Not South-Wales specific, but the Council For British Archaeology has launched an online Heritage Toolkit for Community Groups. Featuring lots of ideas on how to get started exploring the history of your local area, for walks, school-talks etc. Well worth a look if you are looking for ideas in this area.
AT BARELY a centimetre across and almost unrecognisable after centuries underground, it may not look much, but could shed light on an almost unknown era of Welsh history. The discovery of a sword stud beneath shops in Monmouth, made public for the first time in today’s Western Mail, could be evidence of an Anglo-Saxon period settlement.
According to Stephen Clarke, chairman of the Monmouth Archaeological Society, the discovery is of “one of the most important early medieval sites in Wales”.
“The purpose of the timber building is unproven but considering the structure’s age, size, aceramic nature and the lack of domestic refuse it might be the remains of the lost church of St Cadoc, amongst the earliest of the Celtic saints active around the middle of the sixth century.
Recently I helped out the Mary In Monmouthshire blog by taking all the early Christian sites in South-East Wales they had been featuring (up until January) and enter them all in a Google Map. I guess other local historians would be interested in these, so I’ve put them up for download:
Google Earth (kmz file) – download
Nokia Maps (lmx file) – download
Tom-tom poi map – download
Garmin poi map – download
iGO poi map – download
The Satnav ones are particularly handy if you’re planning on visiting any of these sites. Let me know if you find them useful, or if they don’t work at all (a possibility lol).
I found out that my model of the Tegernacus Stone is now officially in Google Earth. To see it, you have to switch on "3D Buildings". Brilliant, that motivates me to model some more local historical sites now!
(Slight problem though, the model that shows up in Google Earth is all jaggedy and the texture is all pixelated. No problem, you can still download my model from here. Maybe Google compressed it to save space or something... hmmm... bug report time.)
The Gwent-Glamorgan Archaeological Trust has now set up a blog for Community Archaeology projects. One of the first ones spotlighted is a project in New Tredegar.
You can find/subscribe to the blog here:
GGAT HLF Community Archaeology Project
more links:
Caerffili county borough council is appealing for local people to help piece together the history of one of the area’s most important tourist attractions.
Llancaiach Fawr Manor House in Nelson is holding a special Archaeological Finds Afternoon on Sunday 19th April 2009 and it is hoped the event will reveal more about the rich history of the site.
Llancaiach Fawr has received funding from the Rural Development Project Fund as part of the ‘Caerffilli Cwm y Mynedd’ programme to support rural areas in the county borough.
The grant of £150,000, spread over the next three years, will be used to fund investigations into increasing public access to areas of the Manor, the old stables and the mill by the river, as well as developing designs for more sympathetic lighting and heating systems for the interpretation of the Manor in its 17th century state.
Importantly, the grant will also be used to fund historical and archaeological research to discover more about the immediate area surrounding Llancaiach Fawr, in particular, the history of the site before the current Manor House was built c.1530.
To help build up a more complete picture, Diane Walker, the General Manager at Llancaiach Fawr, is appealing for local people who have done any metal detecting in and around the site to bring their finds to a specially arranged afternoon in the Education Centre at the Manor on Sunday 19th April, from 2-5pm.
“Although we can find out a huge amount about the past from the remains of buildings, the small, often insignificant looking objects, can tell us so much more about the people themselves, what work they did, what they wore and other fascinating details about their lives. I hope that anyone who has found any objects in the area whilst metal detecting or just out and about in the fields, will let us have a look at the finds so that we can identify and record them and plot them on a map to build up a fuller picture of the past in this area”.
Mark Lodwick, the Portable Antiquities Scheme Officer, from the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff, and Mike Anthony from the Council for British Archaeology ( Wales) will be on hand to identify objects and record details of where they were found, so that the information can be plotted on to a map to reveal where people were living in the past.
The research team hope to be able to create settlement and activity maps for the area from prehistory, the Roman period, through the so called ‘Dark Ages’ or Early Medieval Period before the Normans came, the later Medieval era through to the Tudor and Stuart periods right through to the modern day.
For more information contact Diane Walker at Llancaiach Fawr Manor on 01443 414010 or email walked1@caerphilly.gov.uk
There are some interesting local history talks coming up in the Winding House Museum, New Tredegar. Organised by the University of Cardiff's Centre for Lifelong Learning. Booking is essential for all events.
6th June 2009
Mediaeval Valleys – An Introduction To South Wales in the Middle Ages.
Talk given by Tony Hopkins
13th June 2009
Welsh Emigration To America 1800-1814
Talk by Gethin Matthews
20th June 2009
South Wales Miners During the Wars, 1914- 1945
Talk by Dr Ben Curtis.
There are also some local archaeology sessions coming in late July, more information when I get it.
For further information contact 01443 822 666 or email windinghouse@caerphilly.gov.uk. More events and exhibitions can be found on their website at www.windinghouse.co.uk.
Rare Iron Age artefacts buried as part of a religious offering have been unearthed by an amateur treasure hunter. Two bronze bowls and a bronze wine strainer, described by an expert as of “great importance for the UK,” were found by Craig Mills in his home city of Newport, South Wales.
The 35-year-old security guard came across the items in the Langstone area in December 2007, only nine months after he took up metal detecting.
It is believed the objects were used by ancestors for eating or drinking and were deliberately buried intact as a religious offering. The items are believed to have been made around AD 25-60 and were buried at the time of the Roman army’s campaign against the Iron Age Silures tribe of South Wales, between AD 47 and 75.
The two near-complete bowls have rounded bases, carefully formed rims and decorated fittings with rings for hanging them up and the strainer has a rounded bowl-shaped body with a wide, flat rim and a similar suspension ring. The decoration on all the vessels is of the late Celtic or La Tene style of the late Iron Age.
Adam Gwilt, curator of the Iron Age Collections at the National Museum of Wales, said: “This discovery is of great importance for Wales and the UK. Similar bowls have been found in western and southern Britain, but few find-spots have been carefully and recently investigated by archaeologists.
“It seems these valued and whole containers were carefully buried at the edge of an ancient bog or lake, as part of a ritual offering.
“We are looking forward to researching and investigating further during 2009, in order to reveal the full story of how these impressive decorated pieces were made, used and buried.”
Mr Mills said: “I didn’t realise how significant it was and I didn’t have a clue how old they were. I was detecting for nine months before that and I have found nothing like it.”
The items were declared treasure by Gwent coroner David Bowen under the Treasure Act of 1996.
It is hoped the bowls and wine strainer will be displayed at the National Museum of Wales in 2010 in the Origins: In Search of Early Wales gallery.
Just to try it out, I made a simple model of the Tegernacus stone and geolocated it into Google Earth. Excuse the crudity and scale of the thing, but it will give you a general idea of how the stone looked in-situ. I have no idea if it'll get selected to enter the Google Earth 3D layer, but if you want you can load it into Google Earth yourself and have a look.
I must admit I'm hooked. Sketchup is weird software though (I'm used to Cinema4D). But look out for more South-Wales stones, house-platforms, wells, early churches etc soon
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