ARCHAEOLOGY CYMRU

NEWSLETTER 2018 issue 2

Contacts details: Archaeology Cymru, Canonhill artspace, Canon Street, Barry, Vale of Glamorgan CF62 7RH
archaeologycymru@live.co.uk or telephone: 07437 747402
www.archaeologycymrumedia.weebly.com or www.archaeologycymrughosts.weebly.com
twitter: archaeologycymr or facebook as: https://www.facebook.com/groups/archaeologyinwales/

Tomorrow is too late!

Dear Reader,
This is our very first multiple page newsletter in many years (over a decade), and with the
growing members and supporters, alongside increasing news, we thought it time to head for
this new venture in printing.
Please enjoy and tell us what you think.
Many thanks, Karl-James, Michelle and Rhona
We mourn the loss of Professor James Ross (Botany at Reading University),
popularly known as Jim. He was a lovely member of our Bridgend class. Jim’s
knowledge is a great loss to science, but if you had an opportunity to behold his
knowledge on an AC walk, they were moments of magic.
Jan Davies was the business advisor for Archaeology Cymru, advice and direction that will always place us on a positive
footing. Jan with her husband Owain took part on a number of events notably two away excursions.
Monmouth Archaeology by Stephen Clarke MCIFA
Monmouth Archaeology, the professional wing of Monmouth Archaeological Society, continue to make exciting
prehistoric discoveries during the Barratt Homes and David Wilson Homes developments together with the construction of
the nearby Siltbuster building and attenuation pond. Some of the sites with wooden structural remains have produced
radiocarbon dates showing that they are over 5,000 years old – like the suspected log boat (3210BC) and the presumed
crannog at Jordan Way (2,917BC).
There have also been more recent finds such as Bronze Age and New Stone Age structures which appear to
have been built on stilts in or beside the lake itself and reminiscent of those found in lake villages in the Fens. The lagoon
may have finally been drained by the Romans who set up an AD 100s iron-working industry and what may be a Roman
Vineyard close to the attenuation ponds. The archaeologists now believe that the level of the huge post-glacial lake,
which was created by a blockage of the Wye Gorge below Monmouth at the end of the last ice age, had fallen back by
some 5000 years ago leaving a lagoon covering much of Overmonnow which itself constituted a large lake and was
associated with the possible boat and the prehistoric settlements on its shore and even out in the lake.
The Bronze Age wattle and daub structures have produced pottery, flint and animal bones together with organic
remains including large numbers of hazel nuts found in the brushwood floors of the collapsed huts.

Image 1, Bronze Age hazel nuts – 500BC – found with pottery and bone in the floor of a collapsed wooden hut on the site
of the Siltbusters flood pond. Image 2, Collapsed flat-bottomed house post or stilt set shallowly in the lake bed; 2,223BC
Image 3, Some of the sites revealed in 2017 with earlier discoveries at Parc Glyndwr (star at top). Image 4, 540BC to 500BC

Image 5, Upright flat-bottomed structural ‘stilt’ shallowly set in the bed of the lake – 1,324BC. Image 6, Flat bottomed
‘stilts’ presumably to stop buildings sinking into the lake bed 540-2,223 BC. Image 7, Siltbuster attenuation pond where
the sites are preserved under water.

Stop press: Mobile museum fund has reached, a whopping £1,000 so far, the aim is for
£10,000 but the sum so far isn’t bad for 3 months work. This is a campaign to take our
heritage into community.
Please donate to: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/portablemuseum. Or by bank
transfer to: Archaeology Cymru, 201827 43476170, with the reference ‘portable museum’
Archaeology Cymru activities
The teaching week starts on Thursday, i.e the topic chosen to teach is delivered on that day. The Archaeology of
everything has taken us to many areas of archaeology, from the origins on humans, to pyramids, to the Roman villa.
Classes open to everyone. You must now be a member to take part on a regular basis, which incurs a £5 weekly fee. Or
£6.50 for occasional guests. Just turn up. Most activities last for between 1 1/2 until 2 hours.
Weekly:
1. Thursday Llantwit Major Town Hall 10.15am
2. Thursday Bridgend Hope Baptist Church Derwen Road 2.15pm
3. Monday All Saints Church Hall Trealaw Tonypandy 10am
4. Tuesday Skype online (contact us for details) 7.15pm
5. Wednesday Rhoose Library 10am
6. Wednesday Sully Church 2.15pm (Field class)
Barry activities on a Tuesday all of which are a one-off donation of £5 to keep the studio going:
1. Tuesday Canonhill artspace Barry workshop assist 9.30am
2. Tuesday Canonhill artspace Barry local archaeology class 11.30am
3. Wednesday Canonhill artspace local archaeology class (this is fortnightly-contact us for dates) 6pm
Other activities
4. Young Explorers Club meet fortnightly with a monthly field trip. For supervised under 16 year old
children. For further details contact us.
5. Excursions occasionally visiting different locations, announcements only available at our classes
6. Experience Wales weekly walks please visit the website: www.archaeologycymrughosts.weebly.com
Standing up for the archaeology
The deliberate destruction of archaeology at the 5-mile lane (A4226) which is the main road between Barry
and the A48 which archaeologists are couplable in this, has gained the attention of the populous, and received
an urgent statement from the local council and archaeological contractors.
With a wave of housing and road building development being undertaken across Britain at this current
moment, much of this is removing large swaths of our heritage. The policy seems to be to report on the
findings well after work on the buildings has started, somewhat after the metaphorical horse has bolted. In
the case of the ‘5-mile lane’, Karl-James Langford felt it in the public interest to report on these findings so
that the public who have been curious to what was actually happening could be informed.

The first two images show where human remains have been removed, the other a finds bag left onsite abandoned by the site
archaeologists with human remains contained within.
' The archaeological resource is finite, in years to come the
ability to use new technology on a diminished resource will
bring in increased dividends that the current technology
does not allow. There is no requirement for the work to be
any more expansive, than that required for the
straightening and widening of the so called 5-mile lane
(A4226). For the archaeological works now in progress at
the 5-mile lane, to be more than 400m metre's wide in
scope is entirely un-necessary for a 10-metre-wide road
and without precedent for what is actually needed for the
project. '
Karl-James Langford MLitt (UHI Archaeology), PGDipAH
(Leicester Archaeology & Heritage)

An interesting quote from over 100 years ago

Morgan 'Morien' (1911:77), History of Wales, 'For when we come down to periods immediately following the
Protestant Reformation in this country, in A.D. 1535, we come upon a state of things when the English Protestants
evinced as much enmity towards the Papal Church of Rome as the Papal Church had exercised against the old
Church of Britain at the time of St. Augustine, about A.D. 600, and later the Papacy displayed against the older
Church of Wales in the time of the occupation of Glamorgan by the Normans from A.D. 1088.
From that date to A.D. 1115 and onwards, the Papal Church strove with all its might, by pious frauds and violence,
to obliterate all the records of the ancient Church of Britain, surviving in all its pristine and Apostolic purity in Wales.'
We see folk’s history is continually being made up, and the truth covered up. Morien saw this as he wrote his book of 1911...…

Spoons. Ignored fragments of our past.

For a bit of fun Karl-James brought this old spoon back from waste ground near to the Atlantic Trading Estate
well. The task to clean it up, a little bit of research for Genine in Barry class. And the results spectacular. Solid
all the way nickel-silver, then presented as gift to Barbara in Sully class, for her regular attendance.
STOP PRESS: The £501 raised via JustGiving the crowd funding website, has been put to good use for the
signs at the medieval lane at Highlight Barry. Watch this space for me information.

Some Barry workshop discoveries

The well at the Atlantic Trading Estate, Barry, we rediscovered this wonderful relic of the past. Dates potentially back to
the Roman period. The existing masonry dates to the 1600s at least. It is of keyhole type.
The Bronze Age Barrow also close to the above location. As part of a set of map regression exercise, we were very
excited to find, an almost impossible to locate scheduled ancient monument was ‘relocated’. The Bronze Age barrow as
described in our notes, 10 metres in diameter, by under half metre in height was still there hidden in tree’s undisturbed.

A little exercise for our reader’s. We think we

have managed to research the date and type
of bullet but can you. Dug up in a garden in
Barry. Let us know what you come up with.

Tomen y Mur,
Gwynedd
Yes, Archaeology Cymru is finally exploring North Wales again, on the back of our successful visit last October.
On this April trip we managed to get up to Tomen y Mur and another amazing site explored in the next edition. This
is our photo gallery of a site important in the Roman period, early medieval period, and home to a legend of the
Mabinogion.

Site plan, Tomen from east, the remains of the roman bathhouse suite and view of the bridge buttress

View with sign of position of bathhouse and mansio, looking towards site of bridge, searching for section of
original wall not farming boundaries as here, notice re-use of Roman wall tie!

Disappointing that little of the original fabric or Roman west gate survived; drystone reconstruction, and
farming rebuild everywhere, looking of southern boundary for ‘roman’, wow, there it is these two images the
blocked roman southern gate
Nothing of the original roman east gate survives, more walls abound on the south but fairly recent, location of our fort

Can’t beat a few views of the Roman military amphitheatre, yes that’s right, ‘a place for entertainment and practice

Amphitheatre illustration well maybe in reality at Tomen it was a little less grander that this, Owain and Karl-
James at a Radio Cardiff interview with Chris Stennet: raising the profile of Archaeology Cymru, Karl-James at
the ‘other’ North Wales site (featured in 2018 edition 3)

A place for native archaeology

Castel Nos, north of Meardy in the Rhondda Fach, is an important, yet ignored part of the landscape of Cymru
before the Normans took a hold of South Wales in the 1100s and 1200s. On a recent visit we explored the pit
falls of a native site. Using again the gallery method to present the detail.

Heading along the path from the main road, you are lead through an empty landscape to the outcrop that is
this enigmatic castle

Now the site becomes apparent, positioned on a rocky outcrop with commanding views up and down the
valley, and of the valley to the west that it so easily commands. The site a scheduled ancient monument shows
signs of damage having been used as a motocross site, and there is evidence of metal detecting also
There are structural remains on view at our site illustrated by collapsed ‘drystone’ walling. There is evidence of
disturbance towards the centre of the site.

Views to the west and towards the north. The central image shows the coal mining landscape, now depleted
too the remains of the railway sidings and occasional period buildings of the colliery

The ‘Severn’

She is 23 feet long & a very pretty little yacht. Built in 1912 at Crossfields boat yard in Arnside for The
Royal Mersey Yacht Club as a one of 10 "one design" racing yachts. In other words, all the same so
that the skill of the crew shows up in the races, not how much you can spend on your boat!
She sank in possibly her first race in 1913 & lay on the bottom of the Mersey for 20 years
before being recovered (in tacked) & rebuilt. At some point she went down to the South East ending
up in Rochester (Southend) where we bought her from, earlier this year with the help of The Heritage
Lottery Fund & brought her back to Arnside. See "Crossfield Yacht Severn" on Facebook. We hope
to have her on the water within the next couple of weeks. Any Questions please let us know?
STOP PRESS: The Highlight crowdfunded signs for the medieval and ancient trackway at Barry are at the
moment being prepared for printing. We hope by the next edition to announce the date of when the signs
will be on view, bringing this little known routeway back to life.
 The Back page, Tonypandy and the Young Explorers Club
At Tonypandy a piece of our industrial archaeology built in 1905 and has a major role to play in British history
(The Tonypandy riots). The remains that still stand proud today in the centre of the main Rhondda valley. This
building although in a state of decade will not give into the rigours of collapse, or total disintegration. The
images undescribed below tell the story of a monument, that alas, preserves the memory of a recent, but in
people’s memories a long lost timesign of the coal mining past; that made South Wales what it is today.

The Tonypandy riots of 1910 and 1911 were a series of violent confrontations between coal miners and police
that took place at various locations in and around the Rhondda mines. The riots were the culmination of an
industrial dispute between workers and the mine owners. The role of Winston Churchill in 1910, as the then
Liberal government ‘Home Secretary’, was to send in the army to quell the riots. It was feared that the
Rhondda miners may create the atmosphere for nationwide ‘popular uprising’.
Our Young Explorers Club
Any members that have children or grandchildren under 16 years old may be interested to read that we have
a Young Explorers Club. This is open to any wild child that wish to learn about history, archaeology and
Geology. Sessions are fortnightly in Barry, for under 2 hours, and cost £5 per child. We also offer field trips, and
have just printed a wonderful embroidered T-shirt. Please email us for details: archaeologycymru@live.co.uk
Here are a few images of the activities.