Eurwyn Wiliam, Chairman of the Royal Commission and author the highly–acclaimed publication, The Welsh Cottage: Y Bwthyn Cymreig, will be giving an authoritive talk on The Welsh Cottage. Other speakers at the event will include Dr Rod Bale and Cliff Bateman. The event will be held between 9.30am ― 4.30pm in the Halliwell Centre, Trinity Saint David, Carmarthen. For further information, please contact Ed Davies: e.davies@dyfedarchaeology.org.uk; tel: 01558 825993.




Staff from the Royal Commission will be on-hand throughout the day to answer enquiries and chat to visitors at both events. In particular, please come along to our stall where there will be a full-range of publications, including our three latest titles: Fields of Play: The Sporting Heritage of Wales, Y Tu Mewn i Gartrefi Cymru / Inside Welsh Homes and Worktown: The Drawings of Falcon Hildred― all on sale with a special 10% discount. The day promises to be a wonderful opportunity for all, so please come and join us―wherever we may be!

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Showcasing on The People’s Collection Wales
Creating a digital legacy for temporary exhibitions has never been easier! As is being demonstrated by a group of Young Curators from Ceredigion Museum.

Aged fourteen to seventeen, the Young Curators from Ceredigion Museum include Welsh Baccalaureate pupils from local secondary schools. The group worked together in Autumn 2012 to create a fun filled and innovative temporary exhibition at the Museum Gallery in Aberystwyth. The temporary exhibition was called ‘Clockwise’ and it offered a fascinating glimpse into the history of Ceredigion through the eyes of the Young Curators. Aspects of town life through the decades was explored, from the 1800s to the modern day. The exhibition answered questions such as: Why did people come into town? What did they wear there? And what did they see and hear in the town?

Whilst the exhibition was on display in the museum gallery visitors could enjoy a diverse selection of images and objects, some from the museum collection and some created by the Young Curators themselves. The display included a montage of film from the 1970s, a gruesome chemist’s shop window from the 1920s and a beautiful woollen day dress from the mid-1800s. As the ‘Clockwise’ exhibition highlighted, however, ‘time waits for no man’ and change is inevitable; on the 19 January 2013 it was time for the Young Curators to take down their temporary exhibition and start researching another aspect of the museum’s collection.


With support from The People’s Collection learning officer Anna Evans, who is based at the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments Wales, the ‘Clockwise’ exhibition now has a digital future. The Young Curators from Ceredigion Museum are now curating a collection on The People’s Collection Wales website, creating a digital legacy for their exhibition.

You can view the first item uploaded @ http://www.peoplescollectionwales.co.uk/Item/59783-young-curators-clockwise-exhibition-2012

Keep an eye out for further blog entries as the full collection is uploaded onto The People’s Collection Wales.

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Tuesday 12, March, 2013 - 3:30-5:30pm

Britain from Above (www.britainfromabove.org.uk), a new online historical resource of spectacular aerial photos from 1919-1953, is looking for volunteers to get involved and help identify hundreds of unlocated images as well as share memories and local knowledge.

A short introductory session is being held at:
Carmarthen Community Education Centre
Furnace Road
Carmarthen SA31 1EU

For anyone interested in finding out more about the project.
The FREE session will include;
• Short presentation on the project
• Exploration of the website (with guidance if preferred)
• How to guide to take away

It will be an excellent opportunity to try out a new history resource in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere and take part in a national research project.

Places are limited, to book please contact below;
Natasha Scullion, Britain from Above Activity Officer, Wales.
e-mail: natasha.scullion@rcahmw.gov.uk
Telephone: 01970 621200 Mobile: 07920296279

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The 200 images in this book have been selected from the extensive archive of the National Monuments Record of Wales.
Saturday 2 March will be the last opportunity to see the Inside Welsh Homes exhibition at Bangor Museum and Art Gallery. At 2.00pm, Royal Commission staff member and co-author of the lavishly illustrated publication, “Inside Welsh Homes”, Rachael Barnwell, will be giving an illustrated talk on the subject. To coincide with this event, there will also be a People’s Collection Wales event where members of the public are invited to bring along their own objects, photographs and stories to be scanned, photographed or recorded and added to the Peoples Collection Wales website. Why not come along, contribute and share your story?

For more details and museum opening times, visit the museum’s website.

The exhibition will be touring other venues in Wales in 2013. To find out where you can see the exhibition, please visit our website.

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We are delighted to invite submissions for

Arts, Humanities, and Complex Networks
— 4th Leonardo satellite symposium at NetSci2013

taking place in Copenhagen at DTU – Technical University of Denmark,
on Tuesday, June 4, 2013.

Submission:
For submission instructions please go to:
http://artshumanities.netsci2013.net/

Deadline for submission: March 31, 2013.
Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by April 8, 2013.

Abstract:
The overall mission of the symposium is to bring together pioneer work in the overlap of arts, humanities, network research, data science, and information design. The 2013 symposium will leverage interaction between those areas by means of keynotes, a number of contributions, and a high-profile panel discussion.

In our call, we are looking for a diversity of research contributions revolving around networks in culture, networks in art, networks in the humanities, art about networks, and research in network visualization. Focusing on these five pillars that have crystallized out of our previous meetings, the 2013 symposium strives to make further impact in the arts, humanities, and natural sciences.

Running parallel to the NetSci2013 conference, the symposium provides a unique opportunity to mingle with leading researchers in complex network science, potentially sparking fruitful collaborations.

As in previous years, selected papers will be published in print, both in a Special Section of Leonardo Journal MIT-Press and in a dedicated Leonardo eBook MIT-Press.
Cf. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007S0UA9Q

Best regards,
The AHCN2013 organizers,
Maximilian Schich*, Roger Malina**, and Isabel Meirelles***
artshumanities.netsci@gmail.com

* Associate Professor, ATEC, The University of Texas at Dallas, USA
** Executive Editor at Leonardo Publications, France/USA
*** Associate Professor, Dept. of Art + Design, Northeastern University, USA

Tags: artshumanitiescomplex networksDiscipline: ArchaeologyArchitecture: History, Theory & PracticeClassics and Ancient HistoryCommunity Arts (including Art and Health)Cultural Policy, Arts management and the creative industriesDance StudiesDesignDrama and Theatre StudiesEnglish Language and LiteratureHistoryLawLibrarianship, Information & Museum StudiesLinguisticsMediaModern LanguagesMusicPhilosophyTheology, Divinity and Religious StudiesVisual Arts

Aerial view of one of the three Thankful Villages in Wales, Llanfihangel-y-Creuddyn,
AP_2004_0642   NPRN:33047
This summer Royal Commission staff member Medwyn Parry and co-rider Dougie Bancroft will be undertaking a motorbike journey to visit all 51 “Thankful Villages” in the United Kingdom. These are villages where there is no war memorial, because all of those who went away to fight in the Great War were fortunate enough to return home alive.

The trip will start at Llanfihangel y Creuddyn, near Aberystwyth, on 27 July 2013 and will finish at the same point nine days and 2,500 miles later, on 4 August.

There are three Thankful Villages in Wales – Llanfihangel y Creuddyn, Cardiganshire; Colwinston, Glamorgan; and Herbrandston, Pembrokeshire – where they also returned from the Second World War, making it the only “Double Thankful” village in Wales.

Medwyn has been amazed by the outstanding generosity of complete strangers who have embraced the spirit of the project. The aim is to raise £51,000 for the Royal British Legion. As far as he is aware, nobody has visited all 51 villages during one journey.

Those who live in the Thankful Villages are tremendously proud of their status. Medwyn & Dougie plan to meet with residents – especially descendants of those who returned from WWI.

The Welsh Government First Minister, Carwyn Jones, has issued a statement, giving his support to the ride.

Further details can be found on the website: thankfulvillagesrun.com

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Glendalough, miners cottages recently surveyed. At the beginning of February the Metal Links archaeologist, Samantha Jones headed off to Glendalough in Ireland with Louise Barker, Royal Commission investigator. Glendalough, famous for its monastic remains, is also home to a number of mine sites that dot the valley side. The mountains were mined for lead and zinc from at least the 1790s up until the 1950s and as a result the area is littered with the remains of this past industry.

Our visit was at the request of the Glendalough mining heritage group, partners on the Metal Links project. Much of the mine complex at Glendalough has been surveyed by the group however there are remains of a number of miners cottages linked together via lanes and surrounded by field systems that have never been fully investigated. This was therefore the focus for our work.

On our first day we awoke to find it had been snowing throughout the night. Luckily this didn’t stop us and although bitterly cold we cracked on with the survey using both the total station and GPS equipment. Come spring the site will have disappeared beneath a dense covering of bracken, and thus a winter-time survey was essential. Over the two days, we collected all the information on the complex, together with sketches and photographs to help produce a series of plans back in the office.  The site and our survey will now form the focus of an event during County Wicklow’s Heritage Week in August, when it’s hoped that the local community will try their hand at surveying and also provide the Metal Links partners with valuable memories and information about the site.

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National Monuments Record of Wales’ Search Room and Library Aberystwyth is a town of books, housing the National Library of Wales, the University’s libraries and the newly-housed public library. One of its least known and best kept secrets is the gem-like collection held in the library of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales. Here can be found a small specialist library that supports the work of staff as well as providing a reference collection for the general public to browse when visiting. It holds books, guides, pamphlets, maps and journals relating to all aspects of the built environment ranging from Neolithic dwellings to railway transport systems; building legislation to tinplate processing.

In particular, books of Welsh interest can be found telling the story of how Wales was formed as a land and as a nation. They cover the geology of Wales, its topography, archaeology and architecture. There are local, county and national studies that offer context, interpretation and explanation for the way Wales has developed. The library holds reports and works of reference that place the Welsh story in a British, European and global context. Whether you are interested in the Romans or in the Middle Ages, in specific architectural features such as stained glass or cruck frames, in how the industrial revolution took hold and shaped Wales, or how non-conformity was manifested, you will find a book that aids your research in the Royal Commission’s library.

It is a unique collection that has grown through acquisition, donations and books presented in lieu of copyright and license fees. Examples include English Vernacular Architecture by Eric Mercer (1975) in our architecture section, and Larn’s Shipwreck Index of the British Isles (2000) in our maritime section. We also hold a small collection of rare books and first editions, including Thomas Pennant’s, A Tour in Wales, vol. II (1783) and William Coxe’s An Historical Tour in Monmouthshire (1801) which provide wonderful descriptions and illustrations of the scenic wonders and antiquities of Wales. They also depict some of the industrial marvels of the time, such as Blaenavon Ironworks. 


Plate showing Blaenavon Ironworks from An Historical Tour in Monmouthshire, William Coxe, 1801
The visitor to the library will find a full set of the journals published by Welsh county, antiquarian, archaeological and historical societies, which present over 100 years of record and inquiry. There are also a wide range of archaeological, architectural and historical journals covering such specialist topics as industrial engineering, in the International Journal of History and Technology, produced by the Newcomen Society, and Welsh nonconformity, in the Capel Newsletter.

You are welcome to come in and browse the library’s collections on Monday to Friday from 9:30 to 4:00, Wednesday 10:30 to 4:30.

If you would like further information, please contact us at nmr.wales@rcahmw.gov.uk or ring 01970 621200.

Plan of Tre’r Ceiri Hillfort from Thomas Pennant’s, A Tour in Wales, vol. II, 1783
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One of my responsibilities as People’s Collection Wales Officer is to respond to enquiries by members of the public who want to know more about the items we’ve uploaded. Yesterday morning, beneath our photograph of the effigy of Rhys ap Thomas in St Peter’s Church, Carmarthen, was the following highly topical question: ‘Is this the man who felled Richard III?’

In the news and on Monday night’s Channel Four documentary, we had confirmation that the skeleton, recently discovered under the car park in Leicester, was that of Richard III, killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485.

Not being an expert myself, I asked around my medievalist colleagues and was told that although there is no firm evidence that he was the man who killed Richard, Rhys ap Thomas was an important Welsh magnate who closely supported Henry Tudor. He and his retainers would have formed the close guard around Henry during the battle of Bosworth in 1485. That, together with the fact that he was knighted by Henry on the battle field, and later claims that he used a poleaxe to kill Richard, certainly make him one of the prime candidates to have delivered that fatal blow.

By Helen Rowe.

See Rhys ap Thomas’s effigy on People’s Collection Wales.

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Plas Newydd. In her diary, Eleanor Butler often wrote that ‘my beloved and I went the Home Circuit.’ This was a short walk around the garden at Plas Newydd, which they would take at a run in bad weather.
NPRN 27760   DI2006_1033
Throughout February events will be taking place across the UK to recognise the contribution of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people to British history. The first LGBT History Month in Britain was in 2005, with Wales launching its own annual programme of events 2011.

LGBT history is a relatively modern area of study. Simply finding LGBT people and experiences in the history books, archives and museums stores is challenging and often controversial. However, one of the most famous examples of a same-sex relationship in British history is found right here in Wales.

On a spring night in April 1778, two upper-class Irish women ran away from their family homes in County Kilkenny, south-east Ireland. Lady Eleanor Butler (1739 – 1829) and Sarah Ponsonby (1755 – 1831) caused great scandal among their contemporaries when they conspired together to escape unwelcome marriage proposals and an unwanted future as married women. Fleeing across the Irish Sea, they eventually settled in an unassuming two-storey cottage known as Pen y Maes in the quiet rural village of Llangollen in north Wales in 1780.

Together, they refurbished and extended Pen y Maes and its grounds which they renamed Plas Newydd. Plas Newydd (New Place) gave Eleanor and Sarah the freedom to live the life they wished for together completely contra to the expectations of the day. Eleanor and Sarah, who became known as the Ladies of Llangollen, were seemingly untroubled by the controversy their lifestyle caused. Supported by a modest income provided by disapproving relatives they redeveloped Plas Newydd in a gothic style, with triple-arched windows, stained glass and ornately carved oak interiors. The Ladies were visited at home by many notable figures of the day, including the poets Wordsworth, Shelley and Byron who venerated their extremely close relationship. Even political figures, such as the Duke of Wellington, visited them and kept up the tradition of bringing a piece of wood to decorate both the interior and exterior of the house as a gift for their hospitality.

The improvement of the house and grounds was a lifelong project for the women, and is the subject of much comment in their letters and diaries. The Royal Commission’s archive holds plans and photographs of Plas Newydd that show many of the enhancements they made.

Eleanor Butler died in 1829 and was buried at the St. Collen’s Church in Llangollen. Sarah Ponsonby passed away two years later, and was interred in the same grave, along with their faithful housekeeper, Mary Carryl. The Ladies had lived and had a life together at Plas Newydd, for more than fifty years. Though the nature of their relationship remains a subject of debate, Plas Newydd stands as a legacy of the unconventional life they made together.

Plas Newydd is now a museum in the ownership of Denbighshire County Council, and is open to the public.

More information about Plas Newydd, including a list of archive material, can be found on Coflein.

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Aberystwyth University Computer Science undergraduate, Daniel Drave, explains his work in the Royal Commission’s Data and Technology team:
 
As the developer of the My Favourite Building mobile application and website service, I have been able to expand my knowledge of the professional working world, expand on my skills in computer programming and contribute to a programme of delivery with the Royal Commission in Aberystwyth. My work placement is officially with a policy division in the Welsh Government, CyMAL: Museums Archives & Libraries, and the placement with the Royal Commission is an extension of that.

Dan at work on the project. Tom Pert, On-line Development Manager at the Royal Commission, presented to CyMAL the idea of a crowd-sourcing digital heritage mobile application to support user-contribution to the People’s Collection Wales website. As I had gained suitable skills from studying Computer Science at Aberystwyth University, I offered to lead the development of the app.

My Favourite Building homepage. The crowd-sourcing app will allow users to photograph their favourite historic building using the camera on their smartphone. They can then enter some information about why it is their favourite building and upload the record to a web service. The web service provides an attractive user-interface for viewing their own, and other users’, contributions and offers access to other services, including profile management and quick searches. Site administrators or local community project leaders will also have the ability to create new projects, allowing users to upload new content for a wide variety of topics. Projects could include ‘My Local Pub’ or ‘My favourite heritage site’. The app is designed to be flexible and it’s hoped it will be used in various situations, from recreational use to educational workshops.


Data entry screen (left) and completed record screen (right) on the My Favourite Building app
The project is in the final stages of development and a prototype of both the app and website will be available for user testing by mid-February. The app will be available for the Android operating system, and the website has been optimized for Mozilla Firefox.

If you would like to know more about the My Favourite Building project, please contact: tom.pert@rcahmw.gov.uk

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Dissemination of, and public engagement with, the outcomes of historical research can benefit from tourism management and the intervention of cultural institutions in utilising new digital technologies that promote engaging ways of enhancing the visitor experience. These resources may be online or on site, but equally provide a new critical currency in the global digital economy.


Professor Ray Howells of the South Wales Centre for Historical and Interdisciplinary Research and Matt Chilcott, development director for digital tourism, interpretation and inclusion at CMC2 Community Interest Group and PhD scholar at the George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling will be discussing their experiences of work carried out by SWICHR in the creation of immersive digital environments and other projects.

• Read abstract

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