This morning after breakfast, Peter collected me to drive to the National Museum's Industrial storehouse in Nantgarw for a tour especially arranged by Mike. We picked up Richard on the way there, and when fully assembled our group was fourteen strong. The first half of the visit was a session with one of the conservators showing us how she and her colleagues set about conserving and restoring a diverse range of historical artefacts donated. It was just like being in a live episode of TV's 'Secrets of the Museum' one of my favourite regular must see programmes.
We were told about a Guest Keen and Nettlefold iron works World War One memorial to fallen employees, recovered from a demolition skip by a police officer, remaining in his garage for twenty years. As the centenary of the Great War approached, he finally got around to offering it to the museum as an item of industrial heritage. After half a century covered in a layer of black pain, the brass memorial is in pristine condition again. Bronze casted in a single mould, it's possible this was made by craftsmen colleagues in the same works. Its full provenance has yet to be discovered, however.
Then we were shown a rather ugly decorated clay pot with a grinning man's head on it. The pot's lid was broken in several pieces and was put together so skilfully that it was impossible to see the pieces where it had been broken. Then there was a small silver object, a statuette of a horse mounted on the hoof of a horse which belonged to a horse that worked in Senghenydd pit at the time of the 1913 fire that cost over four hundred lives. Hence it was in the hands of an Industrial artefact conservator. Finally we saw some photos of a restored bardic chair from an eisteddfod in Blaenclydach, held on Good Friday in 1903. At this point our session ran out of time, so we didn't get to hear about is provenance, except that it was won by a local miner. It seems to have been customary for Non-Conformist chapels to hold an eisteddfod on Good Friday (a bank holiday and day off for industrial workers in those days).
The second half of the tour was with an engineering conservator, who showed us a collection of motor vehicles with stories to tell, including the engine from the famous land speed record contender 'Babs' which crashed making a record attempt on Pendine Sands killing Parry Thomas the driver. The wrecked car was buried on the beach for forty years before its remains were retrieved. Apart from the engine a number of large plastic tubs and crates hold the rest of the bits and pieces, awaiting attention.
There are three Gilbern saloon cars - the only car to be designed and made in Wales, a Wessex air sea rescue helicopter, an Edwardian tram, an electric trolley bus, a horse drawn hearse, a couple of steam engines, motor bikes and ancient bicycles, railway carriages, not to mention many industrial engines used to power manufacturing equipment - almost all in need of restoration. There are decades of work for conservators, if ever funding should be available. There are tends of thousands of artefacts great and small in storage here. A fascinating insight into certain aspects of Welsh industrial heritage.
Amazingly, the lawn at the side of the building complex, left to grow wild, untreated with weed killer has produced a rich diversity of wild flowers including two orchid species. I was delighted to see a Common Blue butterfly for the first time this year, and get a slightly blurry photo of it. We had lunch together at a nearby pub called The Pottery, in honour of the original famed Nantgarw pottery nearby. My photos of the visit are here.
Then Peter drove us home, in good time for Clare and I to set off for Kenilworth for an overnight stay. We arrived just after six, and after supper I had time for a late evening walk around the lake down at Abbey Fields, to listen to the birds at twilight. Among the reeds along the side of the lake patches of bright yellow bog irises stand out at dusk, a lovely sight.
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