Welsh Costume: Welsh Market Woman

Description

Title: WELSH MARKET WOMAN RETURNING FROM ABERYSTWITH OVER CONSTITUTION HILL
Description: Woman with large basket (known as a basged mawn (peat basket) or cawell in Welsh and creel elsewhere) on her back. The basket is supported on two leather bands around her forehead. She is wearing a kerchief over her head, a shawl, a loose apron and walking boots.
Note: She is climbing Constitution hill probably on her way home from Borth. She was probably selling peat or other produce in Aberystwyth (which appears in background). Several other women in tall hats with sloping crowns appear behind her. The basket appears to be full – normally it was used to carry peat to market, so she either did not sell much or has filled it with purchases.
On the reverse of the image, the magazine published the following:
And it is well worth going to Aberystwyth … [Aberystwyth] possesses … market-places, although the open street is usually made use of for the sale of poultry and vegetables. These are chiefly conveyed to the town by women from the surrounding villages, many of whom may be seen of an evening wending their way home over Constitution Hill to Llangorwen or some other spot in the Vale of Clarach. They carry upon their arms or backs the baskets and creels in which the ducks and hens have been sojourning in tantalising proximity to green stuff and butter; and their gleaning milk cans dazzle the eyes. Many of these women wear the national hat and large white cap, and by their peculiarity of costume give a certain quaintness and originality to the scene.
Medium: steel engraving (from magazine)
Size: 16.4 x 15.5 cms.
Artist: Bede, C.,
Engraver: Anon
Printer: Anon
Publisher: Anon (published in The Leisure Hour [magazine], Vol. 12, (1863), p. 615 with a report of a visit to Wales)
Date: 1863

• http://hdl.handle.net/10107/4756002 (link opens in new window)