Wales Feed

Get a taste of Roman gastronomy this bank holiday Monday

2012-05-02T14:15:00+00:00

The National Roman Legion Museum in Caerleon is offering the chance to sample some Roman-style food this bank holiday (Monday 7 May).

Just a few of the dished to be enjoyed at the Roman feast

The museum will be hosting a 'Come Dine With Me' competition, where four hosts will set out to impress each other with their Roman cooking and entertaining skills, and visitors will get to sample food made from ancient recipes.

Come dine with them on bank holiday Monday

Victoria Le Poidevin, events officer at National Roman Legion Museum in Carleon said: "This is a fantastic opportunity to step back into the Roman time and see how the Romans used to cook and what they eat. The day will provide a fascinating insight into Roman cookery.

"They ate a lot of what we eat today but they didn't have food like chocolate, potatoes or tomatoes - so there won't be any chips and tomato sauce for our soldiers!"

Food in Roman Britain was not too different from some of the food eaten today. Meat, bread and fruit were on the menu and all the food was freshly made and eaten when in season.

Many familiar fruits and vegetables that we grow today were introduced by the Romans coming to Britain. They cultivated vegetables like cabbages, leeks and cucumbers and also grew fruits such as apples, plums and cherries.

The foodie fun begins at 11am and runs until 4pm on Monday 7 May, 2012. Entry to the National Roman Legion Museum is free.

Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales operates seven museums across Wales. FInd out about bank holiday events and visitor information on each of their websites:

Roman treasure's new home at Winding House museum

2011-12-05T14:20:28+00:00

A 2,000 year old Roman ring found by a man with a metal detector on Cefn Brithdir in the Darran Valley earlier this year has been returned by the British Museum for display in a valley's museum.

According to an article on the BBC Wales News website, the British Museum has given the ring to the Winding House museum at New Tredegar to be put on permanent display.

The silver Roman ring was found earlier this year (Photos: Winding House museum)

The gemstone is missing from the ring

Speaking about the new exhibit, Emma Wilson, principal museums and heritage officer for Caerphilly, said they were "immensely pleased" to put it on display. "We're a relatively new museum having only been open for three years," she said.

Ms Wilson praised the finder for alerting the authorities to his discovery. "He went through all the correct legal channels, realising it might be treasure trove.

The ring, from the first or second century AD, was initially passed to the National Museum in Cardiff where it was identified it as a typical Roman silver finger ring.

It was then placed in the care of the British Museum, whose officials offered it to the Winding House, a former colliery building, as the relevant local museum.

Read more about this story on the BBC Wales News website, or find out more about the Romans on Wales on BBC Wales History.

Roman fort project wins cash boost

2011-08-02T09:34:39+00:00

A not-for-profit history project that has been years in planning has won a £50,000 regional prize to help fund the reconstruction of a Roman fort and settlement to teach children about history.

The Roman Fort Project was the Wales regional winner in a Barclay's competition, Take One Small Step, to help small businesses.

Over 5,000 businesses had registered to take part in the scheme. Judges created a shortlist of 27 ideas across nine UK regions and the public then voted for their favourite scheme online.

The project is now looking for land in Flintshire or Cheshire to build a replica Roman fort of the type that would be constructed in the first century - made of earth and wood and surrounded by a ditch.

Read the full story on this winning project on the BBC News website.

The Celts

2011-01-07T10:23:04+00:00

With the prospect of the forthcoming Six Nations Championship already beginning to loom large in people's minds, many red-blooded Welsh men and women (and Irish and Scots, too, come to that) have once again become suddenly conscious of their Celtic heritage.

Celtic Cross on Anglesey

We are all of us proud of our heritage. That applies whatever nationality we are - English, Irish, Scottish or Welsh. And rightly so. But how many of us are aware of the origins of the Celtic people of Wales? It is a fascinating story.

The Celtic people first arrived on our shores and began living in Britain - across all of Britain, not just the extremities like Wales, Ireland and Scotland - in approximately 1,000BC.

Originating in the Danube area, they gradually moved northwards, a process of migration that took many hundreds of years. They were an adventurous and curious people and it was inevitable that they should be attracted by the mysterious land they could see on the horizon.

The Celts came to Britain, first, as explorers, sailing their flimsy coracle craft across the waters of what later became known as the English Channel and landing on the southern coasts of the island. Over the next two hundred or so years they came to settle and stay. They were skilled workers in metals like bronze but they were also farmers who soon began to clear the forests and cultivate crops.

Remains of Roman forts, gold mines and roads can still be found in Wales.

By the time the Romans arrived, between 43 and 85AD, the Celts were the dominant influence in Britain. These Celts were a fierce and warlike people, Julius Caesar himself commenting on the blue painted warriors who attacked without fear, time after time, not knowing when they were beaten.

However, faced by superior fire power in the shape of the Roman Legions, the Celts were gradually pushed back, out of the rich farmlands of central and southern England, to find refuge in the wild and rugged mountains of the west and north.

Ireland, Scotland and Wales were never fully integrated into the Roman Empire and Wales, in particular, was seen as something of a frontier zone. At one time over 30,000 legionary and auxiliary troops were stationed around the edges of the country, in bases like Caerleon and Chester.

There were many bloody campaigns and battles, events like the killing and destruction of the Druids by Suetonius Paulinus on Anglesey in 61AD, but in general, the Roman occupation of Britain had little lasting effect on Celtic art, language and culture.

When the Romans left in the years after AD410 Celtic culture was strong enough to resist that of the in-coming Saxons. By now the Celts spoke a language now known as Common Celtic, a language that was divided into two strands - Goedelic which was spoken in northern Scotland and Ireland, and Brythonic which was the language of Wales and Cornwall. Brythonic was also spoken by the people in the areas around modern day Carlisle, Edinburgh and in Strathclyde.

While there were, to begin with, strong links between the Celts in Wales and those in the north of Britain, Saxon advances into the west were soon causing problems. Saxon victories at Dyrham in Gloucestershire and at Chester (AD577 and 615 respectively) isolated the Welsh from other Celtic peoples. And when King Offa of Mercia built his dyke in the middle years of the 8th century - an attempt to define the frontier of Mercia, not Wales, as many believe - it gave Wales, for the first time, an eastern frontier.

Secure behind this 150 mile ditch and palisade, the Celtic people of Wales were free to continue their lives, untroubled by what was going on over the border.

Iron Age Celts lived in round houses that were grouped together inside a series of circular ramparts. There was also a protective ditch, far more effective at keeping out wild animals than any attacking enemy force.

They also had hillforts - over 500 of them having been discovered in Wales - but these were places of refuge, used only when a community was in danger or under direct attack.

It has been claimed that the Celts had over 4,000 different gods and deities. Usually these gods represented crucially important elements such as the sun, sea, stars and wind. The only people who could talk to the gods were the Druids, the Celtic priests, who had immense power in Celtic society.

As there was no written language at this time, their knowledge and ritual was remembered in verse form and as a consequence the Druids were part of the privileged circle of poets, storytellers and musicians who surrounded the tribal chiefs. After AD61 their power declined until the modern incarnation - the Gorsedd - was created in the nineteenth century.

However, the Celts of the west and north have retained their love of poetry and music, celebrating victory and lamenting defeat down the years. They have remained fiercely proud, independent peoples who are conscious of their heritage and their past history.

Small wonder, then, that battles - on the sports field these days, not in war - bring back feelings of belonging. Small wonder that they stir the pride of nationhood.

The Celtic Manor

2010-12-14T10:46:57+00:00

The Ryder Cup of 2010 has been over for some months now, the cup safely tucked away in the trophy cabinet of the R&A - at least for the next two years.

Thousands of golf fans defied the rain and mud to descend on the Celtic Manor in October.

There is no doubt that it was a fantastic occasion, for golf and for Wales, and despite the rain the Celtic Manor proved to be the ideal host venue. People across the world saw the scenes and, perhaps for the first time in their lives, realised what a beautiful country Wales was.

But what about the Celtic Manor itself? How much do we know about its history?

Well, for a start it sits smack on a number of old Roman roads, the Via Julia being the most important. If you are interested in the history of Roman Britain this could be the ideal place to make a start.

The Roman involvement in Wales was limited - the people were far too warlike to allow easy access. But the legionary fort at Caerleon lies only a mile or so away from Celtic Manor and this was one of the most important military garrisons in the northern extremities of the Roman Empire.

It was a frontier fort and was always full of soldiers and the "hangers on" who accompanied any military establishment in those days.

A little further on is the Roman town of Caerwent, a significant settlement that needed to be guarded. And in order for soldiers to move quickly about there needed to be roads - hence the fact that Celtic Manor sits astride at least three of them.

Of course, we now know the place as a hotel and golfing complex. The house that formed the basis for the first hotel on the site was built in the 1860s and was called Coldra House.

It was the home of Thomas Powell Jnr, then Chairman and owner of the Powell-Duffryn works and coal mines. Unfortunately he did not live in the house for long as he, his wife and young son were murdered while on holiday in Abyssinia.

The body of Powell's son was never recovered and this led to several ghoulish suggestions in the local press of the time, even to accusations of cannibalism by the natives. Such suggestions were highly unlikely but in the 1860s anywhere abroad was considered exotic.

Coldra House remained in the Powell family, being leased out, until 1915 when it was sold to shipping magnate Sir John Beynon.

He added a new wing and made several other alterations but in the late 1930s he donated the buildings to the local Health Authority. Coldra House became a maternity hospital, opening on 1 January 1940.

Before the hospital closed its doors in 1975 it is reckoned that over 60,000 babies were born there. One of them was Sir Terry Matthews who, with the old house boarded up and ready for demolition, decided that it still had a part to play in the life of Newport - and Wales.

Sir Terry, founder of Mitel and Newbridge Networks in Canada, was also Chair of Celtic Inns and hoped to turn the old hospital into a top quality hotel complex.

The original plan was for a 17 bedroom hotel and an 18 hole golf course. The hotel duly opened in 1982 but the golf course was delayed and did not come into operation until the 1990s.

Since then the hotel has been extended and developed and now has over 300 rooms and several conference centres. There are three separate hotels - the Resort Hotel, the Manor House and The Newbridge on Usk, just a few miles away, and a total of three golf courses - the Twenty Ten, the Roman Road and the Montgomerie.

The 2010 Ryder Cup was played on the Twenty Ten Course, the first golf course ever designed and built specifically for the Ryder Cup. Thousands of golf fans, European and American, defied the rain and mud to descend on the Celtic Manor.

They came, primarily, to watch the golf but it would be good to think that some of them at least stopped to consider the fascinating history of the hotel and the area - and, more importantly, to make a conscious decision to come back at some stage in the future.

AD 410 Romans Go Home: Caerleon

2010-08-09T10:16:25+00:00

As part of the UK-wide AD 410 project, archaeologists at Caerleon, Newport are offering the public a chance to help with a dig at the Roman fort site.

Once home to the Second Augustan Legion, Caerleon was one of only three permanent legionary fortresses in Britain.

The dig is part of the AD 410 Romans Go Home celebrations that have been organised by Cardiff University in conjunction with the Association for Roman Archaeology, the British Museum, English Heritage, the Roman Society and the Society of Antiquaries. The dig is open to the public from August 9 to September 17 and regular activities will include twice-daily site tours led by the archaeologists.

Read more about the activities and events marking the 1,600th anniversary of the end of the Roman occupation of Britain, on the BBC Wales News website.

Read Dr John Davies' guide to Wales and the Romans on the BBC Wales History site.

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Battlefields of Wales

2010-04-26T14:20:49+00:00

According to the writer Tacitus, the waters of the Menai Straits ran red with blood on the day of the battle as the Romans massacred every man, woman and child they could find.

Historical locations like Caerwent and Caerleon also undoubtedly saw many battles and skirmishes before the Romans finally abandoned Britain in the fifth century.

Almost any of Wales' castles - apart from Manorbier in Pembrokeshire, which seems to have been by-passed by history - saw violent military action. But it is in the wars between Edward I and Llywelyn, the Last Prince of Wales, that we find some of the most interesting and atmospheric battlefields.

In December 1282, Llywelyn left his traditional homelands in Gwynedd and went south to Builth Wells to recruit more soldiers for his desperate defence of Wales.

On December 11 1282, shortly after crossing the River Irfon outside the town, he and a small band of followers were surprised by a party of mounted English knights. Stephen de Francton plunged his lance into the body of an un-armoured Welsh soldier - only later did he realise that he had killed the last Prince of Wales.

During the English Civil War many battles fought on Welsh soil, none bloodier than the Battle of St Fagans which took place on May 8 1648 - the site of the battle can be seen when visiting the National Museum of Wales, St Fagans.

The siege of Pembroke Castle, following on the heels of the St Fagans battle, lasted for eight weeks, part of the siege being conducted by none other than Oliver Cromwell himself.

The Napoleonic Wars saw something of a "non-battle" when the French Legion Noire landed at Fishguard in February 1797. For three days they rolled in a drunken melee around north Pembrokeshire, out of control and with no idea of what they were supposed to do, before finally surrendering to Lord Cawdor.

There was no battle but several skirmishes took place and visitors can still visit the site of the French encampment and the farmhouse where the French leader, General Tate, had his headquarters.

The Royal Oak, the public house where the surrender was signed, lies in the middle of the town.

There is hardly a place in Wales that does not have some connection with the country's violent past. And whether it be a major battle or an event like the Rebecca Riots of the 1840s when workhouses and turnpikes across Wales were burned by men dressed in women's clothes, it remains a fascinating part of Welsh history.