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Uncovered outside the Roman fortress in Caerleon by a team of staff and students from the School of History, Archaeology and Religion, the port is only the second known from Roman Britain and sheds new light on Wales' role in Roman Britain. The well-preserved remains of the port are located on the banks of the River Usk just north of the city of Newport and include the main quay wall, as well as the landing stages and wharves where ships would have docked and unloaded their cargoes. The team made the find during their on-going excavations of the 'Lost City...

The Welsh language could be set to thrive over the long-term, according to projections of whether endangered languages will flourish or fail. New Zealand’s native language on the other hand is projected to become extinct. More than half of the world’s estimated 7000 languages are expected to go extinct by 2100. But the Welsh language, spoken by about half a million people today, is expected to “thrive in the long term”, based on a model looking at how proficiency in languages changes over time. By contrast, te reo Maori, the language of the indigenous Maori in New Zealand, which nearly...

I could tell the way things were going when, in the last week of the election campaign, it became clear that the Conservatives were ahead in Ynys Môn and nervously confident in Newport West. Two very different seats that in their different ways told me the sort of movement that was going on. If voters on Anglesey were ignoring the selection problems of the Conservatives and criticism of the candidate from other parties, where else would they be ignoring such issues? And although the Tories didn’t win Newport West, the fact that they were actually worried about saying they were...

Live Updates: U.K. Votes in General Election Britain’s voters head to the polls to choose their next government on Thursday in a deeply divided moment for the country that has left the outcome unpredictable. RIGHT NOW Voting has begun in the British general election, the second since the country’s landmark Brexit referendum.

Great Orme copper found in Bronze Age artefacts "stretching from Brittany to the Baltic"North Wales was Britain's main source of copper for about 200 years during the Bronze Age, new research has found. Scientists analysed metal from the Great Orme, Conwy, and found it was made into tools and weapons, and traded across what is today's Europe. Historians once thought the Orme's copper mine - now a museum - had been a small-scale operation. Experts now believe there was a bonanza from 1600-1400 BC, with artefacts found in Sweden, France and Germany. The research, by scientists from the University...

Much of the discussion has seemed like an egg-centered debate: soft or hard, but it won't be over easy. A soft Brexit means staying closely aligned with the EU on trade, and is favored by Britons who oppose leaving. Hard means a clean break, and that could cost an estimated 9% of GDP cumulatively, along with 450,000 jobs. Pro tip: If a Brexit discussion gets too detailed, scare the other party off by insisting that a hard exit would "force the BOE back to the ZLB with more QE." Just in case your bluff is called, that's Bank of England,...

And although the burial mound is much older than the Druids — who lived about 2,000 years ago, if they existed at all — the excavations have cast new light on the ancient inhabitants of the island of Anglesey. Overlooking the Irish Sea from the northwest corner of Wales, Anglesey is dotted with numerous Neolithic and Bronze Age stone monuments. The most famous is the 5,000-year-old passage tomb of Bryn Celli Ddu (Welsh for "the mound in the dark grove"), which has an entrance passage that aligns with the rising midsummer sun. It was archaeologically excavated in 1928 and 1929,...

Ford has announced plans to close an engine plant in Wales, dealing yet another blow to a UK industry that is being ravaged by weak car sales and uncertainty over Brexit. The US automaker said it would shutter its plant in Bridgend by September 2020, when a contract to supply engines to Jaguar Land Rover ends. Some 1,700 people work at the factory. Ford (F) said Brexit did not influence its decision. But the company had previously warned that it may have to close plants if Britain leaves the European Union without protecting trade.

The Welsh Government has officially shifted its position on Brexit. It will now primarily argue for the UK to stay in the EU, rather than for its previous proposals for leaving with a deal on the single market and customs union which it said would protect Welsh jobs, prosperity and security.Brexit minister Jeremy Miles told AMs that it was clear that there was no appetite in the Conservative party at Westminster for the kind of Brexit deal that the Welsh Government might have found acceptable We sought to reconcile the result of the 2016 referendum with the least damaging kind...

Wales’ remain-supporting parties outstripped their Brexit-backing counterparts in Sunday’s (26 May) election results, prompting the leader of the principality’s nationalist party to declare it a “Remain nation”. In 2016, Wales voted alongside England to leave the EU. Although Nigel Farage’s newborn Brexit Party won 32.5% of the vote in Wales, advocates for a second referendum on EU membership (Liberal Democrats, Greens, Change UK and Plaid Cymru) mustered 42.4%. That led Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price to say that “Wales, which voted Leave three years ago, is now a Remain nation again, if you tally up the votes for the avowedly...

"The Black Book of Carmarthen," dating to 1250, contains texts from the ninth through 12th centuries, including some of the earliest references to Arthur and Merlin. "It's easy to think we know all we can know about a manuscript like the 'Black Book,' but to see these ghosts from the past brought back to life in front of our eyes has been incredibly exciting," Myriah Williams, a doctoral student at the University of Cambridge, said in a statement. "The drawings and verse that we're in the process of recovering demonstrate the value of giving these books another look." ... "The...

The 750-year-old Black Book of Carmarthen is the first Welsh text to include medieval figures such as King Arthur and Merlin... Now, thanks to high resolution photography and UV lighting, some of its secrets have finally been revealed... The collection of poetry and illustrations was penned by one scribe in the 13th Century who added to it over the years. It was then passed from owner to owner, with more additions being made in the margins... But 300 years after it was first written the then owner, believed to be Jaspar Gryffyth, decided to purge the pages of anything that...

The very latest laser technology combined with old fashioned pedal power is being used to provide a unique insight into the layout of Nottingham’s sandstone caves — where the city’s renowned medieval ale was brewed and, where legend has it, the country’s most famous outlaw Robin Hood was imprisoned. The Nottingham Caves Survey, being carried out by archaeologists from Trent & Peak Archaeology at The University of Nottingham, has already produced extraordinary, three dimensional, fly through, colour animation of caves that have been hidden from view for centuries. Below the grounds of Nottingham Castle and across the city there is...

LONDON - A British academic says he's found proof that Britain's legendary outlaw Robin Hood wasn't as popular with the poor as folklore suggests. Julian Luxford says a newly found note in the margins of an ancient history book contains rare criticism of the supposedly benevolent bandit. According to legend, Hood roamed 13th-century Britain from a base in central England's Sherwood Forest, plundering from the rich to give to the poor. But Luxford, an art history lecturer at the University of St. Andrews, in Fife, Scotland, says a 23-word inscription in a history book, written in Latin by a medieval...

Folklore holds that Robin Hood was a fearless outlaw loathed by the rich and loved by the poor. Fighting injustice and tyranny, his gallantry became the stuff of legend - and Hollywood movies. But according to a newly-discovered manuscript entry it appears that Robin and his Merry Men may not have been as popular as the stories would have us believe.Written in Latin and buried among the treasures of Eton's library, the 23 sparse words shed new light on the Sheriff of Nottingham's mortal foe. Translated, the 550-year-old note reads: 'Around this time, according to popular opinion, a certain outlaw...

A bottle-necked pit where hated outlaws including Robin Hood were imprisoned and starved or driven to insanity in the Middle Ages has been discovered by archaeologists in the underground caves of the Galleries of Justice Museum in Nottingham. Known as an oubliette (“to forget” in French), the hole was used as a holding cell for dissenters against the Sheriff of Nottingham, and the city’s favourite wealth-regulating son is believed to have been cast into it after being arrested by the Sheriff and his men at the nearby St Mary’s Church. “The opening was bricked over centuries ago, probably in the...

ROBIN HOOD'S PRISON? SHERIFF'S DUNGEON FOUND AT NOTTINGHAM GAOL By Caroline Lewis 17/10/2007 One of the above ground prison cells at the Galleries of Justice. © Galleries of Justice New evidence has been discovered that the medieval caves under Nottingham’s Galleries of Justice museum were once used by the Sheriff of Nottingham as a prison. The dark dungeon cells would have been in use when the Sheriff resided at the Shire Hall and County Gaol. “It is an exciting discovery,” said Tim Desmond, Chief Executive at the Galleries. “The cave has always been known as the ‘Sheriff’s Dungeon’, but until...

A merry mess: Yorkshire claims Robin Hood Lizette Alvarez/NYT Tuesday, February 17, 2004 NOTTINGHAM, England Not since Mikhail Baryshnikov defected from the Soviet Union has there been such a fuss over a man in tights. For centuries, Robin Hood, the dashing, chivalrous hero to the oppressed, has been the property of Nottinghamshire in the midlands - land of Sherwood Forest, Nottingham Castle and one nefarious sheriff. But now, in a brazen grab for bragging rights, Yorkshire, an adjacent county, is laying claim to the 800-year-old legend and demanding, by way of a parliamentary motion, immediate redress. In a country where...

'Robin Hood's escape tunnel found' Experts believe they've found a tunnel that allowed Robin Hood to escape from the Sheriff of Nottingham. The secret passageway found under the Galleries of Justice museum in Nottingham is eight feet below street level. Archaeologists excavating 14th-century manmade caves beneath the museum stumbled upon it accidentally when they broke through a rotten wood floor. The museum's curator Louise Connell says the tunnel leads towards St Mary's Church, where ancient documents say Robin sought sanctuary from the Sheriff 's men. The Evening Post says it's believed he used the tunnel to escape from the church,...

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.