: Museums, Exhibitions and Events

Celebrating St. Fagans Heritage Welsh Apples

Luciana Skidmore, 8 September 2023

This year we celebrate our heritage Welsh apples by exhibiting samples of fruits that are sustainably grown in our orchards located in Kennixton farm, Llwyn-yr-eos farm, Llainfadyn and the Castle Orchard. You will find our Apple Exhibition at the Kennixton barn, next to the Kennixton farmhouse in St. Fagans.


Every year our apples are harvested to produce apple juice. The crop of 2022 was our most fruitful to date generating 400 bottles that were pressed by the Morris family in Crickhowell. You will find the St. Fagans apple juice available for sale at the St. Fagans Museum shop and Gwalia store.

For centuries apples have been grown in most parts of Wales, holding a cultural pride of place as a fruit of choice. They have been grown in cottage gardens, small orchards, smallholdings and farms.  The skills of pruning, grafting and tending the trees were passed from generation to generation.


After the second World War fruit growing suffered a decline.  Even the formerly widespread production of cider in the south-eastern area came to an end. Nowadays apples are imported from distant regions of the world and are available in supermarkets throughout the whole year. 

It is our mission to preserve our heritage Welsh apple trees for future generations. In the orchards of St. Fagans, you will find Welsh apple varieties such as ‘Monmouthshire Beauty’, ‘Gabalfa’, ‘Channel Beauty’, ‘St. Cecilia’, ‘Baker’s Delicious’, ‘Croen Mochyn’, ‘Trwyn Mochyn’, ‘Bardsey Island’, ‘Morgan Sweet’, ‘Gwell na Mil’, ‘Diamond’, ‘Machen’, ‘Llwyd Hanner Goch’, ‘Pen Caled’ and ‘Pig y Glomen’.


If you are coming to the St. Fagans Food Festival this year, please visit our Apple Exhibition at the Kennixton Barn.

Volunteering at the National Slate Museum

Chloe Ward, Volunteering Co-ordinator, 4 August 2023

What are the volunteering opportunities at the National Slate Museum? 

Getting people involved in volunteering at the National Slate Museum has been a priority since I began my role as Volunteering Co-ordinator here in May 2022. So what opportunities for taking part are there at the Museum?

Blacksmithing placement 
In December 2022 we excitingly welcomed Dai to the museum on a Student Work Placement. Dai was on a Welding and Fabricating college course, which requires students to partake in 20 days of work experience. He worked with Liam, our Blacksmith, in the historic forge in the Gilfach Ddu workshops and over the 20 days learnt how to make a bottle opener, a fire poker, and a pair of tongs. It was great to see his confidence and skills develop over the months he was here!

Skills Development Placements 
Last year we started Skills Development Placements in Llanberis, something that already exists at Cardiff National Museum. They are one day a week of shadowing the front of house team, providing invaluable experience for people who have barriers to work. We piloted the placement over the Winter 2022, and this year Aaron has just started a placement with us. He says he is looking forward to learning about the history and the opportunity to be part of a team. These placements are available almost all year round – please feel free to get in touch for more information.

Rag rug volunteers 
If crafting is your thing, helping us create rugs might be your motivation to volunteer! We have around 3 volunteers weekly in the Chief Engineer’s House, working on making rag rugs for our historic houses. Since they started in May they have had many interesting conversations with our visitors. Many of our visitors talk about how they used to make rag rugs with their grandparents when they were younger, albeit not everyone knows them as rag rugs! They are known by different names across the United Kingdom – we have learnt about 'proddy rugs', 'peg rugs' and many more!

What can we look forward to?  
We’re currently developing a few interesting roles in Llanberis... we will soon be recruiting for an Ambassador Volunteering Role, and a Machine Conservation Volunteering role! We will also be advertising a Heritage Student Work Placement in September for students looking for general experience in the heritage industry. Keep your eyes peeled!

Installing The Lost Words - Partnership in Action

Lisa Childs, 28 July 2023

In June of this year Ulrike Smalley, Aled Williams and I travelled to Trawsfynydd, Gwynedd, to assist in the installation of Geiriau Diflanedig -The Lost Words at Yr Ysgwrn. This shared exhibition is the result of a partnership between Amgueddfa Cymru, Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority and Awdurdod Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri. 

 

Celebrating the relationship between language and the natural world, and the spark of imagination that can spring from it, this display of works on paper together with a small number of items could not be better suited to its location. Yr Ysgwrn’s cultural centre, housing a gallery, café and learning space sits in the stunning landscape of Eryri. A converted stable, it is part of the farmstead that was the home of Ellis Humphrey Evans, better known by his bardic name, Hedd Wyn. 

Raised a farmer, Ellis was encouraged in his poetry writing by his parents.  He won his first bardic chair aged 20 and would win a further four before his death nine years later on the Western Front. He died never knowing that he had achieved his ambition of winning the chair at the National Eisteddfod. The beautifully carved oak chair was transported by train and then horse and cart to his childhood home, where it has remained on public display ever since. Hedd Wyn remains a symbol of that lost generation of men who went to war and never returned. His former home, however, has remained a place of discovery, education and sometimes pilgrimage for those wanting to know more about his life and of the things he held so dear.

Hedd Wyn was often inspired by the beauty of his natural surroundings. The images created by artist Jackie Morris in Geiriau Diflanedig -The Lost Words draw on much of that same beauty, celebrating its presence and lamenting its potential loss. Her watercolour and goldleaf paintings focus on objects and creatures from nature including the magpie, conker, otter and wren, and are truly beautiful. The artworks are accompanied by poems written by Robert MacFarlane and translated into Welsh by Mererid Hopwood. 

Before our team could begin installing Geiriau Diflanedig -The Lost Words, the original stone walls of the gallery were faced with painted MDF board to hang the 25 works. Aled and Ulli discussed and organized the layout while I condition checked the items. With some assistance from Naomi and Kevin at Yr Ysgwrn, the works and the accompanying poetry panels were positioned and hung, sealed open-top school desks laid out with objects from the natural world, overhead lights adjusted, mirror plates covered and painted, vinyls adhered, floors swept, glass polished, and giant wicker dragonflies suspended from the ceiling.

We repeated the process at Oriel Y Parc gallery and visitor centre in St Davids in Pembrokeshire, where the other half of the exhibition is installed with the addition of specimens from Amgueddfa Cymru’s natural history collections.

If you are heading to North or West Wales over the next 9 months, please take the time to visit these sites. You will not be disappointed.

New English Learner Resources for Amgueddfa Cymru

Loveday Williams, Senior Learning, Participation and Interpretation Officer, 10 May 2023

Amgueddfa Cymru Museum Wales have been working with Refugees and Asylum Seekers, supporting people to integrate into their new communities for many years. 

As part of this work, we have developed partnerships with key organisations such as Addysg Oedolion Cymru Adult Learning Cymru. They have been working with us over the past year, alongside their ESOL students, to develop new ESOL learner resources designed to support people learning English to explore our museums and galleries. 

The new resources cover the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea, the National Slate Museum in Llanberis and the National Roman Legion Museum in Caerleon. 

The resources have been created by ESOL tutors and tested by ESOL learners. They follow the ESOL curriculum and cover a range of different levels from Entry to Level 2. 

Now that the new resources have been tested, tweaked, and trialed they are ready to download from our website for any ESOL learner or group visiting one of the museums. (See the links above). 

We also have a suite of ESOL resources for St Fagans National Museum of History which were developed in a similar way as part of the HLF funded Creu Hanes Making History Project in 2014. 

We continue to work with our partners and community members to provide meaningful opportunities for people facing barriers to participation in the arts and cultural heritage. 

We learn so much from the people who visit our sites and engage in the learning opportunities we offer. 

Supporting those people who are newly arrived in Wales to settle and integrate into their new communities is a very important area of our work and we hope that these new learner resources help many people on that journey. 

Diolch yn fawr to Addysg Oedolion Cymru Adult Learning Wales and the ESOL tutors and learners who have contributed to the creation of these new learner resources. 

Lambing in the life and economy of rural Wales and its farming families

Gareth Beech, 24 March 2023

Farming families in Wales who primarily keep sheep are dependent upon lambing for their main income for the year. A successful lambing season is essential for their farming livelihoods. A large proportion of the farm’s income will be from the sale of the lambs for meat. It’s a period of bringing new life on the farm, of care and nurturing the new-born lambs, long hours, sometimes in difficult conditions, to generate income for the farming families. 

 

The family farm still retains great importance in the Welsh rural economy.  

Many farms have sustained generations of the same families and have been an essential part of the Welsh rural economy and life through producing food, employment, and supporting ancillary rural industries and crafts for equipment, supplies and machinery.  

 

Lambing and harvesting, the busiest periods on the farm, still often include all the members of the farming families. Everyone is part of the care of the flock, delivering the lambs, their care and rearing, along with the essential tasks of feeding and watering, clearing out pens, applying treatments, and driving the ewe mothers and lambs out to the fields when strong enough. It is now common for a partner to have employment elsewhere with a separate income from farming. They still often work on the farm as well. Lambing continues twenty-four hours a day. It is unpredictable at what time of day or night a sheep might give birth during the lambing period.   

 

Traditional husbandry skills and knowledge, passed down over generations are combined with modern nutrition and animal health treatments.  The satisfaction, pleasure and relief of seeing new life arrive and flourish, is combined with the tiredness of long hours and night shifts, working in muck and mud, or in cold and wet conditions outside. There are the disappointments and frustrations of losses, which will directly affect income and profitability. The regular, repetitive tasks of clearing out pens, spraying disinfectant, laying new straw bedding, are essential for preventing diseases such as E-coli amongst the vulnerable new-born lambs.   

 

Modern lambing more likely to be done inside now in large sheds, rather than out in the fields as in the past. Lambing can take place in batches, timed by when the rams released to groups of ewes, to spread the work and lessen the intensity. Scanning ewes in advance will show which ewes are pregnant and with how many lambs, so they can be grouped and given the necessary attention and care. Ewes not pregnant would be kept on the fields. The timing of lambing takes place in Wales can be influenced by location, altitude and weather conditions, or whether aimed to sell at a specific time or for a particular demand.  

 

Welsh breeds such as Welsh Mountain and Beulah continue to be popular in upland and mountainous areas. The drive for better quality lambs to meet tastes at home and for export markets in Europe, the Middle East and Asia has included using continental breeds such as Texels originally from Holland. Breeds on upland and hill farms in particular need to be hardy and be able withstand cold and wet conditions. Some new breeds haven’t flourished, being vulnerable to conditions such as foot rot because of the not being resilient in a damp climate.  

 

Lambing, like all aspects of modern agriculture, has evolved considerably based on the application of science and technology. The body for promoting the sale of Welsh lamb, Hybu Cig Cymru – Meat Promotion Wales, describes the contemporary approach: ‘As one of the world’s leading producers of lamb, Wales has been at the forefront of developments in the sheep industry. As consumers’ tastes change, so has farming. Agriculture has also evolved, combining traditional husbandry passed down through generations in tune with Wales’s outstanding natural environment with new innovations to make the most of best practice in terms of nutrition and animal health.’  

 

Nutrition and animal health treatments aim to maximise carcase value, and new methods based on the results of research and development. One method is that of ‘sponging’, using progestogen, a synthetic version of the naturally occurring hormone progesterone. Flocks can be brought into season earlier and at the same time, lambing at a very specific time period, and earlier in the year. It can allow for more planning of labour and resources, and to produce lambs when there may be fewer new lambs for market. It can also mean a very intense, short period, especially if there are twins and triplets requiring more time and attention, or ewes with complications. 

 

The total value of Welsh lamb exports in 2022 was £171.5 million, an increase from £154.7 million in 2013. 

 

The number of sheep in Wales went over 10 million in 2017 for the first time in the twenty first century. Sheep numbers had previously fallen from about 12 million after the end of government payments to support agriculture based on the number of animals kept.  

 

How lambing in Wales will be in the future could be influenced by several factors: the number of sheep; consumer preferences; sustainability; and climate change. New trade agreements might offer new possibilities but also increased competition from cheaper imports. Exports of Welsh lamb to the Unites States finally resumed in 2022, and the countries of the Gulf and China are thought to have potential for increased exports. Changes to government payments in Wales to the Sustainable Farming Scheme will be based on environmental benefits and restoring bio-diversity, as part of a sustainable agriculture industry. Perhaps it is still partly a way of life, with a professional business approach, adapting to meet the nature of markets, with entrepreneurship to create new products for a sustainable and profitable industry.  

 

Most lambs will be sold for meat from 4 to 12 months old. At St Fagans, most of the female lambs will be either sold or kept as pedigree breeding stock. Most of the males will go for meat with a few of the best sold as breeding rams.  

 

In 2020, Welsh lamb was given Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status by the UK Department of Food Rural Affairs and Agriculture (DEFRA). Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) is a status awarded by the UK Government that protects and promotes named regional food products that have a reputation or noted characteristics specific to that area. It means that only lambs born and reared in Wales and slaughtered in approved abattoirs are legally described as Welsh Lamb. This superseded the previous EU PGI status awarded in 2003.  

 

In an upland and mountainous country unsuited to many types of agriculture but where the keeping of sheep flourishes, the annual lambing will always be an important part of it, for introducing new life, providing a viable farming business, and sustaining family farms.