Cleaning the village Steve Burrow, 16 July 2009 Festival of British Archaeology 2009Thousands of people visit the Celtic Village each month leaving little spare time for keeping up with the housework. Even worse, with summer in full swing everything is growing very very fast. Something had to be done!With help from museum volunteers, extreme steps were taken. Everything was taken out of the roundhouses and cleaned. Outside the houses, vegetation was cut back, and the grounds were tidied. The result: two sparkling roundhouses.Earlier in the year the third roundhouse became unstable and was taken down. Although sad in a way, this provided a great opportunity for a team from Reading University to excavate the ground upon which it had stood. So we learnt a lot from the controlled demolition of this house, but the work was not over. Piles of old thatch and soil still littered the Celtic Village, and these were cleared away by a team of United Nations' Association volunteers.So the venue is ready, the events organised. Now we keep our fingers crossed for good weather.
Comments from the Urdd.org exhibition Sian Lile-Pastore, 13 July 2009 The exhibition Urdd.org ended on Sunday and the curators and conservationsists are now getting Oriel 1 ready for the next exhibiton 'Pop Peth, Music and Me' which starts on the first of August.During the Urdd.org exhibition there was an area where the public could leave their memories or thoughts on the Urdd, here are some of them:‘I loved the horse riding and I found it very fun. The government should give out free trips!’‘My name is Molly. I went to Llangrannog in 2009 April with the Urdd. The cabins are much nicer than they used to be.’‘I am going to Llangrannog next week. I am excited.’‘It was the best place i have ever been to. I loved the toboganning.’‘C.1969 I went to Llangrannog - spent 2 nights in wooden cabin then spent the rest of the week in the ysbyty – only remember custard and shopping!’‘I went to Llangrannog twice as a young girl. I had so much fun horse riding and skiing but especially the Disco at the end. I broke a young boy’s heart!’‘I remember falling in love with one of the ‘swogs’‘1962 – my friend and I were the only 2 to go from my school Caer Castell Cardiff. The weather was extremely cold and one morning us two girls who were on the top bunks woke to find we were covered with snow. The stay was shortened due to bad weather.’‘The Logo should be a dragon or something that doesn’t look like a lollypop or a candycorn’‘They live in luxury at Llangrannog these days! Bring back the cabins that i had to stay in!’
Are you one in a million?? Chris Owen, 7 July 2009 Sorry its been so long but we haven’t really had anything to report! Both Gavin and Stacey can still be seen each day on the Clocktower. Sometimes they are there all day, dividing their time between the east and north sides of the tower, and on other days they disappear on long hunting trips. The recent hot weather has been a bit much for the birds (as well as us on the ground!) and they often perch on the shadier parts of the tower.The PoCT team will be watching the birds until the end of August, so if you haven’t yet seen the peregrines “in person” then what are you waiting for?! If you are a fan of birds and wildlife, why not join the RSPB? You would be in good company-we have over 1 million members! We can sign you up at the Museum and every member that joins will help wildlife conservation in Wales, as well as ensuring that the Peregrines on the Clock Tower project returns each year.Happy watching!
More art cart images Sian Lile-Pastore, 3 July 2009 Here are a few more art cart pictures.... please go on over to flickr for even more!
Minerals first discovered in Wales Tom Cotterell, 29 June 2009 Anglesite crystals up to 10 mm in length from the type locality at Parys Mountain, Anglesey. Photo M.P. Cooper. A 20 mm wide crystal of brookite from the type locality at Prenteg, Gwynedd. Photo M.P. Cooper Scanning electron micrograph of prismatic cymrite crystals from the type locality at Benallt mine, Rhiw, Pen Llŷn, Gwynedd. Powdery dickite coating dolomite from the type locality at Trwyn-Bychan, Anglesey. Photo M.P. Cooper The type specimen of namuwite from Aberllyn mine, Betws-y-coed, Gwynedd. Over 430 different mineral species occur in Wales, approximately ten percent of all those known. Eleven minerals were first discovered in Wales and have been named after famous Welsh geologists, mineralogists, places and even the Museum itself. These are: anglesite banalsite brammallite brinrobertsite brookite cymrite dickite lanthantite-(ce) namuwite pennantite and steverustite Brookite, an oxide of titanium, was first discovered in north Wales in around 1809. It was named in 1825 in honour of the British crystallographer and mineralogist, Henry James Brooke (1771-1857) by the French mineralogist Armand Lévy. In 1783 Reverend William Withering described a new species, plumbum (lead) mineralized by vitriolic acid and iron, occurring in, "immense quantity in the island of Anglesea". The name, anglesite, was later proposed for lead sulphate by the French mineralogist Francois Sulpice Beudant in 1832, in recognition of the original locality, and this name has been used ever since. In 1930 a new clay mineral dickite was named in honour of the Scottish metallurgical chemist, Allan Brugh Dick (1833-1926) who had published a detailed account of its properties on material from Trwyn-Bychan, Anglesey. Another clay mineral, brammallite, named after Alfred Brammall (1879-1954), formerly of the Department of Geology, Imperial College, London, was described in 1943 from Llandebie, Carmarthenshire. During the 1940s extensive research was carried out at the manganese mines at Rhiw, Llŷn Peninsula, Gwynedd, where several new species were discovered at the Benallt mine. The first, banalsite, was named from its composition, barium (Ba), sodium (Na), aluminium (Al), silicate (Si). The famous Welsh naturalist Thomas Pennant (1726-1798) was recognised in 1946 with a manganese chlorite mineral, pennantite. A new hydrated barium feldspar was named cymrite for Wales in 1949. In 1982, a new zinc copper sulphate hydroxide hydrate was identified on an old museum specimen collected from the Aberllyn mine, near Betws-y-coed. It was given the name namuwite after the National Museum of Wales where the specimen is housed. The naming of a mineral after an institution is now considered inappropriate, but the name stands, making this a very unusual mineral. In 1985 a new cerium-dominant lanthanite from Britannia mine on Snowdon, was described and named lanthanite-(Ce) . A new clay mineral found near Bangor in Gwynedd was named brinrobertsite in 2002, in honour of Brinley Roberts of the University of London, who has published widely on the geology of North Wales. The latest mineral to be discovered in Wales is a rare lead thiosulphate formed within mine dumps at a number of sites in Central Wales. It was named steverustite, in 2009, in honour of its discoverer, Steve Rust, a micromineral collector who has dedicated much of his life to identifying unusual post-mining minerals in the Central Wales Orefield. To find out more about these and other Welsh minerals look at Amgueddfa Cymru's Mineralogy of Wales website.
