Museum of Welsh Life

Description

St. Fagan's, near Cardiff, Glamorgan (since renamed National History Museum)

Photography by John Ball - 19 March 1998 (with Agfa ePhoto307 digital camera)

This open-air museum has attempted to recreate examples of Welsh life through the ages. Many old buildings have been removed from their original locations and reassembled on the museum site.

Image 1:

An old Welsh farmhouse, built of stone and bearing a thatched roof. The farmhouse contains examples of furniture and other artefacts from the early 19th century.

Image 2, 3:

The 19th century doll (Image 2) is dressed in contemporary Welsh costume. The notice (Image 3) is displayed on the wall of a turnpike road tollhouse originally situated in Aberystwyth, Cardiganshire. The board setting out the "Rate of toll to be taken at this gate" includes the following examples:
Every horse or other beast (except an ass) drawing a carriage - £0-0s-6d (sixpence)
Every horse or other beast drawing a waggon - £0-0s-4d (fourpence)
Every ass drawing a waggon - £0-0s-2d (tuppence)
Sheep, calves and hogs could pass through for a charge of £0-0s-5d per score. Those exempt from payment of a toll include funeral hearses and members of the Royal family!

Image 4, 5:

The interior of the tiny 18th century Penrhiw Unitarian Chapel. The chapel was originally sited at Dre-Fach Felindre, near Newcastle Emlyn, Cardiganshire. The lower picture shows the pulpit.

Image 6, 7:

Examples of huts in the reconstruction of a 4000 year old iron-age village. The picture above shows a hut with walls made of wattle and daub (interlaced wattle twigs plastered with mud), while the hut on the left of the picture below has stone walls.

To the Museum of Welsh Life website. Explore the more extensive Museum of Welsh Life features on my main Images of Wales webpages and on Venita Roylance's website

• http://www.jlb2011.co.uk/walespic/archive/980325.htm (link opens in new window)