Heritage of Wales
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Episode Three
Rediscovering a Roman Villa in mid Wales, revealing hidden wonders of St David’s Cathedral and rescuing a twentieth-century sculpture.
Rediscovering a Roman villa in mid Wales
Toby Driver is joined by David Hopewell and Dr Jeffrey Davies to investigate unusual cropmarks discovered in a field near Aberystwyth. Could they represent the lost footings of a Roman villa?
The Abermagwr Roman building, Ceredigion
Cropmarks in a dry field at Abermagwr showing part of a double-ditched enclosure were first recorded by Cambridge University aerial photographers in August 1979. Aerial photographs of the site taken by the Royal Commission in severe drought conditions in July 2006 revealed a far more complex monument. Geophysical survey of the site in 2009 revealed the characteristic plan of what may be Ceredigion’s first Roman villa.
It was initially thought that the cropmark enclosure could be a late Iron Age or Romano-British temenos, a sacred enclosure common in south England and also known in eastern Wales, but not hitherto west of the Cambrian Mountains. Eighteenth-century estate maps show a small field named ‘dol capel’ (chapel meadow) here, and the stone building was tentatively interpreted as a possible medieval chapel. In 2009 David Hopewell of the Gwynedd Archaeological Trust was commissioned by the Royal Commission to undertake a geophysical survey of the complex, using a fluxgate gradiometer. This dramatically altered the interpretation of the site, particularly as far as the stone building was concerned. With its central portion measuring 22m by 7.5m, both the plan and dimensions appear to show a central block divided into three rooms and two rectangular wings projecting to the south-west linked by a ‘corridor’ or veranda. Another rectangular room projects to the rear of the main block. In plan and dimensions the building has all the hallmarks of a small Roman villa of a type which flourished from the mid-second to the fourth century AD. If so, it lies well away from the main block of know Welsh villas in lowland Gwent and the Vale of Glamorgan with a thin spread into south Carmarthenshire and south Pembrokeshire. However, there are examples of scattered, but well-appointed villas, occupying better quality land in the upper Usk valley, and, significantly for this find, at Llys Brychan (NPRN 304634), near Llangadog in the Tywi Valley, Carmarthenshire.
Should the Abermagwr building prove to be a villa it will be one of the most exciting discoveries to be made in the context of Romano-British settlement in west Wales, hitherto dominated by farmsteads lying within rectilinear or oval ditched and embanked enclosures of the mid to late Iron Age, whose residential structures invariably prove to be timber roundhouses. The Abermagwr ‘villa’ raises the possibility of the discovery of other high-status settlements in the region. It also raises fascinating questions about the relationship between the ‘villa’ and both the double-ditched enclosure and the nearby Roman fort and vicus, which had been abandoned by about AD 130.
Link to the Coflein record for the Abermagwr Roman site:
Link to RCAHMW aerial photography gallery:
Link to Roman history on RCAHMW website
St David’s Cathedral
The Bishop of St David’s, Rt Rev. J. Wyn Evans, meets Richard Suggett and Iain Wright of the Royal Commission to discuss the date and significance of the great nave ceiling at St David’s Cathedral, considered to be one of the architectural wonders of Wales.
The great nave ceiling at St David’s cathedral is one of the greatest timber works of art in Wales. The ceiling is dominated by huge pendants which float impressively above the name but are without any religious symbolism whatsoever.
The roof has been the object of much admiration since the late sixteenth century but it is not known exactly when it was built or indeed who built it. Various myths have collected around the roof: it is said to have been made of Irish bog oak and by Flemish (or ‘foreign’) craftsmen. The roof has a strongly marked Renaissance character, especially in the detailing of the pendants. It has twelve bays (with obvious symbolism) and pendants at the intersections of the moulded beams. The pendants are in the form of little castles with carvings of renaissance type of masks and paired dolphins.
The hidden part of the roof is as remarkable as the visible part. One can only reach the roof-trusses by climbing a tight stone stair within the west end of the nave and walking across the ‘leads’ of the aisle roof to another stair turret that leads finally to the hidden roof. The nave ceiling is suspended from a roof of king-post type with a large central post that supports the ridge-beam.
The tree-ring dates tell an unexpectedly complicated story. Three phases have been identified: a stock-piling phase in the early sixteenth century; construction in the second quarter of the sixteenth century; and a phase of repair and consolidation in the mid-sixteeth century. This complex sequence is consistent with the documentary sources: these indicate that the roof was commissioned before 1509 and was partly constructed by the 1530s, but that work stopped between 1536 and 1548.
So we know when the roof was built – not long before the Reformation. The tree-ring sequences established that the roof was constructed from Welsh oak and not (as legend has it) Irish oak. What about the foreign craftsmen? There may be some truth in this. King-posts roofs are common enough in the eighteenth century but an absolute rarity in England and Wales until used by Christopher Wren and other seventeenth-century architects influenced by Italian architecture. The king-posts roof does suggest that the nave roof at St David’s was influenced directly or indirectly by continental/Italian models. Indeed it has a good claim to be the earliest roof of this type in the British Isles.
Jonah Jones sculpture under threat
Susan Fielding and Peter Wakelin of the Commission record and research a 1960s sculpture by Jonah Jones that is due to be dismantled when the accommodation block at Coleg Harlech is demolished to make way for a hotel development.
Jonah Jones was born in 1919 in the North East of England and died in Cardiff in 2004. During the 1950s he established a workshop and became one of the few artists in Wales who earned their livings solely from art. He did not see sculpture as a luxury, but preferred to make things that took their natural place in the community and would be accepted as part of the everyday environment. Welsh subject matter was a constant preoccupation throughout his half-century career in Wales. The sculpture at Coleg Harlech covers four sides of the lift shaft in the refectory, a total area of 11.5 x 4.5 metres. It is made of Sicilian marble and Welsh slate and there are over 800 individual pieces. The imagery shows natural forms on the left, then a bridge (the symbol of Coleg Harlech) linking it to the ordered world of science, technology and art.
The original appearance of the sculpture, set against a vivid orange background, with an open staircase behind it, and with pieces that have since been damaged, was reconstructed in a virtual animation by See3D based on the Commission’s measured survey. This shows how the sculpture would look if it was displayed flat rather than around four walls. The prospects for the sculpture are now improving and it is hoped that it will be placed as part of a sculpture park on the diverted coastal path through Harlech. The Commission’s measured surveys will inform the process of dismantling in due course and help to ensure that it can be re-erected.
Link to Jonah Jones obituary:
Link to Jonah Jones website: