The Living Levels Learning Resource A TEACHER’S RESOURCE FOR PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION Rationale What is the Living Levels? How is the resource The Living Levels is a National Lottery Heritage Funded designed for me? Landscape Partnership Scheme which aims to reconnect people and communities to the Gwent Levels landscape The resource is split into six parts each based on a and provide a sustainable future for this historic and curious question and theme. Within each part there are special area. sections that cover different aspects of the question. You will find detailed information and background for each question followed by suggestions of activities to do and What is this resource? places to go, related websites to visit and books to read. At the end of each part there is big picture for you to This unique learning resource has been created for analyse and discuss with your class. teachers who are working with children and young people in primary and secondary education. The The six curious questions are: information and activities provide you with the context ªªPart One: How has the landscape of the you need for teaching children about their local area, Gwent Levels changed over time? both in the classroom and outdoors. ªªPart Two: How does water on the Gwent Levels affect our lives? ªªPart Three: Wildlife on the Gwent Levels – How can we enjoy and protect it? ªªPart Four: What lies below the water beyond the sea wall? ªªPart Five: How was the Gwent Levels used to produce food? ªªPart Six: How have people, past and present, moved around the Gwent Levels?
Activities Throughout the resource there are activities indicated in a contrasting colour box. At the bottom of each you will find a tab indicating what key skills are involved. You will also see between one and six of these colour shields which relate Expressive Arts Humanities Health & Science & Mathematics & Languages, Well-being Technology Numeracy Literacy & to the Areas of Learning and Experience. Communication
Page 2 Living Levels Learning Resource | A teachers’s resource for KS1 to KS3 Contents Rationale PAGE 2
Mind map PAGE 4
PART ONE PART TWO PART THREE
How has the Gwent Levels How does the water on the Wildlife on the Gwent Levels – landscape changed over time? Gwent Levels affect our lives? How can we enjoy and protect it? PAGE 5 PAGE 15 PAGE 25
PART FOUR PART FIVE PART SIX
What lies below the water How was the Gwent Levels How have people, past and present, beyond the sea wall? used to produce food? moved around the Gwent Levels? PAGE 35 PAGE 45 PAGE 55
livinglevels.org.uk/learning-resources
Page 3 Living Levels Learning Resource | A teachers’s resource for KS1 to KS3 Birds pp 59, 60 Exploring p. 60 Recreation pp 59, 60 Yard p. 60 Trucks p. 60 Goods pp. 60, 62 Steel pp. 60, 62 Mountains Flood pp. 7, 12 Fish p. 12 Butter ies pp 59, 60 Running p. 60 Cows p. 60 Engineering pp. 57, 60, 62 Water Flood pp. 7, 10, 12 Wildlife pp. 7, 11, 12 Flowers pp 59, 60 Walking p. 60 Wildlife pp 59, 60 Marshalling p. 60 Coal pp. 60, 62 Maps p. 61 Solutions p. 62 Monks p. 59 Meadow pp 59, 60 Park p. 60 Railway pp. 59, 60 Tunnel p. 60 Rivers Water Flood p. 12 1138 p. 59 Landscape p. 60 Changing pp. 56, 61 Compare p. 61 Water p. 60 Catchment p. 12 Goods p. 59 People p. 59 Walk p. 60 Countryside p. 60 History p. 60 Flood pp. 7, 8, 11, 12 Severn p. 60 Normans p. 59 Romans p. 59 Landscape pp. 56, 60 Monks pp. 7, 8, 10 Patterns pp. 10, 13 E ects pp. 12, 20 Rogiet p. 60 Junction p. 60 Ferry p. 59 History pp. 59, 60 Railway pp. 59, 60 Listen p. 60 Maps pp. 12, 13 Stories pp. 16, 22 Events p. 16 Normans p. 8 Fields pp. 10, 13 Rocks p. 59 Boat p. 59 To England p. 59 Look p. 60 By rail pp. 59, 60 Big Pic pp. 12, 13 Conservation pp. 12, 26–29 Geology p. 59 Black Rock p. 59 Local pp. 59, 60 Visit pp. 58–60 Today pp. 6–8 Places pp. 7, 8, 10, 11 Discovery pp. 57, 58 Journeys pp. 56–63 By water pp. 56–63 Modernisation pp. 56, 62 Romans pp. 7, 8 Dates p. 8 Change p. 13 Gain pp. 11, 12, 26–29 History pp. 57, 58 Lost pp. 11, 12, 26–29 Clues p. 57 Story pp. 57–58 Newport Ship pp. 57–58 Transport 7,000 yrs p. 8 Events p. 8 Wildlife pp. 7, 11, 13 Maps p. 48 Visits p. 58 Food p. 57 Sailors p. 57 Change pp. 8, 10, 12, 13 E ects pp. 6–13 People pp. 6–13 Fields pp. 10, 13, 48 Clothes p. 57 Big pic p. 63 Transporter p. 62 Stats p. 62 Pro le pp. 8, 11 Cross-section pp. 8, 10, 13 Livestock p. 7 Patterns pp. 10, 13, 48 Steel p. 62 Design p. 62 Diagram pp. 8, 11 Fake pp. 17, 18 Use pp. 46, 47 Land pp. 46, 47 Wood p. 62 Biomass p. 62 Bridge p. 62 Real pp. 18, 19, 23 Coal pp. 60, 62 Grain p. 62 Development pp. 56–63 Tredegar Hse pp. 49, 61 Changes pp. 46, 47, 53 Drainage pp. 8, 10, 13 Pamphlets pp. 18, 23 Goods p. 62 Journeys pp. 56–58 Involvement p. 61 Language pp. 18, 23, 51 Stories p. 18 News pp. 18, 19, 23 Woodcut pp. 17, 23 Animals p. 46 Docks pp. 58, 61–63 Morgan family pp. 20, 61 Images pp. 17, 23 Big pic pp. 23 What? pp. 46, 47 Changes p. 53 Steel pp. 50, 60, 62 Spaces p. 50 Intensive p. 47 Photos p. 46 Wilding p. 50 Nature p. 50 Newport pp. 56–58, 61–63 Travel p. 18 How? p. 18 1606? pp. 16, 19 Cows pp. 7, 46, 50, 60 Floods pp. 16–23 Great Flood pp. 16–20 Date pp. 16, 19
Romans pp. 46, 47, 51 PART 6 1607? pp. 16, 19 Fields pp. 18, 20, 21 Landscape Today p. 50 1 PART Normans p. 46 Return p. 50 People Surge pp. 16, 18, 52 People pp. 18–21 Cow p. 50 Wild Auroch p. 50 Monks pp. 7, 8, 10 Tidal p. 16 Livestock p. 18 Clues p. 47 Archaeology p. 47 3,500 yrs ago p. 50 Extinction p. 50 The Weather p. 16 PART 2 Gwent Water Changes pp. 21, 22, 52 PART 5 Levels Sea level pp. 21, 22, 52 A ects pp. 46–53 Farming pp. 46–53 Production pp. 46–53 Food MIND MAP Threats pp. 21, 22 Landscape p. 47 Tredegar House p. 49 Climate pp. 21, 22 Solutions pp. 21, 22
PART 3 Wildlife Wildlife p. 47 Farm p. 49 Source pp. 20–22 Sea pp. 20–22 Change pp. 21, 22 Levels pp. 21, 22
PART 4 Below Help p. 29 Decline p. 47 the water Production p. 49 Rebuild p. 52 Floods pp. 16–20, 52 Drainage p. 51 Conservation pp. 12, 26–29, 47 Orchards p. 49 Activity p. 52 E ects p. 52 Severn pp. 20, 22 Estuary p. 20 Tides pp. 16, 20, 22, 37 Walled garden p. 49 Year p. 52 Farm p. 52 Building p. 49 Wall pp. 12, 16, 21, 22 Purpose pp. 21, 22 Stories p. 49 Reen p. 51 Language p. 51 Pill p. 51 What? p. 40 Treasure Barrier p. 22 Population pp. 28, 42 Boundary pp. 12, 22 Characters p. 49 Nogger p. 51 De nition p. 40 pp. 40, 41 Graphs p. 28 How? p. 40 Birds pp. 26–28, 30, 32 Maths pp. 28, 62 Development p. 8 Where? p. 40 Numbers p. 28 Animals p. 30 Spotting p. 30 Shy p. 30 Stories p. 40 Conservation p. 29 Help p. 29 Fossils p. 40 Bees pp. 26, 29, 32, 47 Tips pp. 26–33 Dracoraptor p. 40 Dinosaurs p. 40 Solutions p. 29 Tredegar House pp. 31, 32 Museum p. 40 School p. 29 Parc Trederferch pp. 30, 32 Nets p. 41 Lave p. 41 Home p. 29 Where? Newport Wetlands pp. 27–32 Methods pp.41, 42 Fishing Baskets p. 42 Putchers p. 42 pp. 37, 41, 42 Bumblebee pp. 26, 33 Magor Marsh pp. 27, 28, 30–32 Seasons pp. 31–32 Spring pp. 31–32 Hendre Lake pp. 30–32 Salmon pp. 12, 39, 41, 42 Fish pp. 36, 37, 41, 42 Wading birds p. 28 What? Eels pp. 12, 39, 42 Birdsong p. 32 Dawn chorus p. 32 Tide pp. 37, 41, 42 Duckweed p. 27 pp. 26–28, Twaite shad pp. 12, 42 Track pp. 31–32 Mud pp. 36–39, 41–43 Cranes p. 26 31–32 Year Estuary pp. 36–43 Calendar pp. 31–32 Photos p. 31 Stories pp. 36–43 Water Vole p. 27 How to see pp. 26–29 River pp. 36–43 Severn pp. 36–43 Martin Bell p. 37 Clues pp. 36–43 Reedbeds p. 27 Shrill Carder Bee pp. 28, 29, 32 Visits pp. 31–32 Fish pp. 36, 37, 41, 42 Play p. 36 Archaeologists p. 37 Archaeology pp. 36–43 Footprints pp. 36, 37 Cranes pp. 36, 37 Diving Beetle p. 27 Flowers pp. 26–29, 31–33 Knapweeds pp. 28, 29, 32 Red deer pp. 36, 37, 39 Children pp. 36, 38, 43 Bic picture p. 43 Mesolithic pp. 36–38 Deer pp. 36, 37 Rare pp. 28, 29, 33 Research p. 33 Widespread pp. 26, 29 Legumes Vetches pp. 29, 32 Hunting pp. 36, 37, 39 Adults pp. 36–38, 43 People p. 37 Animals Wading birds pp. 28, 36 UK pp. 26–29 Bic Pic p. 33 Gwent pp. 26, 29 Levels pp. 26, 29 Bird’s-foot trefoil pp. 28, 29, 32 the big picture r ie ld A map of the Gwent Levels in 1830 o s section three n a How similar is Magor and the countryside m section three Design a commemorative o R compared to a modern map? p. 13 a Where does the water on the stained-glass window f o l a Gwent Levels come from? d Show off the Levels’ inspiring n a s Using maps, draw where fresh water landscape and wildlife features. e h t comes from the mountains. p. 12 p. 12 m o r f
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section two Spot different periods of farmland across the Gwent Levels Patterns of drainage: which era does a certain pattern belong to? pp. 10 – 11
section one What is still the same? PART ONE What has changed? Create a timeline tracking the drainage of the Levels into How has the Gwent Levels farmland. pp. 6 – 9 landscape changed over time? Images from bottom-left to top-right: Living Levels Landscape Partnership (2); Klovovi (flickr); Public Domain; Gwent Archives SECTION ONE How has the Gwent Levels landscape changed over time?
What is still the same? Incredibly, the Gwent Levels look largely the same today as they did back in the 1700s and 1800s. The way in which the ditches (reens) drain the land and the fields, providing rich, fertile grazing for animals, means there has been little need for change. It has always been an area used to raise cows and sheep because the vegetation is so rich and lush.
What has changed? While much of the remaining farmland remains the same, some of the land has been modified. ªªThere are new buildings, from farm barns to industrial warehouses. Many areas have been built over, particularly the wet marshy land on the edge of Newport. ªªNewport used to be a relatively small town. In the medieval period it had a castle to defend the river crossing, a market, a mill, a few houses and a wharf. Now it is a big city. ªªThe Llanwern Steelworks were built in 1962 across a large expanse of the Gwent Levels. When it opened there were more Yoke Reen during than 13,000 workers and contractors on site. the summer, It was the first oxygen-blown integrated an important steelworks in Britain. While steel isn’t made drainage ditch on site any more, it is delivered in huge slabs. and habitat for wildlife. The hot strip mill then rolls the steel into a Image: Living continuous strip; it was the first mill to be Levels landscape controlled by a computer. Partnership
Page 6 Part 1 | How has the Living Levels landscape changed over time? Page 7 landscape The Gwent Levels SECTION ONE hundreds ofyears. have donefor foreshore, asthey in this casethe the Gwent Levels, Sheep graze across similar now to how they would have looked 200 years ago. Many ofthe fields found across the Gwent Levels look very mini-aqueduct. water channels infields,even crossing one over the other, like a particular were creative engineers andcleverly modified the monasteries –drained large areas ofland. The monksin ago) wealthy landowners –including several newlyfounded the period(aroundand horses.During Norman 900 years especially duringthe summerfor grazing their cattle, sheep people to start draining the Gwent Levels, providing fields dry The Romans (around 1,900 years ago)were someofthe first water off the fields,andmaps photos reveal evidenceof this. past, people have found different solutions to drain the fresh with water flowing down from the mountains andhills.In the However, water stillcomesinfrom inlandrivers and streams, Levels by surrounding them with anearthen bank (the seawall). Over timepeople have stopped the seagettingto the Gwent out inplaces to make pondsandreedbeds for waterbirds. dumping ofashfrom the power station. This hasnow beendug Newport Wetlands was oncefarmland. Holes were dug for the areasSome have improved the landfor wildlife. For example, kills allthe other plants growing there. seeps into the drainage ditches, causingalgaeto spread which flourish. However, this stops flowers from growing anditalso Cow dungandurinebeingspread onto fieldshelps the grass to overgrazed, stopping flowering plants growing orbirds nesting. used for horsegrazing andrecreation, whileothers have been fieldsorareaschanges. Some have beendrained further and their fieldsfree from flooding. There have, however, beensome fields, relying on the old, traditional drainage channels to keep Farmers have continuedto graze sheepandcows onthese Part 1 |How hasthe Living Levels landscape changed over time?
Image: Chris Harris A cross-section of the Gwent Levels near Goldcliff during the 7,000 years ago: invaded England from France. Over the next different landowners in order to create more Mesolithic Period (when footprints were made in the mud) Mesolithic period 200 years they slowly took over Wales, building farmland. The former tenants were offered a castles, occupying the best land for farming one-off financial settlement in return for losing During the Mesolithic period and living an affluent lifestyle. The Normans their rights in the common land. Many were Islands of drier land with oak, sea levels were lower. The ash and alder trees lived in big estates and took the best areas glad of the money; some, however, were paid land sloped down from the of farmland, leaving the poorer farmland and forcibly evicted from their former lands. SEA sea, and a hill at Goldcliff for the monks. The Normans also founded SALTMARSH formed an island within the This led to lots of social change. This was Occupied in summer monasteries, several of which held land on the by Mesolithic families wetlands. timely as the industrial revolution was Gwent Levels, and helped to build sea walls with access to food happening. Many commoners moved to and fresh water and drain the land. One of these was Goldcliff 1,900 years ago: Newport to earn money by working in local Priory (on the site of Hill Farm), which was the Romans industries. Moved inland during the winter established in AD 1113, and dissolved in the When the Romans arrived in 1530s. In 1850 the railway was built across the Gwent south-east Wales, they set Levels, often slicing through the middle of up a major British legionary fields. A bridge was built across the railway in Monastic lands (around fortress at Caerleon, with 5,600 soldiers. The Magor so that farmers could still access their Newport and Chepstow) Gwent Levels became an important place fields. for rearing cattle, sheep and horses. Local The monks were given areas of good wild birds appeared on the dinner table of agricultural land in the coastal areas, and 1900s to today senior Romans, including the common crane some poorly drained land in inland areas. Many areas of the Gwent Levels remain as (now recently back on the Levels after going The monks probably came up with the more farmland, although it may not be owned in extinct in Britain in the 1600s). An effort was sophisticated drainage systems, including blocks by people living next door to it as it made to partly drain the Levels, for example the ability to send one drainage ditch under once did. As fields have become available, through digging ditches, although large areas another without the two mixing. often when landowners have died without will still have been occasionally flooded by the tide. The Goldcliff Stone (displayed at Caerleon’s Roman Legion Museum) records About 500 years ago A general cross-section of the Gwent some of this work. (1400 and 1500s) Levels from the 1400s onwards A Roman-period boat was discovered From the 1400s onwards the during the construction of the large Tesco’s climate deteriorated leading to distribution warehouse in the ‘Europark’ coastal erosion, which led to SEA development (between the steelworks and the rebuilding of the sea wall Silt/clay FEN EDGE Magor). This suggests that a tidal creek flowed inland of where it had been. Lower land, wet, Land usually 2m below inland from Redwick on the coast to a wharf at reedy and peaty high tide mark, exceptionally 7m the back of the Levels where the boat had been 500–200 years ago till 1700s (below highest spring tides) SECTION ONE moored up. (1500s–1800s) During the 1530s the 1,500 years ago A timeline of monasteries were closed, and At the end of the Roman period sea levels rose their land was sold off (which and a saltmarsh once again formed across the is known as the Reformation). changes on the Gwent Levels. During the 1600s and 1700s private landowners anybody to inherit it, land has been broken up were experimenting with their farming into smaller pieces and sold to people further Gwent Levels 800 to 900 years ago practices. In the 1700s and the 1800s common away. Fields today have very mixed ownership, (1100s to 1200s): the Normans land, used by local villagers for fuel, grazing and which has its own challenges. and how the land has been other materials, was divided up between all the managed by people Over 950 years ago, in 1066, the Normans
Page 8 Part 1 | How has the Living Levels landscape changed over time? Dr Jennifer Foster is an archaeologist who has worked at the British Museum and the Ashmolean Museum. She now teaches at Reading University and Continuing Education classes for Oxford University. Since 1992 she has been part of the team, led by Prof. Martin Bell, excavating in the Severn Estuary when the tide goes out. She SECTION ONE has never found any treasure but making plaster casts of footprints made 7500 years
ago is very exciting. Briana Drury, Briana Drury Photography Activities A book to read The Boar with
ACTIVITY Apple in his Tusks Jennifer Foster LIVING LEVELS LANDSCAPE Effects of transport PARTNERSHIP Jennifer Foster This story is all about life on the Gwent Levels 7,500 years ago. Electrification of the railway line across the Gwent To download a copy, visit the Levels has necessitated rebuilding of many of webpage for this resource. the bridges and huge visual modifications to the route with the erection of cable supports along the lines. ACTIVITY What has this meant for farmers, local people, businesses and wildlife? Why does the location of the Levels result in its Why does the Image: Ed Drewitt use for the M4, railway, Llanwern, warehouses landscape look and power lines, etc.? like this? CURIOUS QUESTIONS TO EXPLORE
Ask students different questions as you read through the timeline above. Describe what Newport was like 200 years ago. What is Newport like ACTIVITY today? What reasons can you think of for why it changed? How did the Romans use the land? Creating a time-line Why did they drain and clear the land? Make the information from the previous page The land might have been drained to into a visual timeline. Depending on the age and provide engineering experience and ability of the class, this could be completed by work to keep the legionary soldiers the students, or simplified into key events that busy whilst barracked at Caerleon. students add onto a timeline. Students could Image: Ed Drewitt How did monasteries influence and illustrate what the Levels would have looked like change the landscape? How did they using pictures, photographs and maps contained make best use of the land? in this resource.
APPLICATION OF KNOWLEDGE CURIOUS QUESTIONS TO EXPLORE
Page 9 Part 1 | How has the Living Levels landscape changed over time? SECTION TWO Spot different ACTIVITY The pattern of drainage can periods of show the date when the land Redwick, St Brides, Whitson, Caldicot was drained. Which era does a Spotting ancient and Nash and draw out the pattern farmland across certain pattern belong to? drainage patterns of fields. Then use the information in the table to uncover the age of the Across the Levels you can still see farm and drainage systems that you examples of the different field drainage the Gwent Levels can see. systems used over the centuries. While aerial photos reveal some of the Modified fields are common across the patterns produced by the drainage Gwent Levels although not always easy systems, LiDAR, a special survey Pattern of fields When fields/drainage to see, especially if you are driving, as technique, shows these patterns of system were laid out they are hidden by the hedgerows. From drainage ditches and creeks in more Regular long strips form a line 1500s and 1600s the train between Newport, Severn detail. The website livinglevelsgis. Tunnel Junction and Chepstow most org.uk shows maps of the Gwent Grid pattern with rectangular fields 1800s of the fields along the railway line show Levels during the 1830s. By zooming signs of low mounds and troughs that in you immediately see different Look at the arrangements of the help drain the water away. If you are patterns of fields by size, shape and houses and discuss: visiting Newport Wetlands then some arrangement. can be spotted on the right side of the ªªNucleated and dispersed How to use: If you tick the ‘LiDAR’ box in road as you travel along West Nash Road. the ‘View Map Layers’ box on the left of settlements – how the houses in some of the villages are spread out Instead of the field looking even the screen and zoom into the maps, you will see black, white and grey patterns and some have formed around a and relatively flat, you might notice – these are the ditches and creeks that centre. Think of some reasons why deliberate, straight lines in the fields drain the water off the fields. Under this might have happened. which are regularly spaced; because they ‘Set Layer Opacity’, move the bar on the horizontal line for LiDAR. This will change ªªThe reasons why the patterns of are draining the water, the soil beneath the contrast and overlap between the fields and drainage developed them is wetter and allows damp-loving patterns and the original maps. differently over different periods plants, such as rushes, to grow along of time. them, making them more visible. The history of a village can often be ªªHow different owners of the land worked out by using historical maps Monks Ditch, an important treated and used land in different drainage ditch or reen running and the patterns of the nearby fields. through the Gwent Levels. ways. Image: Living Levels Look at the fields near the villages of Landscape Partnership INTERPRETING DATA
Variations in field patterns Roman fields and evidence of farming and some the system used in the 1500s and 1600s. They are Nash: regular pattern of fields. Villagers had what bits were left, or they already had form of occupation (probably seasonal), have organised in a regular pattern with long strips of field Redwick: unlike many places, Redwick still has them anyway. been found at Rhymney, Peterstone Wentlooge, all coming off the east side of the village in a long some of the larger rectangular fields that were once To the west of Monksditch – in Goldcliffand Nash St Brides Wentlooge, Coedkernew, Nash, Goldcliff, line. These may have come from Belgium via similar managed by the monks. Maps from 1830s show parishes – the fields are very irregular in shape, and Redwick, Magor and Caldicot as well as elsewhere. field patterns found in Pembrokeshire. strips of farmed land neighbouring these large fields. settlement is scattered across a wide area. This Known Roman farms cluster along the fen edge, Caldicot: fields here are typical of the 1800s – grids These strips remained because they stayed under landscape appears to have been created in the e.g. Caldicot, Portskewett, Mathern, Rogiet, Ifton, of lanes with square or rectangular fields coming common law where the commoners (local people traditional Welsh way. In contrast, to the east of Bassaleg, Langstone and possibly Bishton and off them. Many fields contain undulating traces of working and living on the land) retained their rights – Monksditch, the landscape has a more English feel Llanwern. former tidal creeks (now silted up). Enclosure of they weren’t handed back to the landowners, unlike with compact villages (such as Redwick) and long Whitson: fields close to Whitson show patterns from common land (see also Redwick below). most areas when the Inclosure Acts were introduced. narrow fields characteristic of ‘open fields’.
Page 10 Part 1 | How has the Living Levels landscape changed over time? SECTION TWO Magor Marsh & Newport Wetlands
Magor Marsh Over the centuries the peaty boglands at the back of Levels were less valuable. They were peat bog/marsh before you got to the higher, drier villages such as Magor. Magor Marsh is still wet and peaty and is at the back of the marsh. The fields between it and the sea are dry and have probably always been dry. Magor Marsh remains an important and rare place for this habitat, and for both rare and common wildlife that needs such a place to live. You can visit Magor Marsh with your class to experience this rare habitat, explore the trees and birdlife, and go pond The Newport Wetlands dipping in the reens. Facilitated class sessions are available as centre provides the perfect well as the opportunity to explore on your own. venue for visiting schools. Image: RSPB gwentwildlife.org/discover-learn/magor-marsh- education/school-groups
Newport Wetlands A cross-section of the Gwent Levels, including Newport Wetlands is a National Nature Reserve and was developed to provide Magor, during the Mesolithic Period homes for wildlife as mitigation when the Cardiff Bay Barrage scheme was undertaken. It is made from lagoons dug out and flooded for wildlife. Originally the area was a place for the adjacent power station’s ash to be Woodland in dumped. Fields were dug out into lagoons and fresh ash was pumped into them. Mesolithic times At a later date these were then dug out again and the water levels re-established. Today the ash is evident along the paths and molehills! The reserve is the size of 437 rugby pitches. Much of it is reedbed, a rare habitat for a range of animals and plants including otters, reed buntings and bitterns. More open pools and Magor Marsh is a haven for Rising land grasslands are home to nesting wading birds such as lapwings, avocets and wildlife, close to the railway Magor Marsh redshanks. and lanes, south of Magor. This area may have always been dry (and Image: Ed Drewitt not wet or drained) You can visit Newport Wetlands with your class to experience this important This area would have habitat and explore the wildlife; facilitated class sessions are available as well been wet during the as the opportunity to explore on your own. There is a visitor centre with a Mesolithic period when classroom, toilets, cafe and shop. It is home to a wealth of wildlife; children can the footprints were found investigate habitats and adaptations by pond dipping or watching the many ducks, geese and swans that visit the reserve. rspb.org.uk/fun-and-learning/for-teachers/school-trips/newport-wetlands
Page 11 Part 1 | How has the Living Levels landscape changed over time? SECTION THREE Where does the water on the ACTIVITY Gwent Levels come from?
More detail The sea wall along the coastline of the Gwent Levels now keeps the Water flows down through seawater away from the farmland. So, 45 rivers, streams and canals, Design a stained- where does all the water come from? forming a catchment area that flows from the Black Mountains glass window Some of the water comes from winter to the sea. The main river, the rainfall – many fields have channels that Usk, flows 125km south-east drain the water away from them. Other through Brecon, Crickhowell, Design a commemorative stained-glass places, such as Magor Marsh, naturally Abergavenny, Usk and Newport. window celebrating the Gwent Levels. The flood. Most of the fresh water comes During heavy rain and snowmelt, glass might include part of a story from from higher ground via streams and more water than usual flows this resource, or a key animal, habitat or springs. During really heavy rainfall, so down rivers, naturally flooding person that makes the Levels special. much water reaches the lowlands that fields and marshland known as the rivers and streams break their banks It is possible to make a simple stained-glass the floodplain. As the water flows and flood into the fields. window using coloured boiled sweets, by downstream towards the Gwent crushing similar colours together. A simple Levels, some of it is pumped frame can be created out of pastry and the boiled sweets put inside. This can then be off to feed the Monmouthshire baked to create the design. If done in hygienic ACTIVITY and Brecon Canal and the conditions this can then be eaten.
Llandegfedd water storage WORKING CREATIVELY reservoir, and it is also used to provide water for factories, fish Mapping a river farms, hydropower, watering getting very far, such as a weir ªªremove or control non- crops or feeding animals on at Trostrey, a weir at Brecon native and invasive species; farms. On the Gwent Levels, a and bridges at Llanfoist and ªªclean up, stop or reduce Map the route of the River Usk system of gates known as sluices Crickhowell. Weirs are steep pollution; from where it begins in the Black stop too much water flowing dams that change the speed ªªremove or alter barriers so Mountains to where it enters the onto the fields. The sluice gates of the water. fish are better able to travel sea at Newport. and a sea wall running along the upstream to spawn. To ensure clean and healthy ªªWhich places does the river edge of the Gwent Levels stop water for people and wildlife, During heavy rainfall or pass where water might be very high tides from flooding the the whole river catchment snowmelt, the increase in taken for people and farmland fields. area is cared for in a way that water causes the rivers to animals? “Most of the fresh The River Usk is home to many helps: overflow into nearby fields. ªªAre there any obstacles along different fish including salmon. When the water flows over water comes from the river’s length that may stop ªªhabitats be better It is a healthy river and provides the riverbanks, friction causes fish such as eels, salmon and connected and form internationally important places it to slow down and leave higher ground twaite shad getting up it to lay corridors for wildlife such for fish such as twaite shad, behind materials such as eggs (spawn)? as otters, water voles and via streams and lamprey, bullhead and brown rocks and clay. This results in kingfishers; trout to live. Some of these need the build-up of a natural wall ªªprovide more places for springs.” to travel upriver to lay their eggs or embankment known as a wildlife to live; PROBLEM SOLVING (spawn); some barriers stop them levee.
Page 12 Part 1 | How has the Living Levels landscape changed over time? THE BIG PICTURE The Gwent Levels in 1830
This map is of Magor and its surrounding countryside in 1830. During this period, very detailed maps were drawn up by the Commissioners of Sewers of the Gwent Levels, revealing how the land was laid out and recording field boundaries, drainage and sea defences. Two books of maps were produced, one for the Caldicot Levels and one for the Wentlooge Levels. The works costs around £440 (£27, 000 in 2018). These beautiful maps are now stored in the Gwent Archives. When overlain on modern Ordnance Survey maps or aerial photographs, they are remarkably similar. The colours relate to different owners of the land at the time. Look closely at this map. How does it differ to a modern map, such as Google Maps or an Ordnance Survey map? Compare where fields and their boundaries are today; look for similarities and differences. What is present today on a modern map that is missing from the 1830s version? (for example, roads, a railway…)
Image: Gwent Archives
Page 13 Part 1 | How has the Living Levels landscape changed over time? section one section three The Great Flood, 1607 Rising sea levels the big picture Image: of the woodcut picture How will rising sea levels Plot on a map how far inland the e Deer de by a wandering Ro of the Great Flood p. 23 water reached. Design your own Footprints ma affect the Gwent Levels in woodcut picture to show the 1607 the future? p. 21 flood. Fake news?pp. 16 – 19
section two How did the Levels flood so easily? section three And why were some villages Climate change and sea wall safe from the floods?p. 20 Why does the Gwent Levels have a sea wall? Write your findings up as a report. p. 20
PART TWO How does the water on the Gwent Levels affect our lives? Images from left to right: Ed Drewitt; George Redgrave; Chris Harris; Jeremy White; Stephen Rippon SECTION ONE ACTIVITY The Great Flood, 1607 Where did the waters flood? The Gwent Levels can be a wet place, particularly during the winter. While many fields have been shaped to let water run off into ditches (reens) Plot on a map how far inland the and out to sea, heavy rainfall and snowmelt in water might have reached. the winter can mean some fields flood. ªªLow-lying villages or hamlets This can be good for wildlife such as ducks and waders, and such as Peterstone, St Brides, more challenging for farmers and their grazing animals. Goldcliff, Whitson and Nash In 1607, a huge tidal flood covered the Gwent Levels, inundating became flooded. farmland, low-lying houses, churches, and grazing areas for ªªSettlements on higher ground sheep and cows. Sea walls were unable to hold the water back. above the Gwent Levels didn’t Today, you can visit some of the churches and see where local flood – they included Marshfield, people marked the height of the floodwater (see ‘flood marks Bassaleg, Magor and Undy – but and plaques’ on p. 19). their low-lying farmland did.
INTERPRETING DATA ACTIVITY
Evidence for the storm surge A tidal surge There have been claims in the past This provides a great opportunity to discuss the differences between a tidal surge that the Great Flood was caused by and a tsunami – both of which have been in the mainstream news in recent years a tsunami following an underwater in different parts of the world. Look at the definitions of the two types of events earthquake off the coast of southern that could cause flooding and discuss why the 1607 event is thought to be a storm. Ireland. However, the clues point ªªA TSUNAMI is caused by an earthquake or a volcano that produces a huge wave of overwhelmingly to a powerful storm water that inundates low-lying coastal land. with a combination of: ªªA TIDAL SURGE is where a combination of events causes the sea to be higher than ªªA very high ‘spring’ tide just after a normal, sometimes flooding places where it would not usually reach. new moon; ªªStrong westerly/south-westerly winds; PROBLEM SOLVING ªªLow-pressure weather allowing the sea to be higher than usual. Today, floods such as this may become more frequent, and while we are good Did the Great Flood happen in 1607 or 1606? at getting the water out through the The great tidal flood of 20 January happened the flood happened on 30 January 1607 as they ancient drainage systems, a big flood at a time when the annual calendar in Wales used the Gregorian Calendar which ran ten can still cause problems for people and and England began on 25 March (Julian days later and started the year on 1 January. In their grazing animals. Wildlife is much Calendar), and so many people refer to this as London people sometimes combined the two, better able to cope and can recover the year 1606 rather than 1607. To the French making the date 20 January 1607! more quickly.
Page 16 Part 2 | How does the water on the Living Levels affect our lives? SECTION ONE
News of the Great Flood ACTIVITY
After the Great Flood, news slowly reached other parts of the UK and Europe. In the 1600s there were no phones, email or televisions. Designing News travelled on horseback or by carriage back to a woodcut London. A report was written and an artist made an illustrative picture using wood carvings. These same A good book to read picture pictures were replicated in different countries with The Candle Man slight differences. Like today, news stories became by Newport-born author exaggerated or altered, and fake news found its way Students could design their Catherine Fisher into some of them. own woodcut to tell the (9–11 years) story of the 1607 flood; this The story of the Great Flood was told through four This fiction book could then be created as an printed pamphlets which came out once a week and includes lots of local art project. Sheets of 5mm covered different parts of the west of Britain such as places and geography. thick polystyrene and a biro, Somerset, Gloucestershire and the Gwent Levels. a lino cutter and a piece of Meurig, the fiddler, is a lino, or a clay tile could all haunted man. Hafren, the be used to create a relief and evil spirit-woman of the An image of the print, in a similar way to a Severn, has captured his woodcut. Students will need flood in 1607 soul and now possesses to remember to cut out the the key to his life – a small One of these pamphlets told stories from sections that they don’t want candle stub. Hafren taunts Monmouthshire in South Wales, which included to show up on the final print. and torments Meurig but the Gwent Levels. The front cover included the with help from Conor and woodcut image shown in this resource (p. 23). This Sara, he CAN take back WORKING CREATIVELY had previously been used in a pamphlet about his life from her watery the floods in Somerset and through the use of the grasp – at the cost of tower and spire depicts all churches. The imagery is flooding the land. Meurig deliberately exaggerated to get across the message of must make his choice – an exceptional flood. This helped to sell the pamphlet, his life or the village… and also tell the story to those who could not read.
ACTIVITY
Woodcutting
How did woodcutting work? How long would a woodcut image Flooded farmland on the have taken to produce? How would we produce an image today? Somerset Levels on the other side of the Severn.
CURIOUS QUESTIONS TO EXPLORE Image: Ed Drewitt
Page 17 Part 2 | How does the water on the Living Levels affect our lives? SECTION ONE Writing in the pamphlets Stories from the pamphlet “A man and woman climbed Below are some examples of the writing from a pamphlet a tree to escape the waters, to give an idea of the language and the stories being told. and a four-year-old girl was put up into the rafters The pamphlet begins with a message from the unnamed author, of her house to keep dry. A which is followed by a long, mainly religious, introduction. This cradle containing a baby and was quite usual as disasters such as floods, fires and earthquakes “Now all kinds of cattle for a cat floated on the waters were regarded by many people as punishments sent by God, 24 miles in length and 4 in like it was a small boat… At while others put the surge down to the state of the tide, the breadth were drowned. Ricks Llandaff, Mistress Mathews phase of the moon and the storm. of corn were carried away. The sea damaged many lost 400 sheep in the floods.” houses and caused great The 400 sheep lost by Mistress hardship for the inhabitants. Mathews at Llandaff are This damage, together with likely to have been inside the loss of animals and crops, a sheephouse where the is said to be valued at more animals were often put than £100,000. The flood has during the winter months.” happened in the most fruitful Lamentable news out of place in the whole country Monmouthshire in Wales for the soil is very rich.” containing the wonderful and most fearful accidents of the great overflowing of waters in the said county, drowning infinite numbers of cattle of all kinds, as “The number of people drowned does not exceed sheep, oxen, kine and horses, with others: together 2,000. Many were saved by the kind efforts of Lord with the loss of many men, women and children, and Herbert (son and heir to the Earl of Worcester), the subversion of 26 parishes in January last 1607. and Sir Walter Montague who dwell nearby. They sent rescue boats and food. Lord Herbert and Sir Walter Montague were among the wealthiest men in the area and they deployed rescue boats To the Reader and food to those stranded by the floods.” Reader, when this news was brought to London, I was given less than one day to write it in this pamphlet. I am sure that you will benefit from it, and will remember that God sends such floods to punish the sinful people who enjoy pleasures and pastimes rather more than the worship of God. Amen. Fake news or the truth? Woeful news from Wales As news of the flood had to travel to London by word of mouth or letter, sometimes the facts were distorted. The author was not entirely …In the month of January last past upon a Tuesday, sure of the date, although he knew it happened on a Tuesday in the sea being very tempestuously moved by the winds, January. He mentions the strong winds ‘tempestuously’ moving the overflowed his ordinary banks, and did drown 26 sea; these are noted in several other accounts written by pamphleteers parishes adjoining on the coast side, in the county of and chroniclers, and also by vicars who witnessed the event. The Monmouthshire, the particulars whereof do follow: all storm associated with these south-westerly winds coincided with spoiled by the grievous and lamentable fury of the waters. an extremely high spring tide, and the well-educated vicars of Almondsbury and Arlingham (Gloucestershire) make mention of this.
Page 18 Part 2 | How does the water on the Living Levels affect our lives? SECTION ONE
1607 flood marks and plaques
ACTIVITY The great tidal flood of 20 January happened at a time when the annual calendar in Wales and England began on 25 March, and so many people Rose Hewlett referred to the year as 1606 rather than 1607. How accurate are reports of the flood? UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL Rose is researching the Great Flood Many of the churches on the Gwent Levels have for her PhD. Using original manuscript plaques which commemorate the Great Flood The pamphleteer’s job was to sell pamphlets, and sensational records created at local level in its in detail. Those at Goldcliff and St Brides go into reporting was quite normal. aftermath, she will provide the most detail and were made soon after it happened. representative account of its cause, Encourage students to look at the internet. More able learners could be and the effect it had on people and the local economy. picture on the pamphlet and read taught about how to assess which some of the stories. The person websites are reliable and where they producing the pamphlet would can get their information from. want to sell as many as possible. ACTIVITY How would the pictures and the Further information stories make people want to buy the ªªThe stories related in the pamphlet Nash generally give no location. They pamphlet? Read the text carefully. ACTIVITYWriting At Nash there is a tradition of parish children What can you find to show you that are similar to those told in other being taught that a slot in the wall of the church pamphlets. the writer could be exaggerating a leaflet marked the height of the 1607 floodwater. A ªª‘Cattle’ was a description used for all commemorative plaque was installed on the 400th for effect? What questions would livestock, so the animals lost would anniversary of the flood. you like to find out the answers have included sheep, horses and oxen to, in order to assess whether the too (the latter being used for transport Write and design a modern-day and to work the land). information is accurate? leaflet telling the story of the ªªThe estimate of £100,000 for the Great Flood. Include: Find a modern newspaper article losses and damages is a guess; the that reports on an event. How is the parish losses at Goldcliff were £5,000 ªªKey features that made it according to the plaque in its church. story written differently? How does Similarly, the number of people a storm surge and not a the reporter convince you that the drowned is an estimate, one that was tsunami; story is true? This could develop into revised in a later pamphlet to 500. ªªHow people were affected; Redwick a discussion about how students can ªªInsufficient records survive to verify the ªªHow farm animals and Redwick church has two flood marks at slightly extent of the fatalities, but these were different heights; that at the end of the chancel trust information that is presented relatively sparsely populated areas, and wildlife were affected; to them in newspapers and on the ªªA picture showing the Great wall is older and thought to relate to the actual the number of people who lost their height of the 1607 flood. The plaque on the porch is lives at Goldcliff was 22. Flood; twentieth century. WORKING CREATIVELY
CURIOUS QUESTIONS TO EXPLORE
Cardiff Cardiff was also affected by the Great elsewhere in 1840. Churchgoers had Peterstone Wentlooge Flood of 1607. The River Taff surged to move to St John’s Church for 200 The commemorative plaque at Peterstone is late inland and flooded St Mary’s parish, years – this would have been a big nineteenth century and incorporates an earlier lead north-west of the city centre. The tidal thing back then and everyone would marker showing where the height of the water came to. The church is now a private residence surge pushed into the church which have been aware of why. and the marker and plaque are not on show to the eventually collapsed and was rebuilt public.
Page 19 Part 2 | How does the water on the Living Levels affect our lives? SECTION TWO Severn Estuary at low tide Why were some villages safe from the floods, Image: Jeremy White and how did the Levels flood so easily?
On the Gwent Levels, as you move inland from Tredegar House, Newport the sea, the land doesn’t rise upwards at first. Some historic evidence relating to flooding Instead the land slopes downwards. Therefore, at Tredegar House might spark some those fields closest to the sea are naturally drier further ideas or an opportunity for a visit: than fields several kilometres inland, where the water collects. ªªEvidence of historic flooding in the house still exists with steps leading up to the For example, while Magor village is on higher ground floor family rooms suggesting they ground, an escarpment, Magor Marsh is wanted these above ground levels where on lower ground and at the base of where water could accumulate. the fields slope downwards. Here the water Severn Estuary and its high tides ªªThe park here still flooded until relatively collects, forming pools and bogs, which are recently (1980s/1990s) when a watercourse The Seven Estuary, which borders the south- important for rare plants and animals. Closer was changed. The estate cottages would west side of the Gwent Levels, has the highest to the sea, the fields are dry. When floods have regularly flood. The estate also has a man- tidal range in Europe and the second highest occurred in the past, it has been very difficult to made lake. tidal range in the world – the highest is in the get the water back to the sea again. Once the ªªThere is reference to the Morgan family, Bay of Fundy, Canada. sea floods over the sea wall, it collects in the who lived here, being involved in the downward-sloping areas. Low tide is when the water drains out of the construction of the sea wall in the Severn Estuary, exposing the mud, rocks and medieval period. seaweed. High tide is when the water rises and covers everything back over. Two of each occur in every lunar day, 24 hours and 50 minutes. The tidal range is the difference in the water Woodland in height between low tide and high tide. When Neplithic times the tide is high, for example on a spring tide, the Severn Estuary’s sea can be really high Rising land – up to 14m or more above that at low tide. Magor Marsh Saltmarsh, a habitat covered in salt-loving plants, will become partially covered by the sea and fully covered during very high tides. This area may have This area would have always been dry (and been wet during the Without sea walls, spring tides would flood not wet or drained) Mesolithic period onto farmland too. when the footprints were found A spring tide happens when the moon is full or new; the moon, alongside the sun, affects the A cross section difference between high and low tide. A full or of the Gwent new moon creates the greatest upward pull Levels, including Magor, during the on the sea, like a magnet, generating very high Mesolithic Period Aerial view of Magor Marsh with levels of water at high tide, and very low levels Magor Village behind at low tide. They occur twice in each lunar Image: Shirish Kulkarni month.
Page 20 Part 2 | How does the water on the Living Levels affect our lives? SECTION THREE Ducks, such as wigeon, rest and Sea wall and rising sea levels feed on flooded farmland. Image: Ed Drewitt
Rising sea levels Many towns and cities in Wales are on the coastline and 60% of the population in Wales lives by the sea (1.9 million people). Many settlements were originally built in places where the high tide was much lower than it is today. With sea levels and high tides now much higher, some places are vulnerable to flooding compared to 1,000 to 2,000 years ago. Our changing climate is linked to global warming, melting glaciers, rising sea levels and greater (and heavier) rainfall. This means there are big changes for us and wildlife ahead
Things to consider: ªªMore frequent and severe storms; ªªHeavy downpours; ªªHigher tides; ªªRising water levels; ªªEffects on people – flooding of properties and farmland (and effects on people and their wellbeing), erosion of beaches, roads and railway lines, tourists not visiting affected areas, costs of making changes to the coastline; ªªEffects on the environment – changes to places where wildlife lives, providing new places for some wildlife and fewer places for others; ªªArchaeology – peat cuttings and submerged ancient forests being revealed and uncovered. Drier summers revealing ancient medieval and Roman settlements on farmland; ªªSolutions – use of sea walls and other coastal defences, allowing farmland to flood and return to nature (planned retreat), monitoring changes in how the coastline looks, removing large amounts of litter that build up on beaches after storms, forecasting/modelling the impacts of storms; Farmland on the Somerset Levels during the 2014 flood with cranes on the water’s edge. ªªBuilding sea walls may seem like a good solution – however, sea Image: Ed Drewitt walls are costly, and if they are too high a freak storm can make getting water back out again incredibly difficult.
Page 21 Part 2 | How does the water on the Living Levels affect our lives? SECTION THREE
ACTIVITY
ACTIVITY Thinking about climate change
Sea wall Chair a class debate about how flooding is now more frequent, why and what we should and could do to stop this. ªªWhat can we all do to reduce ªªHow would wildlife cope? Many ªªWhy does the Gwent Levels have global warming? animals are adapted to this regular a sea wall? Discover what it has ªªHow will our changing climate flooding, although not to this been made from over different affect sea levels here in South extreme. periods of time. Wales? ªªWhat causes such floods? ªªWrite your findings up as a report. ªªWill sea walls be able to hold ªªWhere does water from inland How would you build a sea wall back the sea? come from? (mountains/Brecons) today and why? ªªWhat is Natural Resources Wales ªªWhy did people build where they ªªYou can walk some of the sea wall doing to reduce flooding? did? along the Newport Coast Path, ªªWhat might happen in a modern ªªWhat would happen if the Gwent newport.gov.uk/documents/ flood? Levels didn’t have the drainage Leisure-and-Tourism/Newport- ªªHow might this area look flooded ditches such as reens? Coast-Path-Map-English.pdf today and who would it affect?
APPLICATION OF KNOWLEDGE What might this mean for us and how we build our homes? ªªIn the Netherlands, which is built ªªLocally, storage warehouses have on land that was once covered everything above ground on Fascinating in sea, homes have the living shelving units so if there is a flood, space on the first floor above the the water can be easily mopped facts/stories garage on the ground floor. If there up and the ground dried. is a flood only the garage and ªªA new hospital for Newport is to add in this garden are affected. Explore other being built on higher ground to section technologies being developed to avoid future floods and high tides. raise homes above the ground. In the 1846 flood a mail coach tried to cross the bridge over CURIOUS QUESTIONS TO EXPLORE the River Rhymney. One horse drowned and the main route to Cardiff was blocked. People History of the sea wall in Swansea were unable to During the early medieval period (1,500 to 1,000 years and formed one long barrier to keep the sea out. Some receive their post. ago), the sea wall on the Gwent Levels started life as a of the Levels’ original sea wall is kilometres out into the There have been other floods succession of raised banks. People built their own small Severn Estuary and would have been wiggly rather than islands of protected land slightly above the watery today’s smooth, relatively straight wall. As the sea has risen in: 1258, 1483, 1703, 1846 and channels, where they were able to have a small settlement the sea wall has been rebuilt several times in new places. 1883. Are you able to list and – a home and area for grazing – during the summer Today, where the sea wall runs you can see where fields find out about floods in the months. These still flooded in the winter. Over time, the have a triangular shape – look on Google maps to see. They small islands of land grew in size allowing people to would have extended further out into the estuary and 1900s and 2000s? remain all year; gradually the raised banks amalgamated parts of them have since been washed away by the tides.
Page 22 Part 2 | How does the water on the Living Levels affect our lives? THE BIG PICTURE Image of the woodcut picture of the Great Flood
This front cover was used in a pamphlet about the floods in Somerset with the tower and spire representative of all churches. It was used again for the pamphlet about the floods in Monmouthshire. The imagery is deliberately exaggerated to get across the message of an exceptional flood. Discuss what different things are happening in the picture. What animals are shown? What are different people doing? How does the language differ to ours today? Image: courtest of Stephen Rippon Stephen of Image: courtest
Page 23 Part 2 | How does the water on the Living Levels affect our lives?
-left below trated , illus rane on C omm y a C ade b ere m rints w These footp
section two Helping bumblebees How to see and care for our section one bumblebees. p. 29 section three Wild maths Wildlife watching section one Make graphs using recent counts How to spot shy wildlife on Special places for wildlife of water birds found at Magor the Gwent Levels. p. 30 What rare animals and plants live Marsh. pp. 26 – 28 on the Gwent Levels? pp. 26 – 28
section four Outdoor learning Where and when to look for wildlife throughout the year. pp. 31 – 32
PART THREE
Wildlife on the Gwent Levels – the big picture Why is the shrill carder How can we enjoy and protect it? bee no so rare? p. 33 Images from top-right to bottom-left: Norman West; John Crispin; Chris Harris; Ben Andrew; Nigel Pugh; Ed Drewitt SECTION ONE The Gwent Levels and its special wildlife Special places for wildlife The Gwent Levels have changed relatively little over the past few hundred years compared to countryside elsewhere. The wider countryside is suffering from intensive farming, producing food on a large scale while wild flowers, birds, insects and mammals have fewer places to live and feed. The Gwent Levels still has places where wildlife thrives including rare species such as the shrill carder bee and the water vole, which were once abundant across Britain. Many of the traditional fields here allow the flowers, that bees need, to grow, and the waterways are clean and generally undisturbed.
Cranes in flight Image: John Crispin ACTIVITY
How to The common crane Around 7,500 years ago, a large heron-like bird, served as meals for a senior officer at the see cranes the common crane, was feeding on the Gwent nearby legionary fortress of Isca (Caerleon). Levels. Its footprints have been preserved in The crane had a significance for some Romans, the mud. Cranes disappeared from Britain probably a religious one for they are often The best place to see cranes is at 400 years ago after they were hunted and depicted on altars, especially in Britain, and Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetlands eaten as a delicacy at banquets. Their habitat, with very short people (pygmy characters). Trust in Gloucestershire where watery places such as marshes, flooded fields During the summer of 2016 a pair of cranes, more cranes live and can be seen and pools, was also being drained and turned named Lofty and Gibble, nested on the Gwent from bird hides. On the Gwent into farmland. Back in Roman times there was Levels and raised a chick called Garan (the Levels listen out for their bugling another crane called the great crane – it is Welsh word for crane). The adult birds originate call; the sound carries for up to 3 thought the Romans may have caused them from the Great Crane Project reintroduction miles. They look like a very large to go extinct in the UK by eating too many. scheme which released 93 hand-reared cranes heron and have a long, straight However, it is possible that common cranes between 2010 and 2014 on the RSPB West neck rather than a kinked neck. have become generally smaller since Roman Sedgemoor Reserve in Somerset. times. If so, the larger cranes from Roman EXPLORING THE ENVIRONMENT archaeological contexts might represent larger This is the first pair of cranes to breed on the common cranes than might be expected today. Gwent Levels since their extinction. We know that at least three large cranes were
Page 26 Part 3 | Wildlife on the Living Levels – How can we enjoy and protect it Reedbeds King Diving Beetle at Magor Marsh King diving beetle Image: David Sankson Reedbeds along the ditches (reens) at Newport In the clean and relatively unpolluted waterways across Wetlands and Magor Marsh provide habitats the Gwent Levels there is a myriad of underwater for birds such as reed warblers, cuckoos and creatures, from young dragonflies known as larvae or reed buntings. The open water is ideal for nymphs, to tadpoles of frogs and newts. There are diving ducks such as tufted ducks, pochards and mute beetles too. Suited to life underwater, diving beetles have swans. This is where water voles might be extra hairs on their legs to help them swim and store hiding too. In the winter thousands of starlings bubbles of air to breathe. Alongside the common great fly around in mesmerising patterns called diving beetle, the Gwent Levels is home to a rare relative, murmurations before sleeping in the reedbed the large king diving beetle. The larvae are so similar – many come here from eastern Europe and that they can only be identified by looking at them Russia for the winter to escape the freezing closely under the microscope or using DNA barcoding – winters there. checking which genes are shared and which are different. There have been only 12 sightings of the king diving beetle in Wales, the most recent at Magor Marsh in 2015. ACTIVITY Reed Warbler Image: Andy Karran Water voles The water vole, although rat-like, has a short, blunt nose, less obvious ears, How to see a diving beetle a hairy, shorter tail and a rounder, compact body. They love the ditches or reens that are found all the across the Gwent Levels, digging tunnels into While the king diving beetle is Ask permission from the Gwent the banks where they nest and sleep. rare, the great diving beetle is Wildlife Trust or the RSPB before doing this. You don’t want to spread They feed on water plants and you can look for their common. Take part in reen or any water-bourne diseases to these tell-tale nibbles – a 45° diagonal cut with their pond dipping at Magor Marsh special nature reserves. orange front teeth. The clean water, lots of water and Newport Wetlands and find plants and absence of mink all help them to some for yourselves. Water Vole survive here. The mink is a long, otter-like animal Image: Andy Karran EXPLORING THE ENVIRONMENT that eats water animals; it escaped from fur farms.
ACTIVITY ACTIVITY Rootless duckweed How to see a This plant is the smallest flowering plant in the world How to see and is found on the Gwent Levels. Everything about water vole duckweed is small – their leaves and flowers are duckweed minute. Other duckweeds in the UK, such as the greater, common and ivy-leaved duckweed, have tiny roots too. With a maze of connecting reens and They grow across the surface of a pond, turning it bright This particular duckweed is hard places to hide, the water vole is doing green! However, the rootless duckweed, as its name to see. However, a visit to a reen well on the Gwent Levels; one of the best suggests, doesn’t have any roots. The leaves look like or pool on the Gwent Levels will Rootless Duckweed places to the see them is Magor Marsh. very tiny grapes and are only 0.5–2mm long. Ducks and reveal all manner of water plants Image: Andy Karran If you are quiet you might hear the voles other waterbirds help spread duckweeds between ponds including common duckweed, chewing some plants or sploshing into the and ditches; the duckweeds stick to the legs and feet with its tiny round leaves, floating water as they dive away for cover. of the birds as they take off to fly.opalexplorenature. and covering the water’s surface. org/sites/default/files/7/file/water-survey-duckweed- EXPLORING THE ENVIRONMENT EXPLORING THE ENVIRONMENT guide-A5-2014.pdf
Page 27 Part 3 | Wildlife on the Living Levels – How can we enjoy and protect it SECTION ONE Wading birds Wading birds or waders are a group of birds that are to hide, islands surrounded by pools of water, and suited to wet places. Some have long beaks for probing electric fences to keep ground predators, such as foxes mud to catch worms while others have shorter beaks and badgers, out. Redshank for picking tiny snails from the surface of the mud. The Out on the mud of the Severn Estuary, thousands of Image: Andy Karran Gwent Levels is an important place for nesting waders waders feed on the millions of invertebrates living there, such as lapwings, redshanks, snipe and avocets. They are from shellfish to worms. Many winter on the estuary to common on the estuary mud and wet farmland fields escape the cold in the Arctic and northern Europe where around Newport and Cardiff too. ACTIVITY they nest in the summer. Others use it to pass through As farmland across Britain has been drained, drier fields on migration from parts of Africa and southern Europe with greater densities of grazing cows and sheep has on their way north. Long-billed waders such as curlews, meant waders have fewer places to feed and nest. godwits and redshanks have a special way of catching How to see waders Although parts of the Gwent Levels have been drained their food. When they probe their beak into the mud, for thousands of years, many areas remain damp, often they are unable to see what is there. The tip of their beak all year round, perfect for waders to nest. At Newport is highly sensitive and when they detect something just Look out for waders feeding on the mud from Wetlands, waders are successfully nesting and rearing the very tip of the beak opens and shuts quickly, catching the sea wall at Goldcliff, Newport Wetlands and chicks each year thanks to damp fields with some cover the prey. This is known as rhynchokinesis. Cardiff. You might need binoculars as they are often far away. At Goldcliff there are hides on the east side of Newport Wetlands where lapwings, redshanks and avocets can be seen – contact the RSPB centre at the wetlands for details.
EXPLORING THE ENVIRONMENT
ACTIVITY ACTIVITY Bird populations: work out a five-year average of each species and describe how the populations are changing. Find out How to see a making graphs more about each species and why these changes may be happening. Use the BTO’s Bird Trends to look shrill carder bee at population graphs of different birds and why they are changing, bto.org/about-birds/birdtrends. Each year the numbers of birds living on the Gwent Levels are counted. This helps organisations such as Note: Up until the mid-1990s, the little egret didn’t live This bee can be seen on flowers the RSPB and Gwent Wildlife Trust know how well in Britain. They started to arrive naturally from France outside the learning centre at Magor they are doing and whether they need more help, for and have spread across the UK, including Wales. Marsh and on flowers across Newport example, by providing better habitat. Wetlands. Three tips: (1) look for their relatives, the common carder bees, Here are some true population counts of mute swans, Species 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 first for familiarity; (2) know your bee little egrets and common gulls from Magor Marsh anatomy, in particular the thorax, over winters between 2012 and 2017. These numbers Little Egret 1 6 9 24 33 and the colour of hairs for each; (3) are from the Wetland Bird Survey run by the British Mute Swan 14 21 17 39 48 look for flowers including knapweed, Trust for Ornithology. Common Gull 0 0 28 210 540 vetches and bird’s-foot trefoil. Use these numbers to produce population graphs, INTERPRETING DATA EXPLORING THE ENVIRONMENT
Page 28 Part 3 | Wildlife on the Living Levels – How can we enjoy and protect it SECTION TWO Watching and helping bumblebees ACTIVITY
Shrill carder bee The shrill carder bee is one of Britain’s rarest bees. This bee gets its name both from making a high-buzzing sound and by Helping the bees weaving material from plants into its underground nest. Like other bees it is an important pollinator of flowers and loves pea- The Bumblebee Conservation Trust has this webpage for you to like plants such as bird’s-foot trefoil and vetches. With its long use with your classes to identify common bumblebees around tongue it is able to delve deep into flowers where the nectar your school and at home is harder to reach. Its back, the thorax, is yellow-brown with a bumblebeeconservation.org/bumble-kids/spotting- distinctive dark band across it. Unlike common bumblebees, bumblebees such as the buff-tailed, the shrill carder bee doesn’t like to move very far from its nest, a burrow in the ground. This has made And an information sheet on the rare shrill carder bee, found it very rare across Britain as changes in farming have meant across the Gwent Levels. You can look for it at Magor Marsh and there are fewer or no wild flowers growing in fields. Unable Newport Wetlands, to travel far, most shrill carder bees have simply starved and tinyurl.com/ybbo4kn4 died out. However, on the Gwent Levels, fields, hedgerows and Whether your school is in the middle of Cardiff or Newport, or reens have remained largely unchanged over the past 100 years on the Gwent Levels itself, there are simple things you can do despite changes in farming methods; there are still plenty of with your children to help bees and other insects. They need flowers close to where shrill carder bees nest and they can be flowers that have lots of nectar to drink, and places to live that found here in late summer and early autumn. haven’t been sprayed with lots of pesticides. The Gwent Levels is a fabulous place full ªªPlant a range of wild flowers, flower. Cut just once a year of buzzing bees during the summer from bird’s-foot trefoil to in late summer and remove Shrill Carder Bee clover and knapweed. the vegetation so it doesn’t In the wider countryside many bumblebees, along with Image: Hannah Beynon There are a range of wild fertilise the soil. honeybees and other insects, are starving. They need more flower shops online that ªªIf you live on a farm, grow food and shelter. On the Gwent Levels the Bumblebee sell seeds and young plants, strips of wild flowers along Conservation Trust works closely with those looking after the ideal for bumblebees. This fields that connect together. land to provide more food for bees, and you can do the same webpage gives all sorts of ªªAvoid using pesticides – at school and at home. further ideas and photos caterpillars and aphids ACTIVITY of flowers and plants, will provide food for other bumblebeeconservation. insects and birds. org/gardeningadvice. ªªPlant flowering plants that Seeds are available bloom earlier and later in Researching the shrill carder bee from Monmouthshire the year providing food Bee Friendly Society, throughout the flying period beefriendlymonmouthshire. of bees and other pollinating Investigate how farmland across Produce an information flyer for org/gardenershelp insects (not just June and the UK once supported the shrill landowners, such as farmers, ªªLeave parts of the school July). For example, sallow carder bee. Find out what has suggesting how they can help shrill grounds or your garden for early blossom and ivy/ changed and how they can be carder bees and other pollinating unmown, allowing plants to brambles for autumn food. helped. insects. APPLICATION OF KNOWLEDGE EXPLORING THE ENVIRONMENT
Page 29 Part 3 | Wildlife on the Living Levels – How can we enjoy and protect it SECTION THREE
Spotting Shy Wildlife Inspiration for reading and drawing
ACTIVITY
Spotting Shy Wildlife Bee Britta Teckentrup Discuss how you would explore a wild place in a way that increases your (illustrator) and Patricia Hegarty chances of seeing or hearing animals. Little Tiger Press At Newport Wetlands and Magor Marsh the wildlife can be shy and hard to A wonder of nature is about to see; students could come up with a list of how to be good observers of nature. unfold. Turn the pages to follow the miraculous little bee and its Things to consider: journey from flower to flower in this delightful peep-through ªªHow much noise to make; picture book. Brought to life ªªKeeping close together or spread out; by the lyrical text and stunning ªªWhere to look; artwork from the award-winning ªªWhere to walk. Britta Teckentrup, the miracle Ideally, creeping or walking slowly At places such as Hendre Lake Park Location details for of pollination will amaze and like mice, with eyes and ears and Parc Tredelerch, the wildlife that the two parks: entertain. looking and hearing all around, is easiest to see are birds, especially Hendre Lake Park, is best for looking for shy wildlife. those living on the water. These Water Avens Close, Keeping voices low and walking include mute swans, mallard ducks, St Mellons, Cardiff CF4 0RG along regularly used paths means tufted ducks, great crested grebes, Parc Tredelerch, Lamby Way, Rumney, Cardiff CF3 2HP mammals such as water voles are black-headed gulls, moorhens and Bugs likely to carry on as normal. coots. The birdlife here is more used Simon Tyler to people and dogs – if you want Pavilion The reeds at both sites make seeing to feed the ducks and swans then Bugs are fascinating, birds quite difficult. Listen instead use wheat grain (a duck mix) from and in this book we for birds singing in the spring such the pet shop. This is much better for get close to over as cuckoos, reed warblers, sedge them than bread. 50 different and fantastic bugs warblers and blackcaps. You can including the biggest, smallest hear and check their songs by and most amazing bugs in the finding them on the RSPB’s A–Z of world, the most beautiful and the birds, rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/ ones with the strangest habits. wildlife-guides/bird-a-z This book shows all types of Mute swans, moorhens, coots and insects in colourful detail and Little Egret in flight little grebes at both sites are more tells you all about their senses, Image: Chris Harris used to people and more likely to defences, camouflage, how they stay nearby. catch prey, where they live and more. Become a bug expert and EXPLORING THE ENVIRONMENT see their real beauty with this stunning book.
Page 30 Part 3 | Wildlife on the Living Levels – How can we enjoy and protect it SECTION FOUR January February March What to look for Watch thousands of starlings flocking together The ditches (reens), pools and ponds across Around Tredegar House listen for singing in mesmerising flocks called murmurations the Gwent Levels are ideal for spawning frogs, robins, blackbirds and wrens as they sing at different times as they come to sleep in the reedbeds at dusk toads and newts. Magor Marsh and Newport during the day to protect their partners and at Newport Wetlands. If you hear a strange Wetlands have children-friendly pond-dipping nests. At Newport Wetlands, Magor Marsh, of the year sound, a little like a squealing piglet, coming sites which are great for peering down to look Parc Tredelerch and Tredegar House, coots, from the reeds, it will be a secretive bird called for small masses of frogspawn. moorhens and mute swans will be making a water rail. nests and laying eggs. Listen for the song of the Take part in the PondNet Spawn Survey To find out more about the birds below and chiffchaff, a tiny green-yellow bird that arrives Take parts in the RSPB’s Big Schools’ Watch and freshwaterhabitats.org.uk/projects/pondnet/ their songs, look up the RSPB A−Z of birds in late March. It says its name, chiff-chaff chiff- count the birds visiting your school or nearby spawnsurvey2018 rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife- chaff, and is common across the Gwent Levels. green space, rspb.org.uk/fun-and-learning/ guides/bird-a-z Get involved in the Big Pond Dip during the for-teachers/schools-birdwatch/ summer, freshwaterhabitats.org.uk/get- Mute Swan with young And for other animals, visit the Gwent involved-2/big-pond-dip Image: Ed Drewitt Wildlife Trust gwentwildlife.org/wildlife/ species-a-z April For recording your local wildlife sightings use the LERC Wales app, lercwales.org.uk/ The sallow tree or goat willow attracted to grazing cows and app.phpvisit will be flowering; its yellow their poo, and nesting in farmyard flowers across wet, boggy places, barns and horse stables. For finding out what you are most likely to such as Newport Wetlands and see in your area visit, aderyn.lercwales.org.uk At Newport Wetlands, towards Magor Marsh, attract insects and Goldcliff, uncommon wading insect-eating birds such as willow birds such as lapwings, redshanks LERC = Local Environmental Records Centre warblers, chiffchaffs and blue and avocets will be busy hatching tits, which end up with yellow chicks on damp meadows and ACTIVITY foreheads from the pollen. You islands, protected by predator- might spot the first swallow Avocet looking for food proof fencing. arriving from Africa. They love the Image: Ben Andrew Gwent Levels, feeding on insects Create a calendar
May June Using the information featured each month, create an image for Listen for the song of the cuckoo, cook- Great crested grebes, with their impressive each month of the year to make oo cook-oo, like its name. Cuckoos are headdresses, will be nesting at lakes such as a calendar. The image might be a often heard at Newport Wetlands and Hendre Lake Park and Parc Tredelerch. Look drawing and could be accompanied Magor Marsh, visiting for just six weeks for their stripy black and white chicks. Water by a poem. Students could also use from the tropical forests of central Africa. voles will be busy breeding and feeding at cameras and take a photograph for They lay eggs in the nests of other birds Magor Marsh; they leave distinctive diagonal each month as the year goes by. such as reed warblers. If your school is bite marks at a 45° angle. Apples put out on If started in September why not near these sites you may even hear one floating platforms encourage the voles to produce an academic year calendar from your school playground. come out in the open for you to see them. as an end of year project? Watch out for butterflies such as the The oak avenue at Tredegar House will be in brimstone, orange-tip and holly blue leaf, providing foliage full of invertebrates for feeding on spring flowers. May is a great birds, bats and parasitic insects to feast upon. time to spot baby waterbirds, ducklings, Visit flowering meadows at Rogiet Countryside goslings and cygnets (baby swans) in Park and count how many species you can WORKING CREATIVELY family groups. find; compare with your school field.
Page 31 Part 3 | Wildlife on the Living Levels – How can we enjoy and protect it SECTION FOUR
July Emperor August What to look for Dragonfly Dragonflies love water; their young, known as Insects are in abundance during August across Image: Chris larvae, live in ponds across the Gwent Levels, Harris the Gwent Levels. With plants in full flower, at different times feeding on other animals such as tadpoles. bees, hoverflies, butterflies and beetles can be In the summer adults emerge from the water found feeding on their nectar and getting a of the year and fly around hawking for insects to eat. They face full of pollen which they transfer to other often come back to the same perch, allowing flowers, helping to pollinate them. for a closer view of their red, green, blue, To find out more about the birds below and Keep your eyes peeled for grass snakes – they brown or multicoloured bodies. Hobbies, a their songs, look up the RSPB A−Z of birds usually slither away before you’ve spotted them type of falcon, visits the Gwent Levels during rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife- and can be seen swimming across water. the summer from south-west Africa. They love guides/bird-a-z feeding on dragonflies, catching and eating Visit the sequoia redwood trees at Tredegar And for other animals, visit the Gwent them while flying. House; these impressive tall coniferous trees Wildlife Trust gwentwildlife.org/wildlife/ have spongy bark and provide places to nest species-a-z for treecreepers and nuthatches, and homes for insects. September October One of Britain’s rarest bumblebees, the shrill After heavy dew or frosty mornings look for November carder bee, is out much later than other bees. the delicate webs of money spiders on the Look for it at Newport Wetlands and Magor grass at school or nearby green spaces such Hendre Lake Park is a great place for spotting Marsh, feeding with its long tongue on flowers as Tredegar House, Black Rock or Hendre little egrets, a small white heron. They first such clover, common knapweed and pea-like Lake Park; they spin their hammock-like webs arrived in the UK in the 1990s and are now a plants such as bird’s-foot trefoil and tufted overnight. Butterflies such as the red admiral common fish-eating bird across the Gwent vetch. Its back or thorax is covered in yellow or can be seen on sunny afternoons, feeding Levels and Severn Estuary. Many sleep in the pale hairs, with a distinctive black or dark stripe on late-flowering plants or ripe fruits. Berry- trees on the lake’s island. Balls of mistletoe through the middle. laden bushes at Black Rock, Parc Tredelerch with white, sticky berries grow on high tree ACTIVITY and Rogiet Park are good places to look for branches at Magor Marsh and attract the mistle newly arrived redwings from Scandinavia, thrush. The damp, muddy ground provides the and blackcaps migrating south to the opportunity to look for footprints – amongst Mediterranean. Roving tit flocks will move your own look for roe deer prints (slots) or the Listening to birdsong and though hedges and woodlands in a hive of rounded, five-toed prints of badger or four- the dawn chorus activity and contain blue tits, great tits, long- toed prints of fox. tailed tits, coal tits, goldcrests and chiffchaffs. Listening to birdsong is good for our once, begins much earlier. However, December health and wellbeing and for reducing birds continue to sing throughout the Red Admiral Butterfly Look out for mallard and tufted ducks on stress. It gets us outdoors and gives us morning. They also have a mini evening Image: Jenny Hendre Lake Park and Parc Tredelerch amongst the chance to focus and listen. chorus. Tweedie the black-headed gulls. If you are quick you Meet at school early one morning in April If you did want to listen to the dawn might spot a kingfisher flash past, or a grey and listen to the birdsong – don’t worry chorus itself: Between late March and heron quietly fishing by itself. Listen for the if you don’t know what the birds are; early May the dawn chorus starts really ‘pinging’ calls of the bearded tits at Newport experiencing the sound is a wonder in early. You would need to be listening Wetlands; these secretive colourful birds are itself. An ideal time to hear early birdsong around 6am at the end of March, 5.30am best found by their calls on calm, bright days. is 7am or 8am, although the true dawn early April, 5am late April and 4.30am On bright, sunny days robins will be singing, chorus, when everything all sings at early May. both males and females, to defend small EXPLORING THE ENVIRONMENT feeding areas.
Page 32 Part 3 | Wildlife on the Living Levels – How can we enjoy and protect it THE BIG PICTURE Shrill Carder Bee
This is the rare shrill carder bee. It is only found in a few places in the UK; one of those is the Gwent Levels. Compare it to the common carder bee and a buff-tailed bumblebee. What are the differences? What features would you use to spot one? Ed Drewitt Image:
Page 33 Part 3 | Wildlife on the Living Levels – How can we enjoy and protect it
PART FOUR What lies below the water beyond the sea wall? Images from top-left to bottom-right: National Museum Wales; Black Rock Lave Net section one Fishermen’s Association (2 & 4); Chris Harris; Alexander Maleev/National Geographic Creative The Gwent Levels 7,000 years ago Discover the clues that tell past stories of people’s lives on the Gwent Levels. pp. 36 – 39
section one Make a timeline of the Gwent Levels’ history What big changes and events have happened since the last ice age? pp. 36 – 39
the big picture section two Mesolithic life on the What is treasure? Gwent Levels p. 43 section three and four Explore treasure and important non- Lave fishing and putchers treasure finds around the Gwent Traditional ways of catching Levels, including dinosaurs! p. 40 fish.pp. 41 – 42
d hing for foo searc erer, gath nter ic hu solith y a Me dden b were tro These footprints SECTION ONE Mesolithic footprint found Forgotten footprints in the mud at Goldcliff Image: Living Levels Landscape Partnership
The Gwent Levels 7,000 years ago
7,000 years ago, children played on land on the Gwent Levels that today is covered by the sea. Sea levels were lower back then and roaming groups of people set up temporary homes on the Gwent Levels during the summer when wet areas dried out. Footprints in the mud are still being found at low tide at Goldcliff by people researching how people lived on the Gwent Levels. Their footprints dried and hardened, were later covered in sandy mud, and then preserved for thousands of years. Small families were setting up home for a short period, fishing, hunting and gathering plants and summer fruits. They were hunting wild boar, red deer and aurochs. Looking inland these people would have seen oak woodland beyond the peaty, boggy wet grasslands. On the mud where children played, and adults hunted during the summer months, reed deer and aurochs – the original wild cow which is now extinct – roamed. They provided food for these people. Wading birds such as avocets that we see today on the Severn Estuary would have been walking through the mud, while cranes, tall, heron-like birds, which went extinct, were common. Today, they have been reintroduced into Somerset and are beginning to use the Gwent Levels once again.
Page 36 Part 4 | What lies below the water beyond the sea wall? SECTION ONE Crane footprint preserved in the mud at Goldcliff Image: Chris Harris
Martin Bell Martin has been studying the footprints at Goldcliff for 28 years. He goes out each year with students to photograph, measure and uncover more footprints. Martin’s work has revealed the stories we now know about the wildlife and people who were living ACTIVITY here thousands of years ago.
Stories told by footprints
Give students a material that they can press different shapes into to make patterns. This could be sand, mud, plasticine or air-dry clay. Students could recreate some of the tides are removing layers of ancient mud, Are we able to visit the scenes from the Mesolithic times by How have child revealing the footprints. There is little time to footprints with our class? making different sized footprints or study the footprints and as each tide comes in animal marks in the mud. and adult footprints The footprints are only visible during very and out those footprints disappear. low tides, and sometimes for a short period. ªªThere could be places in the been preserved? It is a slippery, muddy area and challenging mud that are more disturbed, for a class. At the moment there are not any showing where people gathered The estuary has preserved footprints of both What do we know? arranged visits for schools due to the risks. or showing pathways that were animals and people. 7,650–6,750 years ago the Human footprints have a particular shape; they often taken to find food. sea levels were lower and during the summer show a pattern related to walking on two feet. ªªAlternatively, students could people were walking on mud which dried and The footprints from this time tell us that people recreate marks that we might baked in the sunshine. When the sea came in were walking in a certain direction, along a leave on our environment, on higher tides during the winter, the footprints pathway over the mud. They were perhaps possibly as locally as the school were covered in a layer of sandy mud. This heading out fishing or returning from a hunting playing field. happened year on year, until thousands of trip. There are many child-size footprints too. ªªThey could then think about what years later the footprints were preserved in the Alongside the human footprints, those of deer, people in the future would be mud, almost fossilised. For a lot of this time the aurochs, cranes, herons and wading birds, able to tell from those marks. mud itself was covered in a protective layer of such as oystercatchers, have also been found, saltmarsh vegetation, plants that grow in the telling us what animals were feeding on the salty water and bind the mud together. Today, WORKING CREATIVELY saltmarsh. the saltmarsh has virtually gone and changing
Page 37 Part 4 | What lies below the water beyond the sea wall? SECTION ONE
6,200 years ago Timeline of events on Goldcliff Stone The rate of sea level rise slowed, peat built up This stone, found in the mud at Goldcliff and an oak woodland grew once again on the Pill, dates back to the 2nd or 3rd century the Gwent Levels Gwent Levels. Then the trees died, and a great (1,900–1,800 years ago). Letters from the 11,500 years ago – end of the Ice Age raised bog developed. inscription found on it have been used ªªSevern Estuary didn’t exist; the area where it on the front entrance of the Millennium 4,000 years ago is now was a huge gorge. Centre in Cardiff Bay. A legionary ªªBritain was connected to mainland Europe ªªSea levels rose. inscription by a person in command is by an area called Doggerland, now covered ªªThe raised bog became swampy reedbeds found on the stone; it mentions a number by the North Sea and the English Channel. followed by saltmarsh and estuarine silts. of men and describes 33 paces. However, ªªAfter the Ice Age, soil and land began to ªªMagor Marsh, a peaty bog with reedbed and of what it is unknown; it probably relates appear as a flat plain; large oak trees grew, water-loving trees, gives an idea of how the to the digging or building of something and people started to live here. area would have looked around 8,000 years related to a drainage channel at Goldcliff. ago and again about 6,000 years ago. 10,000 years ago ªªThe reedbeds at Newport Wetlands and Magor Marsh give an idea of what the Rising sea levels as ice in Canada melts, landscape would have been like in the reed 800 years ago leading to the development of an estuary. swamp phases. The Levels were again drained and seabanks 8,100 years ago built in part by monks at Goldcliff Priory (on the 2,000 years ago site of Hill farm), which was established in AD ªªA forest of oak trees grew by the Gwent The Romans drained the saltmarsh at Goldcliff 1113 and dissolved in 1450. Levels. by making banks and ditches. The Goldcliff ªªSea levels rose by over 5m. Stone (displayed at Caerleon National Museum) ªªReed swamp formed peat bog and then records the Roman work. There were Roman saltmarsh; salty seawater covered the forest farms at Nash (sewage works, Goldcliff Hill floor and the trees died. For a while the Farm and Llandevenny). skeletons of the trees projected through the saltmarsh. 1,500 years ago ªªGoldcliff – a low-lying hill – became an island and was 6km from dry land as sea At the end of the Roman period saltmarsh levels rose. Today, raised ground at Hill Farm again formed, covering the Roman-ditched is all that is left. landscape.
7,750 years ago The estuary covered the current Gwent Levels and went inland by a further 6km to Magor and Llanwern.
7,650–6,750 years ago ªªPeople lived in seasonal camps on the edge of the island. ªªChildren and adults walked on the mud – their footprints were covered in thin layers Ox-bow lake formed of mud that built up over hundreds of years, at Goldcliff preserving them. Image: Matthew Cook
Page 38 Part 4 | What lies below the water beyond the sea wall? Dr Jennifer Foster is an archaeologist who has worked at the British Museum and the Ashmolean Museum. She now teaches at Reading University and Continuing Education classes for Oxford University. Since 1992 she has been part of the team, led by Prof. Martin Bell, excavating in the Severn Estuary when the tide goes out. She has never found any treasure but making plaster casts of footprints made 7500 years ago is very exciting. Briana Drury, Briana Drury Photography ACTIVITY A book to read Clues that help tell the The Boar timeline story Stories told ªªWhere the forests once grew, seeds, pollen and by footprints with Apples wooden objects have been found in the mud. ª Jennifer Foster ªBurnt hazelnuts and wild boar tusks are evidence of (cont.) in his Tusks people stopping for short periods and moving on. Jennifer Foster ªªCarved stones called microliths and scrapers used for LIVING LEVELS LANDSCAPE butchering red deer, wild boar and occasionally roe deer. As a follow-on to the ‘stories told by PARTNERSHIP ªªBones of fish, including eels, mullet, salmon, footprints’ activity (p. 37), students sticklebacks, bib, goby and bass. It is a story about life on the Gwent could add objects from the clues list ªªClues from the Gwent Levels tell us about life even further Levels 7,500 years ago when people were (left) to give more ideas of what the back, from Palaeolithic flints from 30,000 years ago, to the starting to live there. To download a copy landscape they have created would bones of extinct animals including wolves and bison. visit the webpage for this resource. have been like. Alternatively, they could think about which objects people in the future would find from our lives. WORKING CREATIVELY Goram & Ghyston: Places to visit The Bristol Giants
Oliver Rigby SELF-PUBLISHED This is a story about the first Bristol Giants and how the landscape of the beautiful city of Bristol came to be formed. Once upon a time there were two brothers called Goram and Ghyston. They were no ordinary brothers – they were GIANTS. One day, the brothers St Fagans – open-air museum met and fell in love with a beautiful Princess called Avona who set them a Discover how people lived and worked in National Roman Legion Newport Museum task to decide who would win her hand Wales in the past by visiting original re- Museum, Caerleon in marriage. It was a task that only one erected historical buildings. New galleries A range of galleries and learning of them could win! Contact for information on current with contemporary learning ideas in mind opportunities focusing on maritime and learning opportunities. have recently opened. urban heritage (and some agriculture). Available on the Bristol Giants website: museum.wales/roman/learning museum.wales/stfagans/learning newport.gov.uk/heritage bristolgiants.co.uk/product/goram- Image: Otter (Wiki Commons) Image: Elizabeth Hudy Image: Pwimageglow (Wiki Commons) ghyston-the-bristol-giants/
Page 39 Part 4 | What lies below the water beyond the sea wall? SECTION TWO People are often finding things from our past Finding treasure beneath SECTION THREE What is treasure? around the Gwent Levels and Severn Estuary. the Severn Estuary These finds all have their own story to tell Treasure and interesting items are often found and may be thousands of years old. People by people working in the Severn Estuary. Prehistoric life who find them may regard them as treasure. Fishing with nets and dredging material, such – dinosaurs as sand, are the most common ways in which What is real treasure? people find ancient objects beneath the sea. 210–200 million years ago the Gwent Levels Dracoraptor Finding old items from the past is very exciting; They are then reported and checked. Objects and the Vale of Glamorgan were part of a Image: Bob Nicholls local museums tell stories of our past using may include items from ship and plane wrecks, shallow, tropical sea – similar to today’s items that people have found. However, not all tools, bones, bottles, wood and ancient fish Caribbean or Mediterranean. In the sea lived findings are treasure. baskets. ACTIVITY reptiles, large ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs, A treasure needs to be made of at least 10% Explore this map and see what treasure has feeding on fish, and ammonites with their precious metal such as gold or silver, unless it been found near you in Wales, museum.wales/ spiral-shaped shells. is a coin, and to be more than 300 years old. A portable-antiquities-scheme-in- Dinosaur Islands dotted the landscape and on these single coin isn’t enough to be treasure; there wales/map lived an early, dog-size dinosaur that evolved reporter have to be at least two coins (or ten if they More information on reporting objects and the into some the largest plant-eating dinosaurs have less than 10% precious metals). Prehistoric types of things found: wessexarch.co.uk/sites/ in Europe. It was called Thecodontosaurus, items are also considered treasure if they have default/files/field_file/Protocol_handouts_ the socket-toothed reptile, named due to the Write a magazine feature or produce some precious metals, or if two or more are english.pdf shape of its teeth. It has been found either a presentation about Dracoraptor for found made of any metal. side of the Severn Estuary, in South Wales and other children to learn about Wales’ If someone finds what they believe is treasure South Gloucestershire. It was first discovered in most recently discovered dinosaur. Myths and legends – they can report it to a local museum, regional 1834 near Bristol Zoo and was only the fourth Steepholm and Flatholm ªªInclude ideas on how the dinosaur archaeological trust or finds coordinator. It dinosaur to be discovered in the world. may have hunted and lived, and will then be checked by different independent Out in the Severn Estuary there are two what Wales would have looked like experts, and if deemed to be treasure there islands. Legend says that there were two New Welsh dinosaur back then. may be a reward split between the finder and giant brothers, Goram and Vincent (or Another small dinosaur, Dracoraptor (dragon ªªResearch how the dinosaur remains the landowner; it may also be bought by a Ghyston), who constructed the Avon thief), was discovered in South Wales in 2014. were found, what other fossils it museum. Gorge in Bristol. This predatory dinosaur also lived 200 million was found with and what they tell One day, Goram threw himself into the years ago and was related to Tyrannosaurus us about how it probably died and Bristol Channel, turning to stone and which lived 130 million years later! Dracoraptor became fossilised. leaving his head and shoulders above the had many sharp, serrated teeth helping it to ªªWrite about why the dinosaur has water to make the islands of Steepholm catch and feed on lizards, insects and other been called Dracoraptor hanigani, its and Flatholm. small animals. scientific Latin name. Find out what each word means? Can we see the bones of these dinosaurs? ªªMention that dinosaur poo has been found on the beach at Goldcliff. Yes. Fossilised bones of Dracoraptor are Even today, dinosaur and marine part of a special display in the Main Hall of reptile poo, known as coprolites, can the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff. The be found on local beaches by the Evolution of Wales gallery has a spectacular Gwent Levels. What do you need to display of dinosaur fossils, including dinosaur be looking for? footprints, and a jaw bone from a larger Interesting finds – carnivorous dinosaur, alongside fossils of other nhm.ac.uk/discover/what-is-a-coprolite though non-treasure – discovered during lave Jurassic and Triassic animals. APPLICATION OF KNOWLEDGE fishing activities. Image: Chris Harris
Page 40 Part 4 | What lies below the water beyond the sea wall? SECTION THREE ACTIVITY Lave fishing: discovering Lave fishing in action objects under the sea It is easier to understand what lave fishing is by seeing it in action. On their website there are a number of videos A traditional way of fishing in the Severn Estuary, known as lave and blogs revealing more about how lave fishing works fishing, is where people take a large net fixed to a frame to catch blackrocklavenets.co.uk fish, such as salmon, on a rising tide. While doing this a whole variety of things have been found including ancient fish baskets. To visit, contact the team at [email protected] On the Gwent Levels, a small group of people, the Lave Net Perhaps ask them where the local names for fishing Fishermen, still keep the tradition of lave fishing going. They are areas such as Monkey Tump, Lighthouse Vear and The based near Black Rock and come from the neighbouring villages Grandstand come from. of Sudbrook, Portskewett and Caldicot. They are the last lave net EXPLORING THE ENVIRONMENT fishermen in Wales. How lave fishing works The lave net is still made in the traditional way and knitted by some of the fishermen using a strip of wood and a needle. The net has a Y-shaped structure consisting of two arms called rimes which are made from locally cut willow (withy), and this acts as Open lave net a frame for the loosely hung net. The handle is called the rock staff and is made from ash; the rimes are hinged at the rock staff and are kept in position while fishing with a wooden spreader called the headboard. The fishermen fish in two ways, either standing in a low water channel waiting for a fish to hit the net or by watching the water for the movement of a fish, then moving to intercept the fish before it reaches deep water. The Severn Estuary is a great place for finding out about the Gwent Levels’ past. In the soft, sinking estuarine mud there are Lave fishing close to the lots of different clues that reveal how people in the past used Prince of Wales Bridge the area. And the building of the two Severn bridges has helped All images on this page: us find out even more, as changing water patterns (currents) Black Rock Lave Net allow more to be found. When the Lave Net Fishermen go Fishermen’s Association fishing for salmon, they sometimes find some fascinating objects in the mud which often have prehistoric stories to tell. The three most amazing objects they have found are: 1. Ancient fishing baskets. 2. A wooden boat in the sands west of the lave net fishing grounds. 3. A Roman vase west of the fishing grounds. Ancient fishing baskets Ship wreck
Page 41 Part 4 | What lies below the water beyond the sea wall? SECTION FOUR
Salmon Putchers ACTIVITY
A salmon putcher is a woven basket that tapers Salmon putching was a common way of to a small hole at its base. Stacked in columns catching salmon along the Severn Estuary over Fishing in of four or five on top of each other along a thousands of years, including along the Gwent framework of wooden struts, the putchers were Levels. Today, the framework used for putchers the Severn used to catch salmon. As the salmon swam still stands in the mud at low tide at Goldcliff. with the incoming tide, some would swim The baskets were originally made from willow into the baskets head first and, unable to turn ªªHow was the willow grown to branches grown on the Gwent Levels. In the around and swim out, they would be trapped. produce the branches and ‘withy’ 1940s metal wire was used instead, although When the tide had lowered they were then for the putchers? (pollarding) the willow baskets still continued to be used by collected, killed and sold for food. ªªWillow had many uses – find out some people. what they were. (fencing, stabilising Salmon putcher banks…) Image: Black Rock Lave Net ªªWhy did catching salmon in this Fishermen’s Association way stop? ªªWhere do salmon from the supermarkets come from today? ªªWhy is salmon good for you to eat?
CURIOUS QUESTIONS TO EXPLORE Putcher rank at Goldcliff Image: Black Rock Lave Net Fishermen’s Association
What fish live in the Severn
ACTIVITY Estuary?
The Severn Estuary is part of the sea and therefore a whole variety Life cycle of a fish of sea fish live in the water, from cod to skates. The River Usk flows into the Severn Estuary and is Find out more about the life cycles of the eel, salmon and home to some fish, such as eels, twaite shad, and where they spend their lives at sea when salmon and the rare twaite shad, they migrate away from the River Usk. Write a profile about that spend part of their life at sea each species. Discover why these fish are declining and and part of their life in the river, what people are doing to help them in the Severn Estuary where they lay their eggs. The and Welsh rivers. river is home to internationally important populations of twaite shad, lamprey, bullhead and INTERPRETING DATA brown trout.
Page 42 Part 4 | What lies below the water beyond the sea wall? THE BIG PICTURE Mesolithic life on the Gwent Levels
This illustration is an artist’s impression of life at Goldcliff 7,500 years ago. This is the period when footprints were made in the mud; today they are found by research archaeologists, preserved after all this time. Use the image to discuss what life might have been like back then, how children may have played and what is happening in the picture.
Image: Alexander Maleev/ National Geographic Creative
Page 43 Part 4 | What lies below the water beyond the sea wall?
PART FIVE How was the Gwent Levels used to produce food? Images from left to right: Professor Martin Bell; Living Levels Landscape Partnership; Gwent Archives; public domain; Chris Harris; Kate Nicol; Alexander Maleev/National Geographic Creative
section one Time capsule
What farming-related section two section six objects would you put Land use into the time capsule? Coping with Investigate, using maps, how section three section five pp. 46– 47 sudden change the land use of the Gwent Growing food from the land section four Language of the big picture Rebuild your farm Levels, south of the M4, has The extinct auroch the levels Farming in the past Why and how have people after a flood.p. 52 changed over time. p. 48 used the land? What food Why and how have people Using the Levels’ What is this person was produced? How has this used the land? What food lingo. p. 51 doing? p. 53 changed over time? p. 49 was produced? How has this changed over time? p. 50
These are th e well y prints of a local f armer strollin g through the mud in one of her fiields SECTION ONE Farming on the Gwent Levels over the centuries
Grazing Sheep Farming on the Gwent Levels and cows on the Gwent Levels Around 7,500 years ago the sea level was lower than it is today; Images: in the Severn Estuary people were able to walk and hunt across Chris Harris places which today are covered by sea. The Gwent Levels were visited by people during the summer and autumn months when the land became dry enough to walk over and hunt. People did not stay long, perhaps days or weeks, living a nomadic life in order to find food and shelter. In more recent times, during the past few thousand years, the sea was only a little lower than it is today. The Romans would have been looking at a Severn Estuary that started to look similar to that of today, with a series of major settlements and ports around its edges showing how it had become an important trade route. Throughout different ages the wide, open land on the Gwent Levels changed its appearance considerably. During the Bronze Age, 3,400 years ago, rectangular buildings were used for raising animals on the saltmarsh during the spring and summer. In the Roman period a fortress was built at Caerleon and the army needed more land on which to graze their cattle and horses, and so earthen banks were constructed around areas of drier, higher ground to protect their pastures from the incoming tide. Following the Roman period sea levels rose, and the Gwent Levels were once again flooded by the tides, but around the time of the Norman Conquest individual areas of marsh started to be embanked again. Over time these separate earthen embankments merged into sea walls that protected both the Caldicot and the Wentlooge areas of the Gwent Levels. Monastic communities were involved in this work. These medieval sea walls have now been lost to later coastal erosion, and the ones that protect the coast today are only around 500 years old.
Page 46 Part 5 | How was the Gwent Levels used to produce food? SECTION ONE
ACTIVITY Farming on the Gwent Levels CONTINUED... The Gwent Levels provide rich, fertile soils that give rise to high quality pasture. Some farmland, particularly Modern farming on higher ground towards the coast, was arable and used for growing crops, such as wheat, used in bread- How did the Gwent Levels change Where does the food produced on making. Many other areas of farmland in Britain have during the Second World War the Gwent Levels travel to today? been developed intensively with fertilisers, pesticides, when more food was needed and Where does the meat from cows highly efficient machinery and ever increasing densities produced in Britain, so it was self- and sheep go to be sold? What of grazing animals. This produces lots of food quickly, but sufficient? happens to cows milk? Discuss this way of farming is not so good for wildlife – it means whether buying foods that wild flowers, insects, birds and other animals are unable Find out more through the Gwent haven’t travelled far to be sold to survive in the numbers they used to. Archives, gwentarchives.gov. in a supermarket or local shop is uk and the Museum of Wales While some farmers on the Gwent Levels use a range better for the environment, the collections’ web pages, museum. of modern products, from animal medicines to modern animals and for local people. wales/collections machinery, and traditional techniques such as spreading Invite a local farmer to come in to of manure onto the land to produce more grass – school or visit a farm, speak with a although much more than would have been spread in local farm vet and/or find out from the past – these are less harmful to the environment than a supermarket whether they sell many practices elsewhere. Therefore, more wildlife lives local meat and milk. on the Gwent Levels, from bumblebees to rare water plants and birds such as lapwings and skylarks. CURIOUS QUESTIONS TO EXPLORE
Flint tools found on the Levels Images: ACTIVITY Professor Martin Bell How do we know how people farmed the land Time capsule thousands of years ago? Buried cows have been found that What would you put into a time capsule that describes date back to the Romans. Bronze Age farming life over the centuries in Gwent? and Iron Age footprints from cattle have been found in the mud. By ªªVisit St Fagans National Museum of ªªThink about how and what it was used doing experiments on ancient cattle History and find three or more tools or for, what it is made of and whether it bones (isotope analysis), researchers machinery that would have been used was replaced by newer technology – if have found that 20% of grazing to farm on the Gwent Levels. The Life so, what takes its place today? animals destined for Caerleon may Is… Gallery exhibits different farming ªªNewport Museum has a small display have been reared outside of south- tools alongside many of the historical which touches on agriculture and east Wales and delivered by ships that farm-buildings. includes a large cider press and cheese sailed up the River Usk and docked ªªChoose one of the objects, research press on display. more about it and describe why you at Caerleon. Some of the wooden have chosen it. jetties, where the cattle walked off the boats, have been preserved in PROBLEM SOLVING the mud.
Page 47 Part 5 | How was the Gwent Levels used to produce food? SECTION TWO Monkscroft reen Land use Image: Living Landscapes Partnership
ACTIVITY
Land area Farm women on Llanover estate, perhaps near Over the past few hundred years, the side of the River Usk. Then measure Abergavenny Gwent Levels has changed in places. the farmland shown in the 1830s maps (1850s) Newport has grown, a motorway runs covering the same area. How do they Image: Gwent Archives along the top part of the Levels and compare? industrial estates have appeared. Digimap for Schools, digimapforschools. (i) Compare maps of the Gwent Levels edina.ac.uk/subscribe, is an online map from the 1830s and today resource for schools that helps compare between old and new maps. There is a Access digital 1830s maps of the Gwent relatively small subscription fee (£69 excl. Levels through livinglevelsgis.org.uk VAT for primary schools) alongside free Compare with modern maps today, for resources and ideas/tips for teachers, example on: dfsresources.edina.ac.uk ªªYour own digital map service at school. Students should realise that farmland has ªªDigimap for Schools. reduced in area. Discuss why and the pros ªªOrdnance Survey map (152, 154 and cons associated with it. and OL14) for the area (ordnancesurvey. (iii) Measure how long the coastline is co.uk) between the mouth of the River Usk, ªªGoogle Maps Newport and Sudbrook ªªGoogle Earth This is the distance of coastline that (ii) Using a programme such as Digimap borders the Gwent Levels; much of this is a for Schools, measure the area of man-made sea wall, keeping the seawater farmland south of the M4 between the out at high tides. Prince of Wales Bridge and the east
PROBLEM SOLVING
Page 48 Part 5 | How was the Gwent Levels used to produce food? SECTION THREE
Growing food from once formed one long continuous Tredegar House barn, are over 300 years old. The There has been a house on this site laundry and dairy date back to the Things to consider: the marshland since medieval times and records of early 1800s. ªªHow did Tredegar House provide food for the house during the Tudor period, ªªThe corner window of the main itself and its community in the 1800s? What albeit a very different mansion to the house is the Master’s Dressing different foods would they have grown? one you see today. Room, and so the Master of the What animals would they have farmed? house, would have been able to nationaltrust.org.uk/tredegar-house ªªOn a visit to Tredegar House look carefully keep an eye on the farm. at the walled garden. Make a plan/drawing of ªªToday, Tredegar House and its ªªThe modern building estate was the garden. What were walled gardens used estate has three formal gardens, built on the old Kitchen Garden for? How would this have kept people in the the Orchard Garden, Cedar – an old orchard and vegetable house fit and healthy? Garden and Orangery Garden, garden. ªªOrchards are important places for wildlife each with their own distinctive ªªIn 1911 a woman was employed to although we have lost many old orchards – characters. come in every day to bake bread. explore why they provide good homes for ªªThe estate’s own farm, Home She made not only bread but insects, birds and mammals. Why have so Farm, was where produce for also enormous slabs of fruit cake many orchards been lost in South Wales? the family and community came which supplied something sweet Why are some being replanted and making a from; it enabled the family to be for teas at cricket and lunches for comeback? self-sufficient. when family members went out ªªFind out more about the lives of women ªªMany of the farm buildings still shooting and hunting. who lived and worked at Tredegar House, exist, for example, barns which nationaltrust.org.uk/tredegar-house/features/ tredegar-house-a-herstory
ACTIVITY Hayrick on Tredegar Estate (c.1900) Image: Gwent Archives Tree of life and stories
The large cedar of Lebanon tree at Tredegar House is 250 years old. ªªIf this tree could speak what stories about the house and its gardens would it tell? ªªWhat changes in farming and land use have happened in that time in the countryside surrounding Tredegar House? ªªWhat type of tree is a cedar? What does it look like and where would it have come Modern-day from originally? Tredegar House Image: CURIOUS QUESTIONS TO EXPLORE Chris Harris
Page 49 Part 5 | How was the Gwent Levels used to produce food? SECTION FOUR First-generation cross bull The Extinct Auroch from Tauros Programme (Maremmana x Pajuna) in the Netherlands, 2013. Image: Henri Kerkdijk-Otten
ACTIVITY
The extinct auroch
The auroch was a large wild cow with huge curved horns that is now extinct. They once grazed on the saltmarsh, grassland Charles Hamilton and woodland of the Gwent Levels. They Smith’s copy of a died out in the UK just over 3,500 years painting possibly ago as hunting, farming and an increasing dating to the 16th century. human population pushed them out. ªªIf you could bring back the extinct auroch, what sort of world would it see today? ªªWould it be able to survive on the Gwent Levels? ªªWould it ever be possible to bring back a live auroch from bones in a museum? If so, how? ªªIs this something we as a society should do? Why might it be better to focus on conserving living animals? ªªFind out about places in Europe where auroch-like cows are being used to help turn farmland back into wild spaces for nature.
CURIOUS QUESTIONS TO EXPLORE
Page 50 Part 5 | How was the Gwent Levels used to produce food? SECTION FIVE
Language of Over hundreds of years, a language that describes the different parts of the field and water systems the Levels on the Gwent Levels has developed. Many of these names are still used today and can be seen in old documents referring to the Levels and their development; many of the drainage systems such as ditches date back to the Roman and medieval periods. The drainage systems help to keep the water off the land. Sea walls along the coastline stop seawater getting onto the land, allowing it to be used for grazing and growing crops. The sea walls were often used for travelling along and today many are public footpaths.
Reen Pill One of the more common words A pill is a tidal creek, an area of used still today is reen – this refers mud or a wide ditch that has to water ditches that people have water flowing down through it dug and that run along the edges from a stream or river, and is filled of fields; you most often see them by seawater at high tide. In the running between a road and a past pills have been wide enough field. There are different spellings for boats to sail up. To stop water for this depending on where you moving upstream through a pill Chapel reen are in the country. You may see and onto farmland, structures Image: Living Levels Landscape Partnership it spelt rhyne in Somerset. A reen called a gout or goat, an outfall, has many different uses – it is pillhead or clyce, have been built used for draining water off fields, that act as a barrier. The part that holding water in the summer opens or shuts this is called a door, ACTIVITY for plants and animals to live, gate, flap or sluice. keeping animals such as cows and sheep in the fields and acting as Nogger a field boundary, like a fence or Using the Levels’ lingo hedgerow would also do. In the past, fields were watered in the summer to keep them lush and growing well for sheep and Sewers cows to graze. Water came from Ask the students to imagine that they are a the adjacent reens. Planks pitted This doesn’t relate to sewage or landowner in the past on the Gwent Levels. with holes, known as noggholes, toilet waste. Instead it is the name were put at the bottom of reens. They need to write some instructions to the for the various water courses – The holes were plugged with a person they employ to maintain the drainage streams, ditches, rivers – on low- wooden peg called a nogger. lying land such as the Gwent system. They need to use the language above When people wanted to water Levels. or irrigate their fields, they would to describe where and how the drainage remove the noggers and allow system needs to be dug out and restructured the water to flow through the to ensure it drains the water, keeps the noggholes. animals safe and allow the land to be watered, but not flooded. They could also use the information from ‘Resource 2: How does the water on the Gwent Levels affect our lives?’
WORKING CREATIVELY
Page 51 Part 5 | How was the Gwent Levels used to produce food? SECTION SIX Old farm building for keeping animals and storing Coping with sudden change equipment and provision. Image: Kate Nicol
ACTIVITY
Rebuilding your farm after a flood
‘The Old Farmhouse’ In the 1607 Great Flood lots of Image: David Anstiss farms were destroyed through flooding. A huge storm surge saw the sea come all the way in across the Gwent Levels. Ask students to imagine that they need to rebuild their farm following the flood. Research what a farm was like and draw a labelled plan of your farm and its farmland. It should include: ªªA place for the owner to live; ªªPossible places for farm workers to live; ªªPlaces for animals to graze and shelter at night; ªªProvision for food for yourself; ªªProvision for food for your animals.
CURIOUS QUESTIONS TO EXPLORE
Page 52 Part 5 | How was the Gwent Levels used to produce food? THE BIG PICTURE Farming in the past
This is Mr Rees of Tŷ Gwyn, Peterstone Wentlooge in the late 1940s or early 1950s. What is he doing in this photo? How would this work be done today? Find out more about the tool (a scythe) he was using – St Fagans National Museum of History has more information on these. The road Mr Rees is on is now called Broadstreet Common; previously it was always referred to as either the B.4239 or more commonly, the Coast Road.
Image: Alexander Maleev/ National Geographic Creative
Page 53 Part 5 | How was the Gwent Levels used to produce food?
PART SIX How have people, past and present,
the big picture moved around the Gwent Levels? Newport 500 years ago Images bottom-left to top-right: Ed Drewitt (1 & 3); Peter Power/Newport Museums and Heritage Service; Chris Harris; Tiia Monto; Anne Leaver How has Newport changed from a town to a city? p. 63
section five Moving goods around Newport Why might Newport’s transporter bridge become a World Heritage Site? p. 62
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d e section four t n section one i Shifting muds – what’s o p Newport’s expansion beneath our feet? a g section two in How has its growth Investigate how local r section three a affected the Gwent The Newport Ship e channels and rivers have w Black Rock and Rogiet r Levels? p. 54 o Write a ship’s log of the journey changed over time. p. 61 il a How have these two places s arriving at Newport. pp. 57 – 58 se e been important transport links? u g u pp. 59 – 60 rt o P ry tu en c th 15 y a e b ad s m rint otp e fo are th These SECTION ONE Moving around the Gwent Levels
A few hundred years ago people living on the Gwent Levels didn’t travel very far from where they lived or worked. Farm equipment was very basic and much of the hard labour was done by hand. Over time, farming became mechanised as technology and tools became more sophisticated and quicker; there was a move from using horses Partly developed Tarmacked farm road small farm track with public right of way and people to do work to tractors and Image: Peter Clayton Image: Mike Faherty machines. Many of the small lanes across the Gwent Levels were farm droves, corridors and back routes used by farmers to move farm animals and equipment between fields. While some remain muddy and stony today, others have been tarmacked and are used as roads by ACTIVITY everyday traffic. Newport’s expansion
Make an animation showing steelworks and industrial Pylons and motorway into Newport across the Levels; a sign how Newport has grown estates; of infrastructure to accommodate a large town or city. over time. This can be done ªªThe building of more houses Image: Ed Drewitt with stop motion animation for people to live in; tools or software, which ªªThe growth of traffic and are available as apps or new and wider roads; downloads. Students could ªªBuilding of warehouses and use Lego, junk modelling or factories on farmland; Playmobil type toys to show ªªAir pollution and litter; how the village has changed ªªEffects on wildlife. from a few houses, with one As an extension, students or two narrow roads, to grow could consider how future to a large city. Students could road projects, building include some of the ideas of houses and growth of below. industrial estates affect the ªªThe effects of building the local environment.
INTERPRETING DATA
Page 56 Part 6 | How have people, past and present, moved around the Living Levels? SECTION TWO The Newport Remains found on the Ship Newport ship, including (top-left, clockwise) juniper, almond shells and pomegranate seeds Image: National Museum of Wales
The French silver coin (22mm diameter) found hidden in a small Newport has a thriving port bringing and sending goods around ªªIt specialised in carrying barrels, known as casks, of wine; hole; it was used as a good luck the world. Even 500 years ago Newport was busy with ships. ªªThe sailors on board ate a range of foods grown in southern charm when the ship was built. The Newport Ship, a Spanish-made ship visiting from Portugal, Europe such as grapes, figs, walnuts and seeds; Image: Newport Museums and was undergoing repairs in 1468. The ship toppled over and ªªClothing found includes a decorated helmet and a long, Heritage Service with no modern machinery to lift it back up, it was left where pointed leather shoe – the more pointed the shoe, the more it fell. The space needed to be used by other ships, so half the important the person; ship’s timbers were cut down and reused. Slowly, over time, the ªªA silver coin was found hidden in a small hole in the wood; it remains of the ship were covered and preserved in mud, only was used as a good luck charm when the ship was built. recently discovered in 2002 when the Riverfront Theatre was The remains of the Newport Ship are now in storage. With being built. The Newport Ship is the world’s only remaining 15th 100,000 hours of hard work, 70% of the wood has been treated century ship. using a waxy chemical and then dried using special freeze- A pointed leather shoe of a sailor from the Newport Ship. There are many clues to the life of the ship before it visited drying machines – the water is removed by freezing it under a Image: Rex Moreton/Newport Newport; they give insights into the life of the sailors who came vacuum. With the water extracted the wood is unable to rot. The Museums and Heritage Service from Portugal. From over 1,000 remains including food, remains timbers have been fixed together using plastic nails; they mimic of animals such as insects, fleas and rats, clothing, pieces of the iron ones originally used and which rust away. ceramic pottery and wine barrels, we know the ship had spent A well-preserved skeleton, minus the skull, was found beneath time in southern Portugal. the ship. It had nothing to do with the ship and instead dates back to the Iron Age when it was a ritual to bury a body in a Highlights include: river. ªªInsights into how the ship was built; It is possible there are other parts of ships and walkways still ªªThe ship carried domestic animals and their bedding such buried in mud. Many channels were much wider than they are as hay; today; back then ships were able to get much further inland.
Page 57 Part 6 | How have people, past and present, moved around the Living Levels? SECTION TWO Final resting place of The Newport Ship The Newport Ship CONTINUED Image: David Jordan
Four things to explore with the Newport Ship ªªThe website of the Newport Ship gives more information and details on visiting. ªªConsider where ships and goods come from and go to from Newport today – visit the Newport Port Company for more details. ªªHow are ships built today? How would sailors dress today and what foods would they eat? How would sailors have navigated back then, and how would they navigate from Portugal to Newport today? ªªShipbuilding, including wooden ships, was an important industry in Chepstow – find out more online and through the Gwent Archives and local museum. For more information, including visits for schools and a guidebook, go to newportship.org
ACTIVITY
Newport Ship’s log
Use the information above and the ªªThe smells on the ship. Further activity Newport Ship website to write a ship’s log ªªWhat the food was like. Research what new of the journey the Newport Ship took from ªªHow the Gwent Levels looked as the foods the Romans Portugal to arriving in Newport. ship sailed up the Severn Estuary. brought to the Gwent ªªThe first view of the Newport docks. Consider: Levels 1,500 years ªªWhat might have happened to the earlier. ªªWhat life would have been like as a 15th sailors after their ship collapsed. century sailor.
INTERPRETING DATA
Page 58 Part 6 | How have people, past and present, moved around the Living Levels? SECTION THREE The 19th century ferry pier at Black Rock with Sudbrook in the distance. Black Rock & Rogiet Image: Sudbrook History Society
Black Rock and Rogiet Countryside Park have been important transport hubs for the Gwent Levels and surrounding areas since Roman times. Visiting these places with your classes gives a great idea of how these places functioned and why they were important. Below is more information on each site and links to further information.
livinglevels.org.uk/learning-resources
Black Rock The rock here is over 300 million can still visit the site of the ferry jetty The view from Black Rock with the years old; it is known as carboniferous at Black Rock to look out across the Prince of Wales Bridge in the distance limestone and, as its name suggests, Severn Estuary and get a sense of the Image: Ed Drewitt it is dark grey to black. It is made up coastline. The site forms part of the of ancient sea creatures, particularly Wales Coast Path. crinoids or sea lilies (related to starfish), Black Rock and Beachley have been and muds that built up at the bottom used as landing places for boats of the sea, eventually turning into rock bringing goods and people by the and fossils. Romans and Normans, and a ferry Before the two Severn bridges had served Beachley as early as 1138 been built, the only way to get across bringing monks, servants and cattle the estuary was by boat. Black Rock, from Aust, on the other side of the just on the edge of the Gwent Levels Severn Estuary. near Sudbrook, Chepstow and the Prince of Wales Bridge, was one of Further information and stories to the places where people could cross. use with your classes can be found In 1857 a railway line stopped on on the webpage for this resource: Portskewett Pier at Black Rock ªªPDF of the information panels where people took a boat to revealing the history of the site and a connecting train and pier images of its past; at New Passage near Severn ªªMap of the coastal path; Beach on the English side. ªªBlack Rock/Sudbrook trail, providing While the railways and many stories and images of the pier have now gone, you history of the area.
Wild flowers at Rogiet Countryside Park Image: Andy Karran, Gwent Wildlife Trust
Page 59 Part 6 | How have people, past and present, moved around the Living Levels? ACTIVITY Rogiet Countryside Park Walking at Black Rock Snuggled in between housing, countryside and Severn Tunnel Junction, Rogiet Countryside Park is a space to explore and enjoy nature. It hasn’t always been a quiet wild place though. Just over 30 years ago it was Black Rock has some superb views have looked, felt and worked How to get to Black Rock still a busy railway yard, known as a marshalling yard, full of sidings and of the Severn Estuary. Walk some as a railway and ferry jetty. On reaching the outskirts of trucks waiting to take goods such as coal, cows and steel to markets, of the coastal path where you’ll see Walk along the coastal path Portskewett turn down Black often across the UK and other parts of the world. It closed in 1987. Getting grazing fields showing the original and explore the landscape Rock Road (signed ‘Black Rock supplies of goods from Wales to other parts of Britain and the world drainage patterns. Black Rock is an – some of the grazing fields Picnic and Lave Net Fishery Site’). required careful planning and a network of trains and trucks. Rogiet was a ideal location to picnic too. have changed very little over Black Rock picnic site car park is key place for this. hundreds of years. at the end of single lane on your Three things to do ªªStop and listen – how many Three information panels have been produced about the site, including right (ST 512 881). Postcode NP26 at Black Rock different sounds can you hear? photos and more facts about the site when it was a marshalling yard. 5TP. There is a barrier/flow plate Consider how the two bridges They can be viewed at the countryside park as interpretation panels. ªªA bioblitz – open an hour system into the car park which affect the landscape, physically, They are available as a PDF on the webpage for this learning resource too looking for as many plants and would not be suitable for a large visually and audibly. Birds to (livinglevels.org.uk/learning-resources). animals as you can; record coach. listen for include the curlew, and upload them to your local On the webpage for this resource there are recordings with Ray Evans redshank and wigeon (visit bird environment records centre and Eric Broom talking to children about their time working on the steam sounds at rspb.org.uk/birds- app, lercwales.org.uk/app.php trains. Hazel Bennett explains how local people then decided on turning and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/ ªªImagine how this place may the space into a countryside park. bird-a-z/ EXPLORING THE ENVIRONMENT
Severn bridges ACTIVITY From Black Rock you have brilliant views of the two Severn bridges. The old M48 Severn Bridge was opened in 1966; the Second Severn Crossing, now known as the Walking at Rogiet Prince of Wales Bridge, was opened in 1996, severnbridge.co.uk
Three things to do here ªªA bioblitz – spend an hour looking for as many plants and animals Severn Tunnel as you can; record and report them to South East Wales Biodiversity Records Centre, sewbrec.org.uk The Severn Tunnel was constructed tunnel is around 4 miles (7km) long, ªªPrint photos of how the countryside park used to look and compare by the Great Western Railway between of which just over 2 miles is under with how it looks now. Work out where the photos were taken. 1873 and 1886. In 1879, the works were the river. The tunnel was the longest ªªLook for clues to its past life as a railway. How has nature taken over? flooded by what is now known as ‘The underwater tunnel in the world for Great Spring’. Through innovative more than 100 years until 1987. How to get to the country park efforts, the flooding was contained, and The Severn Tunnel has recently work continued, albeit with a greater Near the entrance to Severn Tunnel Junction railway station take the undergone works to electrify the emphasis on drainage. road bridge over the railway line. Take the next turning on the right railway line that runs through it. down into the car park for Rogiet Countryside Park. Fifty million litres of water per day Find out more about the challenges (ST 462 874; postcode NP26 3TZ) infiltrate the tunnel. It is removed using and engineering that was involved several large pumping engines. The to do this. EXPLORING THE ENVIRONMENT
Page 60 Part 6 | How have people, past and present, moved around the Living Levels? SECTION FOUR Shifting muds – what’s Tredegar House and its beneath our feet? family’s involvement with Newport’s expansion
The Morgan family, who lived at Tredegar house, were involved The Gwent Levels is changing all with many big changes that Newport went through during the the time. Muds move around, the 1800s. Here’s a summary: saltmarsh comes and goes. Reedbeds ªª1805: A tramroad was were for every ton of coal or ACTIVITY grow and turn into bogs. constructed that linked iron crossing Tredegar Park. Over the past 2,000 years there have been ironworks in Newport to ªª1835: The Newport many parts of the Levels that boats could sail the River Usk. Sir Charles Dock Act was passed by The Gwent Levels’ along to jetties. Many of these are now silted Morgan was involved in the Parliament allowing Sir changing landscape: up, hidden away. Deep down in the mud, many ironworks and owned most Charles to build the new of these old creeks still contain the old wooden of the land the tram road town dock. Work started comparing maps beams of jetties and even sunk boats. passed through. Tolls were immediately. imposed and it became ªª1842: New Town Dock known as ‘Park Mile’ or the opens. Foreshore excusion ‘Golden Mile’. ªªThere was previous and Investigate, using maps, how channels and with Professor Bell ªª1807: Sir Charles Morgan continued involvement rivers have changed over time. Compare Image: Jeremy White and relative Samuel in the docks with the maps from the 1830s and maps of today Homfray created the Morgan family, including to see differences. Look at the presence/ Tredegar Wharf Company connections to the absence and positions of rivers, streams, to build new warehouses Transporter Bridge. roads and fields then and now. and docks at Newport and See Part 1 (How has the Gwent Levels Pillgwenlly. landscape changed over time?) and Part ªª1830: Sir Charles Morgan’s 5 (How was the Gwent Levels used to annual income was £40,000 produce food?) of this learning resource for (800 times the salary of a more information on maps and websites well-off working man!). This to visit. was largely due to the tolls from the Golden Mile; fees Older maps tell engineers what might be beneath our feet. There are some channels, now silted up, that may have boats and jetties from hundreds of years ago. If new structures, such as buildings and bridges, are planned on the Levels, archaeologists and engineers have to look for these potential old creeks and objects so they know where and how they can build without any problems. Bog oak at Goldcliffe CURIOUS QUESTIONS TO EXPLORE Image: Chris Harris
Page 61 Part 6 | How have people, past and present, moved around the Living Levels? SECTION FIVE
The Port of Newport is classed as a major sea port and in 2014 Moving goods handled in excess of 1.85 million tonnes of cargo. Today it employs 3,000 people and contributes Today, goods come from and go to all around around Newport £186 million to the Welsh economy. It has been the world from Morocco to Malaysia and the a port since the Roman times and when the United States to Ukraine. Ships carry a huge ACTIVITY Newport Ship collapsed into the river, the port, selection of different cargo including steel, then a town dock, was in the middle of Newport. wood, materials to be recycled, coal, grain, The current port, on the outskirts of the city, was animal feeds, natural materials (biomasss) built in 1865. During the 1800s, common land for fuel, sand, cement and fertilisers. More Port of on the Gwent Levels, large open fields used by information can be found at abports.co.uk/ Newport local people to grow crops and graze animals, Our_Locations/South_Wales/Newport became enclosed as part of the Inclosure Acts. The Port of Newport has two quays where maths problems With nowhere to farm, many local people moved ships can dock. Although the quays are long, to Newport to work and live, with many being the size of the ships is restricted. Why might employed in the growing port. this be? Use the data about the Port of Newport to answer the maths Quay Length Depth of water Length of ship Beam (width of ship) problems below. ª North 5,569m 11.1m 244m 30.1m ªWhich quay is bigger? ªªHow much deeper is the north quay South 2,450m 8.2m 122m 17.2m than the south quay? How much ACTIVITY longer is the north quay than the south quay? Newport Transporter Bridge ªªAssuming a ship is rectangular, work Building a bridge Image: Tiia Monto out the area of the largest ship that can fit into each quay. ªªWhich quay can fit the greatest As Newport grows the port becomes busier and more number of ships in end to end? people visit the city. More roads are likely to be built to take cars, lorries and buses to different places. To INTERPRETING DATA ease congestion, one idea is to build a new bridge over Newport Docks; it would need to be as long as the Second Severn Crossing (Prince of Wales Bridge). Design a bridge that would span this distance. Newport’s transporter bridge Things to discuss In 1906, a transporter bridge opened in Newport ships. Across the world 20 were constructed to deal with the increasing number of people and this one in Newport is only one of six left ªªWhat would the bridge be made from? working in the port. Rather than walking the that still work. ªªHow much might it cost? 4-mile distance from one side of the river to the ªªHow long would it take to build? Research why Newport’s transporter bridge other, the transporter bridge was able to take ªªWhat effect would a new bridge and road have on might become a World Heritage Site. people (and cars) straight over the water and wildlife? ªªHow would the Gwent Levels be protected? How would the bridge avoid the Gwent Levels? Span of Weight of steel Weight of steel in the Diameter of ªªHow would it affect the look of the area? bridge in each tower suspension cable suspension cable
INTERPRETING DATA 197m 282 metric tonnes 199 metric tonnes 75mm
Page 62 Part 6 | How have people, past and present, moved around the Living Levels? THE BIG PICTURE Newport 500 years ago
This is a scene of Newport in the 1400s when the Newport Ship was in the docks for repairs. Look carefully at the painting. Newport was a small town with a castle. What different things can you see in the painting? How has Newport changed over the past 500 years?
Image: Anne Leaver
Page 63 Part 6 | How have people, past and present, moved around the Living Levels? This resource is part of the Living Levels Landscape Project, funded by the Heritage Fund. It has been developed and produced The Living Levels Learning Resource by Ed Drewitt and Louisa Aldridge A TEACHER’S RESOURCE FOR PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION and designed by studiomonty.co.uk