Museum Archives - Aberyscir Coach House

St Fagans

March 1, 2019 By Valerie Davies

St Fagans

St Fagans National Museum of History showcases the history of Wales through the people’s everyday lives. The museum is just outside Cardiff and is free to enter though there is a small parking fee.

Inside

The main conference building holds two museums with household memorabilia and workplace tools. The museums are of an era where you may even have some of the items in your own house, inherited from granny. They even have an early touring caravan with all the latest mod cons? There is a large restaurant in this building as well.

The grounds

The main attractions are outside in the extensive grounds of the original house which still stands and parts are open to visitors. The formal gardens and ponds are well maintained with lots of quiet seating areas.

They have gathered up houses from many different eras and transplanted them to the museum. This includes farmhouses, workmen cottages and barns. There is even a high street complete with shops selling Welsh produce. You can stop off at the bakers to get something for your lunch or of cause return to the cafe in the main building. A terrace of houses has been furnished to show how they were modernised throughout several eras.

Several of the buidings such as the mill have live demonstrations during the day and there are also volunteers in the cottages to explain how the people lived. They are dressed in period costume and help you to imagine what it might have been like.

The museum has constructed a High Rope attraction for the children which ends with a zip wire descent.

It is very popular with school groups and can get a little crouded in the tiny cottages. You should allow a good few hours to do the place justice.

Aberyscir Coach House – Brecon Beacons Guide

Big Pit Blaenafon

November 8, 2018 By Valerie Davies

Big Pit Blaenafon

As part of our Brecon Beacons Ambassador scheme we visited Big Pit National Coal Museum at Blaenafon.The site sits high on the Blaenafon moor exposed to the Welsh weather. Below it are the rows of terraced houses where the miners once lived. Now home to commuters from the neighbouring cities like Swansea, Neath and Newport.

When the mine closed over 100 years of coal mining came to an end. It was decided to preserve and share the experience of the Welsh miner in a museum. There are still real ex miners that take you 90 metres underground in the same cage as they used though thankfully quite a bit slower. Our guide Steve had worked in the mines for 35 years and as you can imagine had a few tall tales to tell .

He made you feel like his first guests of the day and that he was really pleased to see you. Some of the stories brought home to you the reality of working underground both for him and the ones that came before. Conditions had improved over the years with machinery taking away some of the back bracking work but it was still a dangerous place to be. Afterwards we went on a tour of the bath house.

The Museum

This facility is now a museum but still retains many of the major improvements of a miner’s life that it brought like showers , clean clothes and a canteen. It even has a water bottle fill station which is quite ironic considering our current move away from bottled water. So proves we can still learn from the past. The Museum is set in a unique industrial landscape, designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2000. It is in recognition of its international importance to the process of industrialisation through iron and coal production.

Entry is free which is another bonus.

Aberyscir Coach House – Brecon Beacons Guide

Blaernavon

May 2, 2018 By Valerie Davies

Blaernavon

Today I visited Blaernavon World Heritage Centre and Blaernavon Ironworks. The heritage centre is based in a converted school house. It offers an insight into the industrial era and the production of iron ore that went on to be railway tracks and cannon balls. There are displays and presentations designed to bring this era to life.

A model of the ironworks shows how it looked at the height of its production period. A few of the buildings remain in which examples of the tools remain slowly rusting in the dusty old buildings. The ruined furnaces are still visible today as are the remains of the foundry, cast house and water balance tower that raised wagons 80 feet into the air.

The cottages on site have been staged with items that would have been relavent to different eras. This gives you an idea of what living there was like but without the pollution and heat the 6 large furnaces produced.

History of Blaernavon

The edges of the Brecon Beacons were rich in coa,l iron ore and limestone which were the main raw materials of the Industrial Revolution. Blaernavon came about because of this.

They forged the tools, machines and engines. These were used to build the railways, ships and bridges at the start of our modern industrial socierty.

It started in 1789 when steam was used to power the blast furnaces of Blaernavon. Just 100 years later Sidney Gilchrist Thomas invented a method to remove phosphorus from iron ore to make steel.

Blaenavon was owned by infamous ruthless industrialists but they would have been nothing without the workers to run the furnaces. The work was hard, hot and with small reward but at least housing was provided for some. They were expected to work 12 hour days, seven days a week. You would have found children as young as 5 being put to work which took many years to be banned.

Aberyscir Coach House – Brecon Beacons Guide

Royal Welsh Museum

April 9, 2017 By Valerie Davies

Today we visited The Regimental Museum of The Royal Welsh with the Brecon Beacons Ambassador Scheme.

The exploits of the 24th Regiment during the 1879 Anglo-Zulu War are legendary and remembered in the film Zulu. There is a model of the battlefield which helps explain what they did that day. The museum also has memorabilia from other eras of the Regiment. There is a dedicated chapel in Brecon Cathedral where many of the Regimental colours hang from the ceiling including those of the Anglo-Zulu war. They are a great place to visit on a wet day and maybe finish off with a drink or snack in the Pilgrims Tearooms in the Cathedral grounds.