Cyngor Archaeoleg Brydeinig CYMRU Council for British Archaeology WALES ** Online Information for Archaeology in Wales **

In this issue:

Dear CBA member...

A Report on the Development of the Regional Sites & Monuments Records of Wales

“People, places and communities”: an MA in Historical Landscape Studies

A Beaker Burial in the Black Mountains

A timber trackway at Llangynfelyn, Ceredigion

Recent Publications of Welsh Interest in the CBA Research Reports Series

2005 Spring Meeting and Symposium

Dear CBA member...

Volunteer officers run the CBA in Wales, most of whom also have full time jobs. This means that we try hard to simplify and streamline our paperwork. Our membership list, for example, is all computerised, but the person who wrestles with on a regular basis is very human.

There are several different sorts of memberships. People belong to the national organisation, with a regional membership in Wales. Others have a national membership with two regional memberships (so they have to pay extra for their secondary regional membership). Other people have membership only in Wales (without the national component). There are also joint memberships, student memberships etc.etc.etc. You get the idea, it’s all very complicated. To make it even worse you can have a national membership starting and finishing at any time of the year, so every month I get a large envelope full of names of people who have renewed their membership (or haven’t or have just joined or have changed their regional affiliation…I told you it was complicated.)

Welsh members all renew their membership at the end of March, so April is hell, but at least it’s over with for the year. Or it would be if people actually remembered to pay on time, and with the right amount. Several years ago we raised our membership fee, but there are still people out there sending us £5 instead of £8. We keep them on the membership list, but the fee doesn’t cover the cost of printing their copy of Archaeology in Wales, so they don’t receive it. We really like people who pay by Standing Order, but that method can also cause trouble. Because we live in Wales we have many people with the same name, and the names we receive from the bank can be very different from the names we have on the membership list. For example we receive a statement including a payment from ‘W.J. and G.A.Williams’, is that the Bill Williams we all know and love or is it Walter, or Jim ? Or could it be Gwenllian, or George or Ann or Jenny ? It can be very difficult to sort out, and I’m sure I don’t get it right every time.

Every year we have to send out reminders to people who don’t pay up in March. If your membership fee isn’t paid we will not send you your copy of Archaeology in Wales. So if you have paid and have not received Number 43 yet, please get in touch so that we can sort it out. If you haven’t paid and want it, please let us have the money and we will send you the magazine.

Please, please for the sake of my sanity, send us your membership fees in March, or pay by Standing Order so that we do not have to send out reminders. Please, please don’t wait to pay until the reminder plops through your letterbox. And if I have made a mistake please forgive me and remember I’m just human and computers are definitely not inanimate objects…I’m sure mine quite deliberately messes things up sometimes.

Your membership Secretary
(seconded by your Treasurer)

A Report on the Development of the Regional Sites & Monuments Records of Wales

In October 2003 it was decided that the four Welsh Archaeological Trusts would begin the development of the Regional Sites & Monuments Records (SMRs) hosted by each Trust, into Historic Environment Records (HERs) as defined in Historic Environment Records: Benchmarks for Good Practice (English Heritage & Association of Local Government Archaeological Officers) (Rev. Oct 2002).

In partnership with the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales (RCAHMW) and Cadw, each Trust began the process by undertaking an assessment of its Regional SMR. These assessments identified the work that would be required in order to bring the SMR up to the level of the 1st Stage HER Performance Measures, as defined in the aforementioned document. The resultant information has been used to guide a programme of work designed to help the Welsh SMRs achieve these measures by the production of various ‘benchmark documents’.

A selection of different performance measures was targeted during each quarter by each SMR Officer, and the relevant benchmark documents produced. Copies of these documents were then circulated to the other SMR Officers by RCAHMW as ‘model documents’ for alteration and application to the particular circumstances of their Regional SMR.

By the end of the 2004-2005 financial year the Welsh SMRs will have achieved nineteen of the twenty-three 1st Stage HER Performance Measures. One further performance measure, specific to the Welsh SMRs, was introduced to deal with the arrangements for providing information services in Welsh: this benchmark has also been achieved. Since the nature of the provision and funding of the Welsh SMRs differs from the arrangement in England, in that they are not maintained by Local Authorities, some of the performance measures were not applicable to the Welsh situation.

A further exciting enhancement of the SMRs that has been taking place alongside the benchmarking process has been the development, in conjunction with Oxford ArchDigital (OAD), of a new web-based software platform for the SMR records. This has involved consultation between the Trusts and OAD to develop both a technical specification and a graphic design for the new software. At the time of writing the Trusts are awaiting a ‘sample’ of the final product. Ultimately The Oxford ArchDigital Heritage Management System (TOADHMS) for the Welsh SMRs will be tested in-house by the Trusts prior to its official on-line launch. It is hoped that public access, via the Internet, to core data in the Welsh SMR records for three of the four Trusts will be possible by the autumn of 2005. As well as from each individual Trust website, the intention is that the records will also be accessible through a common web portal for Wales, along with the records of other Welsh Heritage Organisations including RCAHMW, NMGW and Cadw. It has been decided to coincide the launch of the public access to the on-line SMR records with the official re-designation of the Welsh SMRs as Historic Environment Records (HERs), after which the practical and financial implications of the Welsh HERs achieving some or all of the second stage benchmarks for good practice can be considered.

Marion Manwaring (Cambria Archaeology/Dyfed Archaeological Trust)
& Jeff Spencer (Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust)

“People, places and communities”: an MA in Historical Landscape Studies

Since 2001 the University of Wales, Newport, has been running an MA programme entitled “People, places and communities”: an MA in Historical Landscape Studies. This course allows students to debate the nature of historical landscapes whilst examining the strategies that are used to define, study and mange them. It also gives students an understanding of how the British landscape has evolved since late prehistory and the skills necessary to undertake independent studies of landscape history and archaeology. The course can be taken full-time over one year or part-time over three. All teaching takes place in the evenings (with longer field trips on a small number of Saturdays.) Part-time students attend for one evening per week, the full-time students for two. There no compulsory work placements or field work requirements and hence many students find it possible to combine work and study. Applications are always welcome for this course. A degree in a relevant subject such, for example history, archaeology or geography is desirable, but not compulsory. Students with a strong interest or relevant experience, but not the usual qualifications, may be admitted. All applicants are interviewed and admitted on merit.

The course comprises five main areas:

• Research methods (30 credits) This encompasses various approaches to defining and managing the historical landscape. It includes cartography, palaeography (reading documents in both English and basic Latin), statistics and archaeology.

• Medieval landscapes - sources and themes (30 credits) A thematic course covering the “transformation” from Romano-British to later landscapes. It focuses on the evolution of villages and other settlements, field systems, medieval farming practices and the study of town and castles, and churches and monasteries.

• Early modern and later landscapes (30 credits) The study of maps and plans, paintings, drawings and a range of historical evidence form the basis of our understanding of the landscapes of post medieval Britain. The themes covered include the impact of power and belief and hence industrialisation, rural landscapes, gardens and stately homes are all examined.

• Case studies of selected landscapes (30 credits) An introduction to the variety of landscapes and approaches to their study and management: prehistoric Danebury, Roman Caerleon and Caerwent, medieval Gower and Wharram Percy and industrial Blaenafon are all considered along with other landscapes of the students’ choice.

• Dissertation A 20,000 words study on a topic of the students’ interest.

Students who do not wish to undertake the dissertation can (with 60 credits) gain a University of Wales Certificate in Historical Landscape Studies or (with 120 credits) a University of Wales Diploma in Historical Landscape Studies

The course is assessed in a range of ways - practical work, essays and presentations are all used. There are no formal examinations. Field excursions to a number of local landscapes of historical interest form an integral part of the course.

The first cohort of graduates have began a range of careers and further studies with:
• Heritage bodies - Cadw: Welsh Historic Monuments and other similar bodies are employing past students.
• Archive work - one graduate is taking the archive administrations course.
• Research - students from the course regularly go on to PhDs at this and other institutions

Many students also take this course purely for interest.

For further information on this course please contact the programme director: Dr. Jon Kissock by telephone: 01633 432127, e-mail: jonathan.kissock @newport.ac.uk or by writing to the him at the School of Humanities and Science, University of Wales, Newport, Caerleon Campus, PO Box 179, Newport, NP18 3YG.

Further information about this and all other courses is available from the University Information Centre: 01633 432432, uic@newport.ac.uk or UIC, University of Wales, Newport, Caerleon Campus, PO Box 101, Newport, NP18 3YH.

A Beaker Burial in the Black Mountains

Many burial cairns have recently been visited and recorded by officers of the Welsh Archaeological Trusts as part of Cadw’s Prehistoric Funerary and Ritual Survey. One such cairn is situated in a dramatic location on the prominent ridge of Pen Gloch-y-pibwr in the Black Mountains, overlooking the Usk Valley. The cairn is believed to be that from which it is recorded that an Early Bronze Age ‘Handled’ Beaker was recovered from a cist in 1924. The investigator, Mr V E Davies, takes up the tale, as recorded in Archaeologia Cambrensis in 1924:

“Shelter was sought, owing to a violent storm, in the hollowed centre of a cairn, and this was further opened out. The removal of stones… revealed a large slab, and when this had been raised a burial chamber was disclosed. On the south side of this chamber was an article of pottery, badly crushed by the fall of a large slab… The fallen slab was raised and the broken pottery carefully picked up. Continued search revealed no further remains, and so the chamber was once more closed.” Although the author states that he had little opportunity to examine the broken remains of the pot, he correctly identified it as a rare Handled Beaker, “the first handled one hitherto recorded from Wales.”

The vessel was taken to the National Museum of Wales where it was reconstructed. It remains the only Handled Beaker to have been found in Wales and is currently on display in the gallery of early prehistory.

The typical burial rite for burials accompanied by Beaker pottery is individual inhumation within a cist, often with a covering mound or cairn. However, by the final phase of the Beaker tradition (when the material culture includes the unusual Handled Beaker), several cists may be found together within the same mound, sometimes laid out in a symmetrical arrangement. Only a very few of these burials cairns have been found in Wales, as yet all on the southern seaboard. There is a significant possibility that the cairn investigated by Mr Davies over 80 years ago contains further graves, perhaps as yet undisturbed. The Prehistoric Funerary and Ritual Survey recorded that the cairn remains substantially intact - and identified that the large slab visible in the floor of an off-centre hollow within the cairn may be the cover of the cist described by Mr V E Davies. The potential of the cairn to enable further study and understanding of this formative period in Welsh prehistory has now been formally recognised and it has been scheduled as a monument of national importance. Further information about the Prehistoric Funerary and Ritual Survey is available from Cadw and the Welsh Archaeological Trusts.

A version of this article can be found on the internet magazine WalesPast, which features articles on the archaeology and history of Wales.

Matthew Ritchie

A timber trackway at Llangynfelyn, Ceredigion

Readers may remember that in our Autumn 2004 edition we carried an article on the discovery of an early timber trackway at Llangynfelyn (Borth Bog) in Ceredigion. The work was undertaken by Cambria Archaeology with the financial support of Cadw and Birmingham University. Cambria are planning a further programme of excavation at the site this summer, during the first three weeks of June. The focus of this work will be the industrial complex at the southern end of the trackway that appears to be linked with lead smelting and possibly dates back to the Roman period. Cambria Archaeology intends to keep a dig diary during the course of the excavation that will keep everyone up to date with the latest discoveries as they happen. This will be available at www.cambria.org.uk.

Gwilym Hughes

Recent Publications of Welsh Interest in the CBA Research Reports Series

The CBA has recently published a new Welsh volume in its Research Report Series. Mountains and Orefields: metal mining landscapes of mid and north-east Wales by Nigel Jones, Mark Walters and Pat Frost (RR 142) is the first landscape-based overview of the significant impact of metal mining on the Welsh landscape. The extraction of natural resources has had a profound effect on the Welsh landscape, and the exploitation of metal ores has been a feature of rural upland landscapes since the bronze age.

Mountains and orefields ... is illustrated throughout with plans and photographs, and presents the results of project work done by the Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust during the 1990s on non-ferrous metal mining sites in the historic counties of Breconshire, Radnorshire, Montgomeryshire, Flintshire and Denbighshire. The project was funded by Cadw for the purpose of enhancing the Schedule of Ancient Monuments and the Regional Sites and Monuments Record. The work involved a desk-top element, creating a database of known sites, which was followed up by extensive measured ground surveys and photographic surveys of a number of mining sites selected either for scheduling purposes or because they presented a representative and coherent picture of mining and processing activities at different periods. A majority of the mining sites date to the period between the 17th and late 19th centuries though some, including those which were surveyed in detail, include evidence of prehistoric, Roman or medieval workings. A slightly different approach was taken with some mining areas such as Halkyn Mountain in Flintshire which show extensive areas of bell-pits. Here mining complexes were mapped from aerial photography with detailed field survey restricted to a limited number of features.

The following give an idea of the images and information to be found in this volume.

Craig-Mwyn, Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant. Hushing channel. Hushing was used as a means of prospecting and extraction. Water collected in reservoirs was released to remove overburden, exposing the ore-bearing rocks. This view from the valley bottom shows the broad fan of material washed out from the hushing channel on the hillside above. (CPAT 279-16A)
Nantiago, Llangurig, Powys. The engine shaft viewed from the north-west, with the remains of the iron winding wheel and wooden pumping rod at the top of the open shaft. The concrete structure on the right is the base for the pumping mechanism. (CPAT 329-29)
Nantiago, Llangurig, Powys. The processing mill and dressing floor machinery were powered by two Pelton-wheels, The Pelton wheels were driven by water under the pressure of gravity, a considerable force being provided by directing the water down a steep gradient in two iron pipes. (CPAT 329-03)
Nantiago, Llangurig, Powys. Only one of the Nantiago Pelton-wheels still survives in situ, It can be seen here and above supported by a timber frame above a stone and concrete wheelpit. (CPAT 144.32)
Cwm Orog, Llangynog, Powys. The lower end of the mine, viewed from the west, with Craig Rhiwarth hillfort in the background. A dressing floor and crusher lie towards the centre of the picture and the line of anincline is visible behind the building on the left. (CPAT 427-10)
Dalrihw, Llanwrthwl, Powys. Three ruined ore bins north of the engine shaft.Ore bins are stone hoppers in which material raised from the shaft was temporarily stored before being sorted or taken to the crusher. Ore was loaded into the top of the hopper and raked out threough an opening at the bottom for sorting. (CPAT 285-16)
Nantygarw, Llanwrthwl, Powys. Explosives’ magazine viewed from the west, looking down the Rhiwnant Valley. The building was safely positioned several hundred metres to the north-east of the mine office and was approached by its own track.(CPAT 644-19)
Nantygarw, Llanwrthwl, Powys. Remains of the chimney and hearth of the smithy. A smithy and a carpenter’s shop were essential at a mine, where tools and machinery constantly needed repair and maintenance. The smithy is often recognizable even in a ruined state by the presence of a smithing hearth against one wall. (CPAT 285-33)
Penyclun, Llanidloes, Powys. The engine house and chimney seen from the north-east. Penyclun was for a while the most productive mine in Montgomery-shire. It seems that ore was first discovered here by the resident farmer around 1845, being kept secret for some time, until being divulged by his son while under the influence of drink! (CPAT 276-21)

Summary of Contents

The emphasis throughout Mountains and orefields .. is upon the landscape perspective of the mining sites, including topography and setting, as well as on the interpretation, from the physical remains, of the mining techniques used above ground, the sources of power, methods of transport and on-site processing. It is intended to be of interest to readers with a broad interest in landscape history and archaeology as well as those with specialist interest in industrial archaeology and mining.

• Introduction
• Geological and historical background
• Interpreting the mining landscapes of mid Wales
• Interpreting the mining landscapes of north-east Wales
• Managing mining landscapes
• Appendix 1: Gazetteer of metal mines in mid Wales
• Appendix 2: Gazetteer of metal mines in north-east Wales
• Glossary of mining terms
• Bibliography
• Index

Two other recent publications from the CBA are: The Coastal Archaeology of Wales edited by Andrew Davidson (RR 131) which reports the results of a series of surveys funded by Cadw recording archaeology within the Welsh coastal zone, and Thomas Telford’s Holyhead Road: The A5 in north Wales by Jamie Quartermaine, Barrie Trinder and Rick Turner (RR 135) which presents the results of a survey undertaken in 1999 and 2000 of the 133km Welsh section of Telford’s London to Holyhead Road.

To buy a copy of Mountains and orefields ... or The Coastal Archaeology of Wales write to York Publishing Services, 64 Hallfield Road, Layerthorpe, York YO31 7ZQ tel 01904 431213 or email: orders@yps-publishing.co.uk. Thomas Telford’s Holyhead Road. . has already sold out, in spite of having a larger than usual print-run!

For more information about CBA publications you can visit the CBA website at http://www.britarch.ac.uk/shop.

2005 Spring Meeting and Symposium

HEN COLEG, SILIWEN ROAD, UPPER BANGOR

The Spring Business Meeting and of CBA Wales/Cymru will be held at Hen Coleg, Bangor on the morning of Saturday 19th March at 11am. The Symposium, to which we welcome non-members as well as members, will take place in the afternoon and will consist of five talks, followed by a visit to the Memorial Arch, College Park.

Lunch 12.30 pm
Upper Bangor has several pubs and cafés offering lunches. The Committee hopes to be able to provide coffee or tea at Hen Coleg for those bringing a packed lunch.

During lunch please take the opportunity to browse the CBA bookstall where you will find back numbers of Archaeology in Wales and a good selection of Central CBA publications. We also hope that as usual, Nick, Eva and Susanna Moore of Castle Books, will be offering a selection of second-hand, antiquarian and bargain books for sale.

4.30: Visit to the memorial Arch at the entrance to the College Park to see the very moving memorial room, lined with the names of all those from North Wales who died in the First World War. This room is not generally open to visitors.

FUTURE MEETINGS
The Autumn Business Meeting and AGM 2005 will be held in either Welshpool or Newtown on Saturday 15th October. The afternoon Symposium will be held in association with the Powysland Club.

The Spring 2006 meeting will be held in Swansea, provisionally on 18 March.