Museums, Exhibitions and Events

It’s really important that we continue to stay at home and stay safe here in Wales. During this Whitsun week many of you are getting creative and camping in the garden or enjoying a staycation in the caravan on the drive. Some of you might be reminded of camping or caravanning trips to the Urdd Eisteddfod over the years, or to some of your favourite holiday spots along our coast. So, to help us all with a little holiday nostalgia as we stay at home, here’s Ian Smith, Curator at the National Waterfront Museum with a little of the history behind this picture:

This image was taken about 1951 and features the Dodds family who lived in Cardiff. Mr Dodds commissioned the caravan in 1950 to be built and fitted out by Louis Blow & Co in Canton, Cardiff. The van cost £600.00 which was a small fortune in those days. The family toured all over South Wales, eventually though the van was left permanently on a farmer’s field near Newport in Pembrokeshire. There, the family had all their summer holidays until 2009.

The family planned the layout and it included such things as a special cupboard top that the baby’s carry cot would fit perfectly; a fold down double bed for Mother and Father and a sliding oak dividing screen which effectively formed two bedrooms. There was a small kitchen with a gas stove and a sink with a footpump tap to provide washing water. Drinking water had to be colleced in big aluminium containers – a good job for the children if they needed tiring out. The awning doubled the size of the living space and provided an area to keep things dry.

In 2009 the museum was offered the caravan by Michael Dodds, then in his 70s. Mike is the older boy at the back of the group in the picture. The caravan is on display in St Fagans National Museum of History in the ‘Life Is …’ Gallery.

Stories in the Stone Film - This special film was created for the official opening of the Fron Haul houses, and it has been on display in the houses ever since. This is the first chance to enjoy the film digitally, 21 years later.

Our curator Cadi Iolen is responsible for the care and conservation of thousands of objects. Here she tells us more about her favourite object in the collection, the 1861 Tanygrisiau house.

Bury a time capsule – for children of all ages from very young up to 100+

Part 1 – introduction and what you’ll need to get started

A great way to leave something for future people to find is to make a time capsule. Fill it with everyday items from ‘now’ and bury it in your garden or you could put it in the corner of the attic where no-one goes! 

After the ‘lockdown’ you could always make a time capsule with your classmates in school and bury it on the school grounds.

I’ve made quite a few time capsules over the years. I used to make them with my son when he was growing up and we buried them all over the place! We hoped that they would last a hundred years or more so that somebody would find them and see our things.

I have made two capsules with schools in Swansea too. One we buried at Waun Wen School, and one we buried in the grounds of Penlan Community Centre. Chris Coleman, who was the Wales football manager at the time came to help Waun Wen School bury their time capsule in the school garden. He grew up in Waun Wen. 

Penlan children buried their capsule in the Community Centre garden.

We used big plastic boxes for the capsule because there were a lot of children who wanted to add something.

What you’ll need

When you make your capsule you can use any empty container that you might have in the house. I like to use empty coffee jars or any jar that has a screw lid (I tend to raid our re-cycling box).

I couldn’t find an empty coffee jar this time but luckily we had an empty marmalade jar. 

Remember, the container you use will be very interesting to future people too!

 

Part 2

What goes into your Time Capsule

I searched around my house for things to put in. 

The items should not be expensive, just little things you don’t mind burying. I chose:

• an ASDA receipt so people can see how much things cost
• a toy car
• a plastic dinosaur
• an elastic band
• a safety pin
• a keyring with my blood type on it
• a puzzle from a Christmas cracker
• my Welsh learner’s badge
• a pencil
• three coins, a two pence, a five pence and a one penny
• an old sim card from a mobile phone
• a badge I got on a birthday card which says ‘aged to perfection’
• a Marie Curie badge of daffodils

 

Part 3

Write a little note to go in the jar. It can say things about you like your name and age and todays date. Also write a little explanation of why you are burying the capsule. If you can add a picture of you then good, but you can always draw a picture of yourself too. 

You could write your thoughts of the Covid 19 lockdown, what you miss the most or who you miss most.

You could write a letter to your future self and dig the capsule up yourself in twenty year’s time!

Make sure your container is clean and dry before putting your things in. Screw the lid on tight.

Then if you have some tape (doesn’t matter if you don’t) put an extra seal around the lid to keep any water out. 

Part 4

Send us pictures of your time capsule!

We would love to see what you put in your time capsule

Share your pictures with us via the Amgueddfa Cymru Twitter account!

Part 5

You are now ready to bury the capsule. Remember to make a ‘treasure’ map of where you buried it.

This is in case you want to do more than one and you’ll have a way of knowing where they all are.

 

Before the invention of the railway locomotive, the speed and pulling power of horses represented the maximum that land transport could achieve. Steam-hauled railways introduced entirely new concepts of speed; vastly more goods and people could be transported further, faster and more cheaply.

Steam-hauled railways revolutionised many aspects of peoples’ lives. Within less than a single lifetime, steam-hauled railways went from remarkable novelties to being mainstays of everyday life.

The railway revolution began in Merthyr Tydfil on 21 February 1804 with the first recorded steam-hauled journey on rails. The key personalities were the talented Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick and Samuel Homfray, owner of the Penydarren Iron Works.

The forges and rolling mills at Penydarren Iron Works, with the blast furnaces in the left background. In front of the buildings at the right is a horse pulling three loads of bar iron at the start of the journey to Abercynon where it would be transferred onto a boat on the Glamorganshire Canal for transport to Cardiff and loading onto a ship. It was just such a consignment of iron that Trevithick’s locomotive successfully transported. Etching by John George Wood for his book “The Principal Rivers of Wales”, 1812.

Trevithick had developed a compact high pressure stationary steam engine that could be built more cheaply and produce more power that pre-existing designs of similar size. Homfray formed a partnership with Trevithick to manufacture the stationary engines. In 1801 and in 1803 Trevithick had built and demonstrated experimental steam-powered road vehicles but had failed to arouse public enthusiasm. In south Wales he encountered a dense network of tramroads serving the ironworks, quarries and mines – all horse drawn and all built with iron rails. He hoped there might be an additional market for his high pressure steam engines if he could demonstrate their usefulness on railways. Homfray, seeking to widen demand for the engines he was beginning to build and market, agreed to fund the construction of a railway locomotive.

The pioneering locomotive was designed and built at Penydarren Iron Works over the winter of 1803-04.

The locomotive successfully pulled five wagons loaded with ten tons of iron and 70 men who had hitched a ride on the wagons for the 9¾ mile journey. Over the following weeks the locomotive made a number of further journeys the length of the tramroad.

The locomotive was widely reported at home and abroad.

Frequent breakages of the brittle cast iron track by the unsprung locomotive resulted in it being converted into a stationary engine within a few months. Two further Trevithick-designed locomotives were built in England in 1805 and 1808 but he found no commercial backers.

“The Miners’ Express”, Saundersfoot Railway, 1900s. This primitive service harked back to early 19^th century practices and may capture something of the atmosphere of the Penydarren locomotive’s trial run in 1804 when 70 men hitched a ride on the five wagons. This Saundersfoot Railway service was introduced in 1900 to enable coal miners from Kilgetty to travel to Bonville’s Court Colliery. The ironic name was created by the postcard publisher.

Despite Trevithick’s failure to commercially develop his locomotives, a seed had been planted. Engineers in the North East of England, notably Timothy Hackworth and George Stephenson, built a succession of viable locomotives in the 1810s that reliably hauled coal wagons from collieries to shipping places. These developments enabled the Stockton & Darlington Railway to use steam locomotives from its opening in 1825, and lead to the first long distance steam-hauled railway opening between Liverpool and Manchester in 1830.

In 25 years steam-haulage had progressed from experimental to reliable. Within a few decades more, railways employing steam locomotives were in use on every continent.

The conjectural reconstruction of the Penydarren locomotive on display in the  Networks gallery at the National Waterfront Museum at Swansea.      

A conjectural reconstruction of Richard Trevithick’s pioneering Penydarren locomotive is displayed in the National Waterfront Museum at Swansea, where it is periodically demonstrated in-steam.

You may also be interested in this short film about Richard Trevithicks Steam Locomotive:

https://museum.wales/articles/2008-12-15/Richard-Trevithicks-steam-locomotive