The following review was published in the Anglesey Antiquarian Society‘s 2020 Transactions. Oriel Môn will be reopening on 18 May 2021, and the exhibition can be viewed until 13 June 2021.

Jane Kenney, Gwynedd Archaeological Trust, an exhibition at Oriel Môn, Llangefni, 12 December 2020 – 13 June 2021

Between 2006 and 2010 Gwynedd Archaeological Trust (GAT) carried out extensive excavations at Parc Cybi, Holyhead, in advance of development of a business park. As such a large site was being developed, GAT was able to investigate more than 20 hectares. Peeling off the layers across such a large area has revealed an astonishing collection of archaeological finds ranging from the Mesolithic to the 18^th century. The results of the excavations were presented at a day-long symposium in February 2020 at the Ucheldre Centre in Holyhead, which was accompanied by an exhibition about the finds. This exhibition has now moved to Oriel Môn, where it can be viewed until 13 June 2021 (COVID-19 restrictions allowing).

Given the wide range of periods uncovered by the excavation, the advance of time is the keystone of this exhibition. As you walk into the central display space of the museum, footprints on the floor guide you to the left to start your journey, and a timeline running around the top of the walls gives key dates ranging from the last ice age to the start of the industrial revolution. Twelve nicely designed and well-illustrated bilingual display boards line the walls above four low display cabinets with artefacts, supplemented by a fifth tall cabinet containing pottery and stone items and an open central area with more stone objects.

The displays start by showing scenes of the excavation under way, along with some of the flint, chert and stone tools found on the site. It moves on to a display of one of the highlights of the excavation, a rare 6000-year-old timber hall. An illustration showing a bucolic domestic scene outside the hall accompanies photographs of the excavated evidence of other domestic buildings, including roundhouses, a Bronze Age granary, and a hearth from a small hut.

The next set of displays show the various burial practices in the area, including the nearby Trefignath burial chamber, Bronze Age cist graves and later Roman long cist cemeteries, and excavations of the Iron Age roundhouse village. These are accompanied by a display case full of stones with holes that were found in the village. Some of these were fishing net weights, but most were spindle whorls that, combined with a stick, were used for spinning fibres into threads for clothing. The display is graced with a recent photo of a Nepalese villager using a similar system for spinning.

Halfway through the exhibition we encounter the tall display case with several stone bowls, mortars and hammer stones, two pieces of pottery and two reconstructed Neolithic pots. In contrast to the rest of the exhibition this case has very little information about the items on display, just a few labels with brief descriptions. The next display case makes up for this by having several pottery fragments from the early, middle and late Neolithic and the Bronze Age, showing how style and decoration developed through time. The accompanying posters describe domestic life and industry during the Iron Age and Romano-British period.

The final display case focuses on the ‘bling’. The centrepiece is a small gold ring found at the edge of a Bronze Age field. It is small, with a gap in it, and may have been a hair decoration. Also in the case is an amber bead, other decorative items made from shale, pottery and cannel coal, and some iron tools. The history of the occupation of the site post-Romans is explored in the last two posters, with photographs showing corn driers, a cobbled floor from a now vanished farmhouse, and a stone-lined well with steps leading down to it.

In the centre of the exhibition area is an open wooden-framed display case, filled with soil and tools of the archaeologist’s trade. This is used to display several large stone objects: a stone bowl, a saddle quern, a post for a granary and a cup-marked rock.

The text of the displays is clear and geared towards informing the general public of the highlights of the finds and their importance in understanding our past. A couple of copies of the summary report (with a chair to ease your feet and a magnifying glass to ease your eyes), alongside a QR code link to the GAT web site, allows the curious visitor to delve further into details of the finds. Full reports of the excavation can be found on GAT’s web site at https://heneb.org.uk/project/archaeology-at-parc-cybi-holyhead/.

Warren Kovach

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We visited Bodior House near Rhoscolyn on a blustery, soft rain type of day. We were glad to get in out of the rain, into the main sitting room, where our guides Robin Grove-White and Andrew Davidson introduced us to the house.

This is a gentry house, first built in the 16th century. A tablet over one of the windows bears the date 1529, and another below that window has the initials J.O.O., for the estate owner John Owen. The Owen family were descendants of a Welsh clan leader, Llywelyn Aurdorchog, who was from Denbighshire but also owned land around Rhoscolyn. The house and estate passed down through the family, often through the female line, who married other local landowners, with the result that land holdings were combined. The estate eventually passed to the Lewis family of Plas Llanfigael, and a later marriage to the Hampton family of Henllys, near Beaumaris, resulted in the owners being known as the Hampton-Lewis family. It is now owned by the Bulmer family, of cider-making fame, who use it as a summer retreat.

Although built in the 16th century, the house has been modified and extended many times through the centuries. It would have originally consisted of the main sitting room, just inside the main entrance, with a room on either side, and additional rooms on the story above. It has been extended a couple of times at one end with a service wing with kitchen and utilities rooms, plus numerous bedrooms and baths.The last remodelling took place in 1848 (commemorated by another dated plaque above the main entrance), so the house retains its 19th century character, including the carved main staircase in the sitting room, and the early Victorian fire surrounds in many of the bedrooms, some decorated with enamelled slate.

After the brief introduction by Robin and Andrew the group were given free rein to explore the house, with no areas off limits, before regrouping in the sitting room to discuss the features of interest that were spotted. We looked for evidence of the differing periods of extension and remodelling, as shown by variations in the timber & stone flooring and styles of doorways and windows. There were some interesting and intricately carved furnishings and some period pieces, like the wind-up gramophone.

A particularly fun aspect of the exploration was looking for evidence of the vocation of the current owners. Books about the Bulmer family and cider-making were in many rooms, apple-shaped cutting boards were in the kitchen alongside bottles of Bulmer’s cider, ready for the next cider casserole, and crates marked “Bulmer’s Hereford” were in some of the unused rooms. The many objects on shelves and walls throughout the house included an inordinate number of green woodpecker items: paintings, carved wooden figures and taxidermy specimens. It seemed curious until I remembered that the green woodpecker was the symbol of Bulmer’s Woodpecker Cider!

After the debriefing sessions some of us went on to explore a nearby tidal mill, the subject of my next blog.

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