Heritage of Wales
Episode Three
Episode Three explores a complete landscape of the Roman army next to Trawsfynydd nuclear power station, examines the clues to Welsh social history in a great Llanelli chapel, and traces the masterpieces of master-carpenters of Tudor Wales.
You can see the episode on BBC Wales History
Tomen-y-mur
Toby Driver, the aerial investigator of the Royal Commission, meets Dr Jeff Davies of Aberystwyth University to discuss some recent discoveries at the Roman military landscape of Tomen-y-mur near Trawsfynydd.
Tomen-y-mur, near Trawsfynydd, is an exceptional military landscape of the Roman era where aerial photography has revealed a large number of features. At the heart of the site is the Roman auxiliary fort, which stood in a prominent position on the road from Brithdir near Dolgellau to Segontium at Caernarfon. It was probably founded around AD 70 and abandoned by about AD 130, so a snapshot of half a century of intense activity can be read in the landscape. It includes the playing-card plan of the fort (A), the line of defence to reduce the size of the fort and a Norman motte dating from a millennium later (B). The headquarters building (C) and barrack blocks can be seen. Other classic military features include a parade ground (E), practice camps (J), an amphitheatre (D), a bathhouse (G), an annexe (K), water supply leats (I) and bridge abutments (H). The tribunal (F) from which officers oversaw the troops on the parade ground may have originated as a geological feature.
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Capel Als
The Royal Commission’s Head of Survey and Investigation, Stephen Hughes, meets Huw Edwards at Capel Als in Llanelli, to discuss the social history represented by this great chapel.
The Royal Commission has calculated for its national chapels survey that in all some 7,000 chapel buildings have existed in Wales. Of the people who were counted in the religious census of 1851, 80 per cent were nonconformists and by 1905 4,280 chapels were operating. Many were rebuilt several times. Capel Als in Llanelli was started in 1780 and enlarged twice in the next fifty years. It was then rebuilt to the designs of Thomas Thomas in 1852-3 and again in 1894-5. Capel Als was a working-class church whose membership was entirely Welsh-speaking. Its ministers were political as well as religious figures, such as David Rees, who was a social reformer, political campaigner and propagandist. Under his leadership, Capel Als grew into one of the strongest chapels in Wales. The buildings were greatly expanded and improved in 1894-5, during the ministry of Dr Thomas Johns, by Owen Morris Roberts, the renowned chapel architect from Porthmadog. The quality of the carpentry, the plaster-work of the ceiling, the tiling and the stained glass combined to make Capel Als among the finest chapels in Wales. It stands as a reminder to Llanelli's future generations of what was once achieved by the ordinary working men and women of their town.
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Old Impton
Royal Commission Investigator Richard Suggett sheds light on the work of the forgotten master carpenters of Wales at Old Impton near Presteigne.
Old Impton in Radnorshire shows the transition in late-medieval and early modern Wales from stone to timber building. It has timberwork of the highest quality completed by an unknown master. The craft of the carpenter in church and house was of great significance and in their day carpenters were as well known as the best poets and musicians. Tree-ring dating has shown that Old Impton was built in only two phases, despite its complex form. It is a stone-built hall-house of 1471 with sophisticated timber-framed additions of 1542. Documentary research sheds light on what was happening at these two dates. In 1471 the receiver of the lordship of Maelienydd built a stone hall here. Two generations later his grandson, Thomas ap Watkin, married the daughter of a Shropshire knight, Sir John Bradshaw. It appears that the 1542 rebuilding was a consequence of his advantageous match. The porch built at that time is two-storeyed and jettied in best Tudor fashion. The ceiling joists are gently domed and expensively moulded. The door-head and the brackets that support the jetty are carved with foliage and interlacing squares and circles and the carpenter has represented all the tools needed to build a house – from felling-axe to saw and auger – vividly expressing the pride of the carpenter in his craft.
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