myguideBritain Blog

Wales Through the Ages

November 13th, 2007

Having spent the last few weeks in recovery from my adventure break around Wales, last weekend Keith pointed out that it was high-time I got back out on the road to do some exploring and gave me my next assignment. I found myself slightly disappointed to discover that I was to be visiting a museum; I love to learn but after battling the Atlantic Ocean in the name of myguideBritain I thought that peering at fossils in a glass cabinet would be a bit of a let down. Of course, I was over-looking the fact that St Fagans Welsh National History Museum is a very unique museum indeed.

With the November weather being particularly kind (we deserve it after our summer) I set off from Cardiff (my home town) on a bright and crisp morning towards St Fagans and within just 15 minutes I was already pulling up in the car park. The museum is remarkably accessible, situated just a stone’s throw from Cardiff, the capital of Wales, with regular bus service from the city centre and equally close to the M4 motorway. However because the museum is located in the grounds of St Fagans Castle, a 16^th century manor house, and in 100 acres of its own parkland it holds a natural feel of history and that fresh scent of the countryside, a scent distinctly enhanced by the live-in farm animals!

St Fagans covers such a broad area as it is an open-air museum housing forty real historic buildings from various eras in welsh history. The buildings including, amongst others, a traditional farmhouse, a school, chapel, two functioning water mills and various shops have all been taken from the corners of the country and re-erected brick by brick in the grounds of St Fagans. As I strolled through the main entrance and in to the grounds it really was like stepping back in time. The first house I came across was an old peasants cottage originally constructed in the Early 1500s. The cottage itself was built of rough stone with a thatch roof and the surrounding yard had its own pigsty and vegetable garden (the peasants who had lived here were subsistence farmers, producing all of their own food). I was shocked to discover that not only could you view this building from the outside you could also go inside so I was straight in to the cottage to get a real feel for life in the era. The house was split in to just 2 rooms, the living quarters and the sleeping quarters and it was incredibly dark and smoky throughout as there was just one tiny window. The open fire was blazing as it would have been on a frosty November morning in the 16^th century and the chimney was just a tiny hole in the roof. Smoke was a real issue for homes in this era and I was quickly informed by one of the friendly staff that in the Elizabethan period the number and size of your chimney stacks became a status symbol as only the rich could afford to have large stone chimney flues from every fireplace to clear the smoke. I later counted the chimneys on St Fagans Castle itself, a grand Elizabethan Manor; there were nine.

From the stuffy little cottage I followed a sweeter smell to the fully functional welsh bakery producing authentic welsh treats that I just couldn’t resist and the village shops were also stocked up with products that my grandparents would have bought just a couple of generations ago. The contrast of eras was even starker when I wandered in to the office of one of the clerks in the impressive late-Victorian workman’s institute, there was no laptop and cordless mouse on his desk.

My favourite attraction of the day however was the row of terraced workman’s cottages. These six identical cottages standing shoulder to shoulder are identical, or almost identical I should say, each one laid-out and furnished from a different generation since the beginning of the industrial revolution in the 1800s right through to present day. As you wander into each cottage, into their little gardens and vegetable patches and along the changing cobbled path you can literally walk through the ages and the lives of previous generations and see the how welsh life has changed and developed so much in such a short time.

What makes St Fagans particularly impressive is not only the attention to detail in all of the features but also the little extras that are available. There are guides in almost every room who are generally local people, many welsh speaking, and who are not only happy to answer questions but are often speaking from personal experience. You can ride around the extensive manor grounds and gardens on horse and cart and have your photo taken fully dressed for a dinner party in the Victorian era. And of course as with all of our public museums here in Britain admission is absolutely free.

I came away from St Fagans talking on my mobile phone, climbing into my own car, and heading back to warm home and my laptop where I would access our system through WYFI internet and write this blog. My house only has one chimney but I was feeling very happy indeed.

Entry Filed under: All of Britain