Posted on 04/01/2006 3:17:12 PM PST by blam
Unearthing Welsh history
(Filed: 01/04/2006)
An archaeologist digs deep in his pocket to find a medieval town, reports Jonny Beardsall
That an amateur archaeologist was prepared to pay £32,000 for 4.5 unremarkable acres at Trelleck, Monmouthshire, must mean Welsh sons of the soil are salivating with glee. But so convinced is Stuart Wilson that the field is the site of a lost medieval town, he still insists it was money well spent a year after he bought the land.
Broken but valuable: archaeologist Stuart Wilson holds a roof tile dug up at the site
Mr Wilson, 27, and friends at the Monmouth Archaeological Society, have a strong hunch that, 700 years ago, Trelleck was not only the industrial heart of Wales, specialising in the manufacture of iron, but also its largest and most prosperous town. So in an attempt to confirm this, they have, for three years, been burrowing in fields to the south of the present day village.
Last year, Mr Wilson pricked up his ears when a tenant farmer mentioned that his landlord, Monmouth County Council, had asked him to move his sheep from an adjacent field as it was soon to be sold at auction. "Although we hadn't dug there yet, we'd always looked at this particular field as an area of archaeological significance because it has a road frontage, which is a good clue when looking for a settlement," he says. "It was old pasture land, which implies that the earth is stony for some reason and too difficult to plough."
Mr Wilson seized his opportunity, secured a £20,000 loan and tipped up at the auction. Building on the field looked unlikely, so he was surprised to clock a developer at the sale.
Too nervous to bid, his father stepped in. "Soon it was just the developer and us left in and, in the end, we went higher than I'd intended to get it," recalls Mr Wilson, who is a toll collector on the Severn Bridges.
Ken Morgan, of chartered surveyors Newland Rennie and Wilkins - which auctioned the field - was not surprised. "Grazing has been making over £4,000 an acre even in blocks of 20 and 40 acres and, in February, we even sold 19.6 acres between Cardiff and Newport, for £13,800 an acre. Many buyers are non-farmers. Some want to scramble bikes on it, others keep horses and now someone wants to dig it up… these days we never worry about what people want to do with it."
After breaking the good news to his archaeological mentor, Stephen Clarke - the Monmouth society's chairman - both men were in the Valley of the Kings … here was the opportunity to dig to their heart's content.
"I'd always wanted a piece of ground where I had full control as, normally, when you dig somewhere, you are forever reinstating the topsoil when you take a break. When you return, you have to dig it all up again," he says. Not any more. Digging began last spring.
Labour of love: Stuart Wilson's caravan at Trelleck
"We soon found a significantly large building with wide stone foundations and floors which dates from 1250-1350, which does suggest that this is the site of a medieval town," he reports.
But, if he is not intent on any development, will he ever see a return?
"I could sell the stone, rubble and topsoil that we've already removed and, as I'm the landowner, any artefacts I find are mine. If I turn up something of value and the Crown wants it as treasure trove, they must pay me the market value for it," he says.
Mr Wilson now parks a caravan on the site, which provides rudimentary shelter. "I've gathered from the council that I might well be allowed to reconstruct a building I find at some stage, in much the same way as Channel 4's Time Team does," he says.
With this in mind, he has spoken to the programme makers. "They bring the benefits of cash and expertise but I'm led to believe that they do tend to take over if you invite them in. The thing is, this is my little baby - do I want some big organisation telling me what to do?" Most would agree not.
My great grandfather was born in Ysbty Ystwyth in 1842. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1863. He married a Welsh young lady from Aberystwyth when he returned to Pittsburgh, PA in 1865 after serving in the Union Army.
On the trip where I found the guardianship papers, I also found a microfilm record of the marriage of John Edwards and Jane Rowlands in 1833 at Llanfihangel y Creuddyn. That afforded me a chance to correct my family records with respect the the exact date and place of their marriage. Jane's family house is still standing on the road just north of Ystrad Meurig.
How many of them were booted from Britain to the penal colony? It may be that they have lost the details of their heritage, thus are left with just a general notion of their own history. My wife's paternal grandmother was a Cherokee indian. She lost her parents in the Trail of Tears march. That line of research is pretty limited.
My paternal grandmother was a very diligent researcher. Her side of the family arrived on the Mayflower. My paternal grandfather traces his family through his father's arrival in 1865 from Wales. My maternal grandfather traces his roots back to Jamestown. John Alden and Priscilla Mullins are in his direct lineage. At one point his family held title to what is now Norfolk. The grant from the King titled the area 'Fanshaw's bottom'. There are still streets with the family name in Norfolk.
They were actually pretty much voluntary migrants from the lower to mainstream middle class in Victorian Britain as NZ was never a penal colony. But from what I found at museums and government archives, it seems most migrants were either the Cornwall area, Oxfordshire, or northern England's industrial towns, and with some loewland Scots added into the mix.
I don't think I have any Welsh ancestors but have admired them ever since learning the defenders at Roark's Drift were Welsh Engineers.
btt
ping
I'd love to visit Wales someday.
I second that emotion.
Pff. Most of the Rorke's Drift defenders were in fact English.
http://www.rorkesdriftvc.com/myths/myths.htm
Recruiting mainly from Warwickshire. The 24th did not become a Welsh regiment until 1881. So this crap about them singing 'Men of Harlech' in the film 'Zulu!' is rubbish...
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