ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 21 April 2012: The Annual General Meeting will be held on Saturday, Saturday 21 April 2012 at 2pm, at the Endowed Junior School, High Street, Caerleon. After the business meeting there will be an illustrated lecture given by Christabel Hutchings who has spent 10 years studying his vast archive. The lecture is entitled

‘ T. H.  Thomas (1839-1915), Artist, Antiquarian, Naturalist and Welsh Cultural Nationalist ’

On the left is Thomas as a young man wearing a medal.  This was probably the medal he won when attending the Bristol School of Practical Art. His art training at this organisation was based on a Government funded scheme organised by the Kensington School of Art. In 1858 he attended  F. S. Cary’s Art Academy in Bloomsbury and by 1871 he was studying at the Royal Academy Schools, but he was never able to put RA after his name. Instead he joined the Royal Cambrian Academy c. 1880 and always inserted RCA after his name. He used his art in his role as a journalist for The Graphic and Daily Graphic newspapers as well as illustrating books such as Wirt Sikes, British Goblins.

On the right we can see Thomas the Welsh cultural nationalist. He was in many ways a polymath with a wide variety of interests. He was interested in folklore, biology, botany, archaeology, geology and was a vice-president of Cardiff Naturalists Society and wrote articles for their Transactions. He joined the eisteddfod movement and became the first Herald Bard of the Gorsedd in 1895. He believed in the authenticity of Iolo Morganwg’s forgeries which he studied at Llanover and used them as the basis for his creation of a picturesque Gorsedd for which he created regalia and ceremony. In reality Thomas was part of an invention of tradition which took place before the first world war which saw a resurgence of interest in Welsh culture.

Comments on the AGM

This year we were pleased that our Patron the Rt Revd Dominic Walker, the Bishop of Monmouth, attended the meeting and presented a certificate of honorary membership to Dr David H Williams. This certificate  had been beautifully illuminated by our artist in residence, Keith Underwood. The Revd Dr David Willams has been a member of our Association  for many years and has been a past editor of our journal, The Monmouthshire Antiquary, and is largely responsible for the present format.  This year’s superb journal, edited by  Annette Burton, was given out to the members.

The meeting was attended by over 50 people and a decision was made to increase the cost of membership to £12 for a single membership to £15 for a double membership. This is because the costs of the journal and more importantly the cost of postage and packing means that there is a shortfall in funds. It was pointed out the membership fee has only just covered the cost of the journal.

The talk was given by Christabel Hutchings the secretary of the MAA, who has been researching the archives of Thomas Henry Thomas (see above) for 10 years. Many members were totally unaware of the importance of this Welsh antiquarian, naturalist and  cultural nationalist. Christabel stated it was difficult to do justice to the man’s many varied interests in a single lecture, and that she had struggled to get through the material. The lecture was well received and the power point presentation, which showed examples of Thomas’s work, was greatly appreciated. It was fitting that in the audience was Canon Arthur J Edwards who has written the definitive work on T.H Thomas’s father, Thomas Thomas of Pontypool, Radical Puritan.

The role of Thomas with regards to the Gorsedd of Bards can be a contentious issue and Christabel dealt with the invention and re-invention of tradition taking place in Wales and other countries before the First World War.  Unfortunately there was a little time to do justice to Thomas’s fascinating role as First Herald Bard of the Gorsedd.  Christabel hopes that her book ‘The Correspondence of Thomas Henry Thomas (‘Alunydd Penygarn’) which is currently with the printers, will be published shortly by the South Wales Record Society. It has been edited by the general editor Professor Chris Williams of Swansea University.

1 MARCH 2012: MEETING AT CARDIFF: LECTURE at 5.15pm

Frances Lynch FSA will lecture on: ‘Megalithic Studies in Wales’

In the Julian Hodge Theatre, Julian Hodge Study Centre, Colum Road,

Cardiff University

The Monmouthshire Antiquarian Association and Cardiff Archaeological Society are privileged to have been invited to this historic event which will be the first formal meeting of the Society in Wales. The President will take the chair at 5.15 pm and other officers will be in attendance as at any ordinary meeting at Burlington House. We will witness the business of the meeting and the Mace and Cocked Hat will be placed on the table, the minutes read, gifts announced and Fellows admitted. The Society has a membership of some 2,900 Fellows who are experts in their chosen fields. There are approximately 120 Welsh fellows some of whom are members of our Association. The Society has one of the finest archaeological Libraries in the country. The Society also provides grants which are available to students, researchers and scholars.

 There will be a lecture given by Frances Lynch who is Honorary Research Fellow at the School of History & Welsh History at Bangor University. After the lecture the MAA has been invited to attend the reception for Fellows and guests from 6.30-7.30 pm.

Jeremy Knight’s comment

The Thursday lectures of the Society of Antiquaries of London are among the most important institutions of British archaeology. Normally held in the Society’s apartments in Burlington House, next door to the Royal Academy, this year, to mark St David’s Day, for the first time in its three hundred year history, a Thursday lecture was held in Cardiff, in Cardiff University, in conjunction with the Monmouthshire Antiquarian Association and Cardiff Archaeological Society. The Society’s President, Maurice Howard, presided, with the General Secretary, John Lewis. The Society’s regalia- the mace and cocked hat- were on display and two newly elected Fellows were formally admitted by the President. The Association was well represented in the large audience by a number of members.

 The main business of the meeting was to hear a lecture by Frances Lynch, of Bangor University, on Megalithic Studies in Wales.  Frances, a leading Welsh prehistorian, has studied the megalithic tombs of Wales and further afield for many years and excavated a number of important sites. She gave a wide ranging survey of our knowledge of these important monuments. The lecture was followed by a very enjoyable reception and by a dinner at which your Chairman proposed the health of the guests. Our thanks must go to Alan Aberg, and to Professor John Hines for arranging this meeting and for their hard work in its organization.

We will meet at the Shire Hall at 10.30 am. We will be given a tour and  talk by the Learning Manager Karin Molson. Tea or coffee will be provided. There will be a small charge. The visit will end at approximately 12.30 when you will be free to take edvantage of Monmouth’s restaurants and other places of historical interest.

Shire Hall is located in the centre of Monmouth, Wales. It is a Grade I  listed, in the classical style architecture designed by Philip Fisher of Bristol in 1724.  The Shire Hall was the scene of one of the most significant trials in British history when, in 1839/40, John Frost and others were tried for their involvement in the Chartist Riots in Newport. In 2011 the entire Shire Hall building was sympathetically refurbished to it’s original state.

There will be a fee to pay for speakers expenses. It will be held in Usk Memorial Hall with a 10am start. Lunch can be obtained in the many restaurants in Usk. More details will follow.

Stuart has been a member of the Association for many years and has been digging at Trellech with excellent results. He has discovered a high status dwelling amongst other structures. His dedication to archaeology, and to  Trellech in particular, led him to purchase the field in which he is excavating. We can also view the Norman motte and the rag well.

We will meet at 6.30pm just inside the gates at the Bassaleg Road entrance to the cemetery. There should be enough room for members to park inside the gates, but otherwise you can park on the road opposite. Wear sensible shoes and be aware that the visit will involve some walking .

We will be picking up at Chepstow at 9.00, Caerleon at 9.20 and Usk at 9.40. A simple Norman two-cell church with a rounded apse, Kilpeck is famous for the wealth of ebullient carvings left by the 11th century masons; there are dozens of amusing, grotesque, and intricate carvings around the doors, windows, and roof line of the church. We will have coffee in Kilpeck Inn close to the church.  The church is one of the finest small Norman churches in Britain. We will also look at the site of the castle. The castle of Kilpeck, of which little remains, is very ancient. As a stronghold, it was part of an 8th century fortified Saxon enclave in Welsh lands, set up here in the time of Offa as an outpost in the defence of Hereford. The defensive ditches of this six acre site are still visible but it is probable that the village itself was abandoned after the Black Death, in the 14th century.

The coach will drop members in Hereford for a lunch stop.

In 1973  Roy Strong and his wife purchased The Laskett, an early Victorian house midway between Hereford and Ross-on-Wye.  It was one that was inspired by Italian gardens and by those of the Tudor and Stuart era. Sir Roy Strong’s fascination with early gardens resulted in topiary, a  knot garden and parterres. There are also many garden ornaments. More information to follow.

Dr Maddy Gray has kindly agreed to give us a guided tour of three elevated Gwent sites and includes up to date research concerning excavations that have taken place.  We will meet at Mynyddislwyn at 10.30am where we will visit St Tudor’s church which stands 1,000 ft above sea level. Mynyddislwyn was granted to Glastonbury in about 1102 as part of the endowment of a short-lived priory at Basaleg. This folded fairly quickly and Glastonbury leased the tithes of the whole area to the diocese of Llandaff. The monks of Llantarnam established a grange there, and there were repeated disputes over the tithes on their land. The parish registers started in 1664. The Church was rebuilt in 1820 on the site of the earlier structure. The view from the church tower is magnificent. There’s a small motte which was quite an early one and built as a watch tower rather than a full castle, at the time when the Normans were allying themselves with local princes.

At Bedwellty Church Dr Maddy Gray and local historian David Mills will be our guides. The church of St Sannan is ancient and was restored in 1858 and thoroughly repaired in 1882. Bedwellty was also part of the same grant to Glastonbury though not mentioned by name. Both parishes were perpetual curacies until quite recently. Registers of Bedwellty actually begin in 1633 with some earlier entries copied in – the work of a particularly determined curate, Lewis James, who kept the registers going through the plague year of 1638. He was sacked by the Commissioners for the Propagation in 1650 but remained working in the parish and kept the registers unofficially until his reappointment in 1660. There are lots of interesting memorials in the church and churchyard, including some cast-iron ones: and the great treasure of the church, a medieval cupboard decorated with the Arma Christi which was probably used as an Easter Sepulchre. There’s also the holy well of St Sannan just below the church.

Manmoel did have a church but that disappeared before the C16 (probably a result of settlement shrinkage in the C14). Now it has a little Nonconformist chapel. It is the Manmoil mentioned in the same Glastonbury charter. A little earlier, it features in the late C11 vita of St Cadoc as the site of a small monastic community founded by the saint in the C6 and run by his Irish pupil Macmoil. Gill Levy and Rodger Burchell excavation was on the presumed site of the monastic foundation and the later church, the farm called Ty’r Capel at SO 178 032. South of the little valley is the northern part of Llantarnam’s Mynyddislwyn Grange. You can still see the field boundaries of their land clearance on Mynydd Penyfan and the monastic millpond can be clearly seen in the middle of the village.

The castle was first mentioned in 1138, and the Norman gatehouse was probably built in the 12^th C by the de Clare family. Giraldus visited Usk in 1188 to recruit support for the second crusade. The castle was strengthened by William Marshall. The gardens should be at their best in May and we hope the weather is kind.