Episode 11

With the rain tipping down much heavier that it ever did in Ireland, and more persistent, we landed in Wales in the early hours of the morning.

Because it was so very wet I was once more confined to the car as my humans went off to visit an old gold mine that is no longer a working mine but saw a great deal of activity in Roman times and it's recently been decided by archaeologists that much earlier peoples worked it too. The Romans used an open cut method and as most of the best producing quartz was close to the surface they probably took out most of the gold. After the Romans the place was forgotten about until the late 1800’s when after a survey of the land the old open cut mine was discovered to have been a gold mine it was reopened. In the first 5 years after that it only produced a few ounces of gold, then a different consortium took over and employed better techniques and pulled out enough gold to make it a profitable concern, but by 1930 the cost of extracting the gold far outweighed any income and the place was abandoned again.

Then my humans went to see a waterfall, I really don’t get it, they only had to look at the windscreen to see a waterfall, it was tipping down. This waterfall is and has been since about the 1600’s a power source for a mill. Probably only a corn and flour mill originally and operated by a waterwheel, in the mid 19th century it was a tin plate works and made tin plate that was sent all over the world until well into the 20th cent. Men, women and children as young as 8 years old were employed here for a minimum of 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. Little is left of the old works, just a few stone ruins but there are a number of information boards that detail the process used and also an audio visual.

The waterfall has 1,000,000 litres of water over it every minute, maybe even more today with all this rain. I’d quickly get swept away if I fell in there, perhaps it’s best I stayed in the car. All that water is channelled in three different directions, some is still used to turn the waterwheel (although it wasn’t working at the time of our visit) that powers a small power plant, some powers a small hydro electric turbine, and the rest goes down the stream to keep it healthy so that most species that used it in the past have now returned including spawning salmon. And the rain is still tipping down.

Yes, it was still raining when we arrived at Tredegar House near Newport still in Wales. It was a Saturday morning and there were hundreds of joggers passing through the grounds on their way to the finish line in the car park. They all then descended upon the tea shop for a bacon sandwich and a cuppa. Not a good time for us to go for a coffee:

The big red brick part of this house was built for a fellow by the name of Morgan in the mid 17th cent. A small Tudor house that forms one wing of the present house already existed on the site. This Morgan fellow was quite a wealthy business man and coal mine owner who married a woman with a very large dowry to add to his fortunes.

His descendants continued to add to the family fortunes over coming centuries both from the existing business and even from having the road between the coal mines and the port at Newport, that the family owned too, passing across his land. He charged a 1penny a ton toll on all coal being transported to the port. Nice bit of pocket money that provided I expect. The male heir continued to marry women with attractively large dowries and so the fortunes continued to grow. Somewhere down the centuries a title was bestowed upon one of them and he, then each succeeding heir became a Lord Morgan.

That is until there was no direct heir to carry on and the house then passed to a cousin in the early 1900’s. In present day values, the fortune was worth approximately 2 billion Aussie Dollars. Over the next 30 years or so this cousin and his heir set about spending the fortune so that by 1951 there was less than half a million dollars (in todays money). Some partying that must have taken: The house was in dire need of repairs because it had been neglected during those years so the last fellow sold it off and it became a convent school run by Nuns until the 1990’s.

Finally the National Trust took it over and has done much restoration, though as in most such cases that is an ongoing, long time project.

There are several rooms open to the public and they are presented as they would have been in the 1800’s except that the dining room is set as for the wedding feast of the Morgan that built the house in the late 17th century. The adjacent room has a beautifully painted ceiling surrounded by decorative stucco, originally it was probably a drawing room, however, now there is a couch in the middle on which one is allowed to lay to admire the ceiling painting, alternatively for those who don’t wish to roll around a large couch on their backs in public there is also a mirror that shows a great reflection of this painting. L has a photo of that reflection as well as a direct photo. Neither she nor I got to roll about on the couch, I may have enjoyed that:

The rain cleared – whoopee! The sun came out, at least occasionally, as we made our way up the Wye valley to Monmouth where we drove up through the woods on a steep escarpment to visit a place called the Kymin. This is a two storey round house. L doesn’t know who built it, (not very informative is she) however it seems that is was built because it was a popular spot to sit and admire the view over the lovely Wye valley and enjoy a picnic, however as it is often raining in this part of the world whoever owned the land decided to build this round house (late 1700’s approx) so that the picnics could go ahead no matter what the weather.

It’s a simple structure really with the kitchen on the bottom floor and a dining room upstairs both with windows offering great views. One of the places most famous visitors was Horatio Nelson who visited in the early 1800’s after his victory at the 'Battle of the Nile’ against French ships.

Shortly after leaving the Kymin we crossed back into England.

Making our way back to Arundel we called at Laycock Abbey and village. The village has lovely old buildings many of which date from the Tudor period. L has some photos that I hope she will load for you when she publishes this. My humans enjoyed a stroll around the village admiring the place, however they can’t recommend the bakery where they bought some food. They say it really wasn’t up to scratch and it was expensive. Greasy and tasteless was the way L described it:

The abbey dates from the 1200’s but became a private residence in the 1500’s after Henry VIII dissolution of the monasteries. However, it’s real claim to fame as it were, is the fact that it was the home of William Henry Fox Talbot.

Now, I can hear you call scratching your heads and muttering "just who the hell was he": Well, my secretary, when she unscrambles her brain will endeavour to enlighten you.

William Henry Fox Talbot was one of the men accredited with inventing photography. We say one of the people, because he used a method that created a negative which he then developed into a positive photo. Around the same time a French man, Louis Daguerre, invented a method that produced a direct photo on silver coated thin copper sheet or some such thing. L didn’t fully understand, her limited capabilities I fear, but it was given the name of the ‘daguerreotype’ of photography. She suggests you look it up for yourself on the internet if you wish to know more.

As part of the abbey precinct there is a small museum about the invention of photography, these two men and the continuing development of the art. My humans found it fascinating, however, we all fear that it wasn’t much fun for the subject of one of these early photos because the exposure time for the very first ones was hours, then it was reduced to about 15 minutes. The two earliest photos taken by Fox Talbot were of a rocking horse in the nursery and a lattice work window in the house. To see these two items is one of the main purposes of a visit to the house. D got a photo of both, however as no flash photos were allowed and the rocking horse is kept in a very dimly lit room the photo D took is slightly burred. The camera did it’s best to compensate for the lack of light.

Continuing on our way back to Arundel we passed through another Tudor style village where the houses were all painted in white and black with immaculate gardens, unlike Laycock where the houses open mostly onto the streets and many are not painted a pristine back and white.

In our travels we saw a couple of tithe barns too, probably 12th to 14th cent. They are nearly always attached to a monastery being within the monastery grounds. It is into these places that the tenant farmers and others brought the hay or goods with which they were paying their tithe (a rent or tax on the land they farmed) that they owed the monastery.

Finally we arrived back in Arundel where poor, long suffering Heather greeted us with an enthusiasm I’m sure we don’t deserve, and a lovely cup of tea that we were all in much need of.

© Lynette Regan 11th July 2014