Heritage Trust’s project Demystifying the Abbey Di-swyno’r Abaty

Newsletter Issue 1 Summer 2020 Charity Number 1018536

GOLYGYDD / EDITORIAL Collaboration with University of Trinity Saint David Yr ydw'n falch iawn i gynnig yr Llythr

Newyddion yma o'r prosiect ,am dreftadaeth y pentref ,o enw Di-synnu'r Abaty ar gyfer Abbeycwmhir Heritage Trust archwilio hanes yr Abaty ei hunan ac hefyd yr is delighted to announce a ardal yn y gorffenol oedd yn cael eu effeithiol collaboration with Professor gan yr Abaty. David Austin’s Landscape Er achosodd problemau gan y 'Gloi i Lawr' yr Archaeology team at University of Wales Trinity Saint David, ydyn ni wedi mynd ymlaen gyda'r prosiect through the Sacred Landscapes Arts and Humanities mewn llawer ffyrdd. funded programme at Strata Florida. Prof Austin’s team Ymddangosir y Llythr Newyddion hwn rhai o includes Dr Jemma Bezant – also a highly experienced weithriadau yr ydyn wedi'u gwneud landscape archaeologist. Together they have been yn barod neu'n cynllunio am y dyfodol. studying Strata Florida Abbey for over 10 years. They Er mwyn cyfarwyddo pobol Abaty Cwmhir a phobol dros yr Cymru i gyd cymaint a'r invited Abbeycwmhir Heritage Trust to join their Aelodau a Ffrindiau'r Ymddiriodolaeth - yn wir programme. Through this project the landscape of Strata pawb gyda diddordeb yn ein cynlluniau - Florida and its Home Grange will be compared with anfonir allan y newyddion nawr a rhagor yn y Abbeycwmhir’s Home Grange (Gollon) to understand more dyfodol about how the Cistercian monks engaged with the Mwynheuwch ein Llythr Newyddion cyntaf. landscape and people around the Abbey.

I am very pleased to be able to launch the first newsletter for ‘Demystifying the Abbey’ – This Autumn University of Wales Trinity Saint David Abbeycwmhir Heritage Trust’s have kindly agreed to lead a two day Field heritage project to explore aspects of the history of and the people who Archaeology School in our area, where we will learn have lived nearby. how to survey and record historical sites in our In spite of lockdown we have been able to landscape. Our locality is particularly rich in heritage progress this project in a number of ways. This sites and we have the opportunity to bring new light newsletter highlights some of the activities on our history. If you would like to find out more about that are active or planned – in order to keep this field school then please contact Mel at Trust members, Friends, our Abbeycwmhir [email protected]. community and other interested people up-to- Numbers attending the school will be limited. date with our progress. We hope you enjoy

reading the newsletter.

For further information about Abbeycwmhir Heritage Trust’s Demystifying project see www.abbeycwmhir.org 1 www.abbeycwmhir.org

Landscape History Research Group In collaboration with the Sacred Landscapes Project, our Landscape History Research Group has been investigating aspects of the history of Cwmhir Abbey which have not to date been fully understood or require the benefit of modern research techniques. Attention has been focused on the boundaries of the home grange of Gollon and whilst our studies are still at an early stage discoveries have been made as a result of examination of the early charters of the Abbey. Several areas have been field tested to correlate with known boundary ditches and embankments. The group is also examining the post-monastic estates, starting with the wealth of information to be found on the Tithe surveys of the 1830-40 period. From these we are able to see the field patterns of the time and assess their origins and size, record the proportion of pasture, meadow, arable and woodland, as well as discover ownership and the names of tenants. Studies of sample farms in different parts of the grange are already revealing the effects of changes in agricultural methods at the turn of the nineteenth century. Recent discoveries have been aided by the use of drone surveys which have revealed possible boundary banks, building locations and areas of strip farming which date back to medieval times. Much new knowledge has been gained but there is still a lot to find out.

Mapping the Abbey lands The Sacred Landscapes Project has introduced us to a powerful tool to organise and search the information that the team has been collecting: a Geographical Information System (GIS). In our case we are using a GIS programme known as QGIS. This enables us to place all location based information in one system and to inter-relate it. Our research area is large to reflect the wide distribution of lands held by the abbey so we can expect to develop a large database of information over time. So far we have included on the GIS such information as castles, mills, churches, parish boundaries pre- 1850, mid-nineteenth century enclosure maps of the Manor of Gollon, our photogrammetric survey of the Cwmhir site and valley, and Lidar (digital topography) images. We have also been assisted by CPAT and RCAHMW who have contributed almost 30,000 records on historic and archaeological sites within our area of interest. These are all plotted against the current and the 1st edition OS base maps in our GIS. QGIS is significant tool in our research on the land holdings of the Abbey. As an example of this is the Abbey’s grange at Dolhelfa. The map compares the grange boundary given in the influential “Atlas of Cistercian Lands in Wales” by David Williams 1990, (red), with the boundary we have derived from the boundary description in the 1200 Mortimer charter, (blue) (discussed further on page 3). Notably, the area in red is confined to an arable area next to the River Wye while the blue area also includes an extensive upland grazing area. This re-valuation denotes a major change to our understanding of the type of farming and, hence, the economics of this early Cistercian grange. OS 1:25k Explorer Series © Crown Copyright & Landmark Information Gp Ltd 2020. All rights reserved.

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Heritage walks Early grants of land to Cwmhir Abbey around Very few original documents exist to Abbeycwmhir record the pre-reformation history of Cwmhir Abbey. This is not surprising given its location in a disputed and fought over borderland between Wales and England. Even under the English Crown, much of the administration of the area was delegated to Marcher Lords so never entered the “national” archive. One aspect of the Demystifying Project has been to research that history by going back as best we can to whatever documents still exist or to reliable transcripts of those documents. By good fortune a parchment manuscript of 1200 survived and was “found” in 1956. This charter, complete with original seal, was transcribed by B.G.Charles and published in 1970 in the Transactions of the Society. This charter is now held in the Library of We are forming a working University College, London, the photograph of it above is also in the group to look at the Abbeycwmhir book. feasibility of re-launching The charter formally records the grant by Roger Mortimer of lands and of the Abbeycwmhir Millenium rights to the Abbey. It identifies the land by describing its border by Community Trail along with reference to geographic features such as rivers and other named places. other supporting trails Because the names have in many cases been lost over the centuries, the designed for families and to interpretation of the charter in today’s terms is difficult and ambiguous. encourage people to visit However, the Demystifying research team is actively reviewing this important heritage features information and its work is already challenging previously accepted views in our locality. We hope to on the extent of this grant of land. have a community social While original charters of later land grants no longer exist, Royal Charters event in the autumn as part providing confirmation of grants are recorded for 1215, 1232 and 1318, of this re-launch. There are and these are available to study as transcripts. These Royal Charters many aspects to this such provided the ultimate proof of land ownership. These, however, only list as walking the trails, the donors and the names of farmsteads that were given to the Abbey. In preparing route maps and some cases it is possible to identify the named farm with existing farms, organising the social event. but most are, at this time, unresolved. These successive charters illustrate If you would like to help how, in this period, the Abbey accumulated land. This is also an active Jackie, Alison, Mel and area of research. others then please get in An important clue to the Abbey’s land holdings at the end of its religious touch with Jackie at life is contained in records of its dissolution in 1536 under Henry VIII. [email protected] These list 11 granges and farms held by the Abbey at that time together with their annual incomes. This contrasts with the approximately 60 farms listed in the 1318 charter which does not even list the 1200 Roger Mortimer grant. This dissolution snapshot demonstrates again how the lands held by the Abbey was never static but changed over time.

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Oral History Project: Your memories of Abbeycwmhir

As Abbeycwmhir has a long and rich history, we are inspired to want to talk to past and present residents about their memories of the village and the area around. Our interest coincides with a Welsh on-line history project called People’s Collection Wales (www.peoplescollection.wales) that is providing a hugely valuable resource for storing and making memories available to all. We intend to put a summary of our oral history project on this website, as well as produce a publication.

Thanks to modern technology, we have been able to finish all the preparation work while in lockdown. We are now ready to go!

All our paperwork has been completed, including a list of interview questions which we hope will stimulate some interesting memories. We will be collecting information about growing up in the village, living and working in the locality and peoples’ experience of historical events such as the Second World War. We are keen to document a record of life in this beautiful part of Wales. This particular history of Abbeycwmhir is unique and valuable, it would be lost without the Oral History Project and without your input.

We will be using voice recording equipment and editing your histories using various computer programmes. It has been an interesting learning curve getting to grips with equipment and computer software and we will continue to learn as the project develops. However, we are aware that visual material is also important, it adds interest to the spoken word and as such we would love to see your old photographs and interesting mementoes/objects. If possible we would like to make photographic records of these.

We can’t wait to start, so it is over to the past and present inhabitants of Abbeycwmhir. We want to hear from you if you would like to contribute to this project. Whether you feel you have memories to share, know someone who would like to be interviewed, would like to help out as a volunteer or just want more information, please contact Jackie at [email protected].

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‘Inclosure, thou’art a curse upon the land’ - but a great help to Demystifying the Abbey!

The poet John Clare (1793- 1864) protested vehemently against the Enclosure Movement in his verses, “…when wrong was right and right was wrong” but we have found that some rather beautifully coloured maps give a level of detail not found in the tithe or other maps. Although we have a few copies from some previous research, Archive holds twelve covering the Gollon area and beyond which they received from a Llandrindod Solicitor, named Messrs C. E. Careless & Co in 1963. They are thought previously to have been in the possession of Colonel Philips of The Hall, Abbeycwmhir.

We hope to have them scanned by the National Library of Wales as they cover the whole of our research area and a little beyond from Llandewi, to Llanbadarn Fyneydd, across to Llanano and Fowlers Horse Block, to Dolhelfa and and to Brondre Hill.

Enclosure was controversial because it was the taking away from the self sufficient commoners who survived by using the Common Land to graze their one or two animals, perhaps grow some crops on various strips of land and gather wood, and giving it to wealthy industrialists who had capital or could borrow it from the currently developing banking world. In Abbeycwmhir the Common Land went to Francis Aspinal Philips from The Hall who’s father bought the estate in 1837. The enclosure was obtained with two others. This was awarded by Act of Parliament in 1857 but it had taken 119 court cases over eleven years to achieve – a real indication of how controversial it was. Some tenants were given small allotments and the right to dig peat from specific ‘Turbaries’ but this usually proved too small for them to survive from so they left the area, leaving their homes derelict, probably to work in the coal mines of South Wales. The writer of Abbeycwmhir’s Estate Report (in 1822), Leyton Cooke, also wrote “Bread for the people!: secured by the cultivation and efficient supervision of estates” in 1855. He was clearly a supporter of Enclosure, as an attempt to deal with food shortages caused by the Napoleonic Wars and the Corn laws when the population of the UK sextupled from 5 to 30 million. However necessary, but as even the Secretary to the Board of Agriculture at the time wrote, “…the poor are injured, in some grossly injured.” The Tickler Magazine wrote:

They hang the man and flog the woman Who steels the goose from off the Common. But let the greater criminal go loose Who steals the common from the goose.

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Welsh Placenames Welsh names of farms, houses, rivers and woodlands have often been in use for hundreds of years and can give us an idea of their historical usage or how they appeared to our ancestors. For instance the name of the stream running through Abbeycwmhir is Clywedog which straight away comes from the Welsh word clywedog which means the one that can be heard. The stream through Llandrindod is the Ithon which comes easily from Eithon = chatterer. So both these streams rushed down hills over rapids and little waterfalls, they weren't quiet and lazy like the Miwl that flows to Montgomery whose name means gentle. Sometimes the Welsh word and its pronounciation is spelt in English so that 'cwm' which means valley might be spelt in old documents as com or cum or coom and Cwmhir turns up as Cymere or Cimer. So it can be quite a puzzle to wrestle out the original spelling and meaning of placenames that we find in historic documents.

How our plans have changed….. The Demystifying the Abbey project was first conceived when Julian Ravest flew a drone over the precinct of Cwmhir Abbey in 2019 and his resultant photogrammetry revealed a range of features in the fields around the Abbey that are not visible on the ground. There were suggestions of a buried building as well as evidence of historic farming practices and possible Civil War defences. Initial Demystifying plans were to understand more about the abbey site with aspirations for surveys and excavations. However, it is now clear that COVID-19 has significantly affected possible funders of these types of investigations and that, in the near term, grants are going to be very hard to gain. We have therefore refocussed the Demystifying the Abbey project to understand the wider historic landscape. We have found that many interesting aspects of our heritage can be pursued without grant funding. For instance, we are very fortunate that many historical records held by National Library of Wales, Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust, Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales etc are now on-line and can be accessed easily. Our relationship with Sacred Landscapes means that our team is receiving invaluable training from ‘the professionals’. We are also able to develop community heritage ideas such as walks and collecting memories without needing substantial funding. We would like to expand the number of people who are Friends of our project. To become a Friend you simply need to let Mel at [email protected] know that you would like to be involved or kept in touch with progress. However, you might also like to make a small donation to our project, as we are building up a fund that will allow us to bring many aspects of the Abbeycwmhir heritage to our communities, such as display boards for our walks, learning packs for school children, eventual publication of the Oral History etc. So if you feel that you would like to contribute to our community heritage fund (see below), then we would be delighted. Thank you.

Would you like to become a FRIEND of the DEMYSTIFYING THE ABBEY project? By becoming a Friend, you will be supporting our community heritage project by helping us to fund our community engagement and explore the history of Abbeycwmhir.

If you join as a Friend (by donating a minimum of £2/month), you will help us unlock free money. If you prefer, you can make a one-off donation.

We are very excited to share our online donation page with you. It is really easy for anyone to support us, wherever they are.

We also have the opportunity for the first donations we raise online to be doubled!* So if you would like to support us then now is the perfect time to do so. For example £2 will become £4 (or £4.50 with gift aid). We would be so grateful for any support you can give - even just sharing this message. Are you able to give this gift to your community project? For more information or to donate, all you need to do is follow this link: localgiving.org/abbeycwmhir-heritage-trust Thank you so much!

*LocalGiving match fund the first £200 donations 6 www.abbeycwmhir.org