Have you ever wondered what it was like to visit the Living Levels area in the time of Henry VIII? Or indeed at the beginning of the nineteenth century?
Luckily, our history research volunteers (the RATS) can tell you because travellers recorded what they saw during those times.
One hundred years ago, newspapers encouraged people to get out and about and explore the landscape by publishing walks and drives. The Living Levels team are following suit with their new Levels Loops and Links project.
John Leland: A Tudor View of Monmouthshire – John Chandler
John Leland, a scholar, poet and bibliographer in the service of Henry VIII, developed a taste for travel and wrote notes about everywhere he went. Those made as he travelled from Aust to Chepstow, to Caerleon, Newport and then towards Glamorgan, have survived, and provide an eyewitness account of these towns, villages and landscapes almost five centuries ago.
Tours of South Wales in the early nineteenth century – Sian King
Around 1800, a fashion developed for making and recording tours of South Wales. These usually focussed on antiquarian interests such as churches, castles, great houses and various romantic ruins which lent themselves well to engraved illustrations in the subsequent published volumes. Some of these early tourists, however, did venture into the Gwent Levels, thus giving us a description of the landscape through contemporary eyes.
A Drive Around the Levels: Easter 1921 – Peter Strong
On Good Friday 1921, Newport antiquarian John Kyle Fletcher took a drive from Newport to Llanmartin, Magor and Goldcliff. This talk will use extracts from his description of his journey, adding items of interest to the things he describes.
Levels Loops and Links – Chris Harris
Living Levels are producing a series of circular walks exploring the landscape, history and wildlife of the Gwent Levels. Chris Harris, Living Levels Access and Interpretation Officer, introduces the walks and the pleasures of exploring the Levels by foot.
This event is kindly supported by Glamorgan Archives
Caldicot Castle, 1838 – John Skinner Prout