I think that one of the greatest joys in life is a well-designed museum. Whatever the subject matter, you can come away after a visit, uplifted, entertained and educated. As a museum professional, I rejoice every time I go to St Fagan’s. Not just because it means I am only 15 miles away from a branch of my family, but because I regard the National History Museum of Wales (Sain Ffagan: Amgueddfa Werin Cymru) as being an object lesson in good museum design. The huge estate and 16th century St Fagans Castle, donated to the nation by the Earl of Plymouth is the least part of this museum. The National museum has assembled, re-erected, and conserved on the site over 40 important buildings from all over Wales.
Amongst these are a series of six identical row houses from the iron-working community of Rhyd-y-Car, Merthyr Tydfil, which between 1800 and 1860 was the largest town in Wales, although it had NO basic facilities such as toilets or piped water! These tiny houses were built in 1795 by Richard Crawshay, the owner of an iron ore mine, an iron smelting plant and coal mines, to house some of his 1,500 workers. Amazingly, some of the houses continued to be occupied until the 1980s, although similar ones had been condemned as unfit for human habitation, and boarded up by the local authorities in 1930! Those that were condemned quickly became derelict, and were stripped by thieves of anything usuable, and it wasn't until 1979 that six of them were dismantled and transported to St Fagans, where they became the 20th to the 25th buildings erected on site.
A decision to restore each of the six as it would have been in a diffent time period was made; this even extended to the external finish of the houses and the style and contents of their gardens. The points in time chosen were 1805, 1855, 1895, 1925, 1955 and 1985. This photograph shows a room from one of a series of identical row houses, each one decorated and furnished appropriately.
This is the kitchen in the 1805 house, and shows a typical Welsh dresser. A 'dresser', built to contain plates, utensils, and display decorative items, is an integral part of any Welsh house. Indeed, my sister-in-law has a particularly splendid one, in local pine, which she uses to show off some of her extensive collection of Denby stoneware. This dresser holds turned wooden platters (treenware) common in poorer households, pewter platters and plates (similar pewter items had been used since the Middle Ages), pewter mugs, a pair of pewter candlesticks and both painted and transfer-printed stoneware and china jugs and mugs. The process of both under-glaze and over-glaze transfer printing onto ceramic objects had been perfected in Britain in the 1750s, and the porcelain factory at Worcester had turned out huge quantities of such items.
The child’s chair to the right of the picture has simple lathe-turned legs, and appears to be in beech. No, your eyes are not deceiving you. The stone-tiled floor is heavily sloping – right to left – look at the framed print on the wall!
I cannot emphasise just what a joy it is to walk from house to house, and compare the interior fixtures and fittings, and see how the domestic arrangements changed over a period of nearly two centuries. It is like watching history unfold in front of your eyes.
St Fagans: National History Museum of Wales - a true 'bucket list' item!
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