General

We may be in lockdown, but nature continues to thrive, plants continue to need tending and borders weeding. Just as the nation is tending to its gardens, so are the Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales Historic Gardens Unit team, albeit at a reduced working schedule. Here, Juliet Hodgkiss who maintains St Fagans’ beautiful and varied gardens shares a little about what’s going on there.

To keep safe and maintain distance during the pandemic, each of our team are working one day a week to do essential gardening.  With only one gardener in at any one time we are in total isolation, keeping both ourselves and others safe.  One of the most important jobs we have to do is the planting and maintenance of our collection of heritage potato varieties. These potatoes were donated to the Museum over twenty years ago by the Scottish Agricultural Science Agency. As a living object, these potatoes must be grown every year to produce seed potato for the following year. Our collection includes the Lumper, the potato grown at the time of the Irish potato famine, which we grow in Nant Wallter and Rhyd-y-car gardens. We also grow Yam, Myatt’s Ashleaf, Skerry Blue and Fortyfold, all varieties from the 18th and 19th century.

This winter we had a great time planting many new trees in the Gardens, to replace lost trees, add new interest for the visitors and for attracting wildlife. We’ve added four new mulberry trees to the Mulberry Lawn, several species of hawthorn, rowan trees and Berberis shrubs to the terrace banks, three whitebeam, a katsura tree, a snakebark maple and a snowy mespilus by the ponds, crab apples to the Castle Orchard and a variety of native species for future coppicing. While we’re enjoying the warm, dry spring, it does mean that all these new trees need a lot of watering to keep them alive. Many are planted a long distance from the nearest tap, so have to be watered with watering cans.

We are also keeping the plants in our greenhouses and nursery alive. We have many plants which are either rare or unique to St Fagans.  These include two offspring of our fern-leaved beech and seedlings from a pine which was lost in a storm a few years ago. These require daily watering this time of year. Spring is the time of year we replant our beds and borders, filling the gaps left by plants lost over winter. We didn’t get around to planting all the plants we ordered over the winter months before the lockdown, so we’re keeping these plants alive while trying to get as many as possible in the ground, with our greatly reduced staff.

Stuck at home? Lots of us at the Museum are too, but although we may have temporarily shut our doors to visitors during the Covid-19 outbreak, we still have lots of fantastic goodies for you to savour from the comfort of your own home.

So, how are you feeling?

Feeling confined? Spare a thought for Tim Peake who was hauled up in the tiny Soyuz TMA-19M capsule with two of his crewmates Yuri Malenchenko and Tim Kopra as he descended back to Earth from the International Space Station back in 2015. Although the journey was just under three and a half hours, this little confined capsule saved his life. Remember: staying in your house right now can save lives too.

Feeling peckish? With Easter just around the corner, how about this 100-year-old Easter egg? Not your thing? How about this compilation of traditional Welsh recipes. I'll give the Oatmeal Gruel a miss, Eldeberry Wine however... now you're talking!

Feeling curious? Ever wondered why Jones is such a popular Welsh surname? Check it out now, in a minute.

Feeling arty? Why not try your hand at some botanical illustration.

Feeling adventurous? Take a trip underground at Big Pit National Coal Museum and experience life as a real miner.

Feeling nostalgic? Take this opportunity to snoop around some of the houses at St Fagans National Museum of History whilst no one’s watching!

Feeling crafty? Print out and make this paper calculator.

Feeling blue*? Mix things up with some natural colour inspiration from our mineral and crystal collection.

Feeling fabulous? Check out this spectacular, and very old, Bronze Age gold bling; some perfect pieces to compliment your work-from-home attire.

Feeling stiff from sitting at your home desk? Time to take a break and follow these simple stretching exercises. Plus, here are some tips on sitting correctly in front of your computer to prevent aches and pains.

Feeling active? How many times can you run up and down the stairs before your kettle boils? One, two, three, go!...

Feeling poorly? Then all of us here at the Museum wish you a hastly and speedy recovery. Get well soon! x

Not sure how you feel? Then we have over half a million other possibilities to whet your interest, fire your imagination and scratch that curiosity itch... go have a rummage!

* The meaning of this phrase may come from old deepwater sailing ships: if a captain or officers died at sea then a blue flag was flown, or a blue strip painted on the hull of the ship when returning to port. Find out more about the psychology of colour.

We invited some Big Pit Miner guides - Barry Stevenson, Richard Phillips and Len Howells - to share their memories of working underground.

These films include photos from the Cornwell Collection, and were originally made for the 'Bernd and Hilla Becher: Industrial Visions' exhibition, along with this guide to the workings of the headgear:

On 15 March we launch our new LGBTQ+ tours at National Museum Cardiff. The tours have been developed in partnership with Pride Cymru working with self-confessed Museum queerator Dan Vo and an amazing team of volunteers.

You may already have read Norena Shopland's blog about the Ladies of Llangollen, and Young Heritage Leader Jake’s post, Queer Snakes! There are so many more LGBTQ+ stories in our collection – stories that have been hidden in dusty museum closets for too long. Friends, it’s time for us to let them out!

To whet your appetite, here’s a quick glimpse at one of the works you might spot on the tour…

The Mower, by Sir William Hamo Thornycoft

The Mower is a bronze statuette on display in our Victorian Art gallery. It is about half a metre high and shows a topless young farmworker in a hat and navvy boots resting with his arm on his hip, holding a scythe. This sassy pose, known as contrapposto, was inspired by Donatello’s David - a work with its own queer story to tell.

The Mower was made by William Hamo Thornycroft, one of the most famous sculptors in Britain in the nineteenth century, and was given to the Museum in 1928 by Sir William Goscombe John. An earlier, life-size version is at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool and is said to be the first significant free-standing sculpture showing a manual labourer made in Britain.

Thornycroft became fascinated with manual labourers and the working classes after being introduced to socialist ideas by his wife, Agatha Cox. He wrote ‘Every workman’s face I meet in the street interests me, and I feel sympathy with the hard-handed toilers & not with the lazy do nothing selfish ‘upper-ten.’ In The Mower, he presents the body of a young working-class man as though it's a classical hero or god – a brave move for the time.

Queering the Mower

With the rising interest in queer theory, many art historians have drawn attention to the queer in this sculpture. In an article by Michael Hatt the work is described as homoerotic, which he describes as that ambiguous space between the homosocial and homosexual.

One of the main factors is the artist’s relationship with Edmund Gosse, a writer and critic who helped establish Thornycroft’s reputation in the art world. Gosse was married with children, but his letters to Thornycroft give us a touching insight into their relationship.

He describes times they spent together basking in the sun in meadows and swimming naked in rivers; and they are filled with love poems and giddy declarations of affection. ‘Nature, the clouds, the grass, everything takes on new freshness and brightness now I have you to share the world with,’ he wrote. Gosse was so obsessed with Thornycroft that writer Lytton Strachey famously joked he wasn’t homosexual, but Hamo-sexual.

Gosse and Thornycroft were spending time together when the first inspiration for The Mower hit. They were sailing with a group of friends up the Thames when they spotted a real-life mower on the riverbank, resting. Thornycroft made a quick sketch, and the idea for the sculpture was born. A wax model sketch from 1882 is at the Tate.

The real-life mower they saw was wearing a shirt, but for his sculpture Thornycroft stripped him down. He explained to his wife that he wanted to ‘keep his hat on and carry his shirt’ and that a brace over his shoulder will help ‘take off the nude look’.

Brace or no brace, it’s difficult to hide the fact that this is a celebration of the male body designed for erotic appeal. Thornycroft used an Italian model, Orazio Cervi. Cervi was famous in Victorian Britain for his ‘perfectly proportioned physique’ (art historical speak for a hot bod!)

Later in the century, photographs of The Mower and other artworks were collected and exchanged in secret along with photographs of real life nudes, by a network of men mostly in London – a kind of queer subculture, although it wouldn’t have been understood in those terms back then.

This was dangerous ground. The second half of the nineteenth century saw what has been described as a ‘homosexual panic’, with rising anxieties around gender identity, sexuality and same-sex desire. Fanny and Stella, the artist Simeon Solomon and Oscar Wilde were among many who were hounded and publicly prosecuted for ‘indecent’ behaviour.

These tensions showed up in the art world too. Many of the artists associated with the Aesthetic and Decadent movements in particular were under scrutiny for producing works that were described as ‘effeminate’, ‘degenerate’ or ‘decadent’. But works like The Mower suggest that art might have provided a safer space for playing out private desires in a public arena at this time.

Book your place on our free volunteer-led LGBTQ+ tours here, and keep an eye on our website and social media for future dates!  

Hi folks, Dippy here!

I’ve been having a wonderful time at National Museum Cardiff, everyone is so friendly and I have been the centre of attention at some very exciting events. With far too many stories to fit into one blog, here are my top five highlights from my time spent in Cardiff.

1) Dysgu Cymraeg | Learning Welsh

I arrived in Cardiff an absolute beginner, but thanks to the lovely Museum staff I quickly picked up the language. With plenty of opportunities to practice my Welsh with visitors, I have been writing bilingual tweets from my account @DippyOnTour.

2) Dippy-Themed Events

When I heard I would be sharing the grand hall with events such as silent discos and yoga I was worried I might get in the way. In fact I have become the star of the show and even attended my first Welsh wedding!

The happy couple

© Sadie Osborne Photography, sadie-osborne.squarespace.com

3) Exploring Nature

My mission on this UK tour is to encourage people to explore nature on their doorstep. That’s not a difficult task in Cardiff, which boasts more green space per person than any other major UK city. I have had a marvellous time discovering new parks every day! Check out my website for tips on exploring nature in your local area.

4) My New Friend

I didn’t know there were other dinosaurs in Wales, but I was soon introduced to Dracoraptor, a dinosaur discovered only a few miles away from Cardiff. At first I was jealous of Dracoraptor’s rather interesting name, which means ‘dragon thief’. However, once we got to know each other we quickly became friends.

Model of Dracoraptor

© Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales

5) YOU!

By far the best thing about being in Cardiff has been all the amazing people I have met. I’m here until 26 January so please keep visiting and sharing your selfies using #DippyArDaith and #DippyOnTour.