From the Stone Age to the Tudors Making the Story of Wales

The Story of Wales is an epic journey through centuries of Welsh history.

Using the most up-to-date historical information,

the latest computer graphics and dramatic reconstructions,

this landmark series brings our nation's story to life.

Making the Story of Wales takes a closer look at just how we did that.

And we'll also dig deeper into the history itself,

what we know, how we know it and how it still might change as technologies improve

and new evidence gets unearthed.

For the BBC History series The Story Of Wales with Huw Edwards,

scale was the name of the game.

To produce six hours of programming, the production team travelled 6,000 miles,

filming over 100 hours of footage, using hundreds of extras

and consulting with dozens of expert academics.

In this episode of Making The Story Of Wales,

we'll look at how the team turned our history,

from the Stone Age to the Tudor Age, into compelling TV.

Our earliest fossil evidence of humans living in Wales

comes from Goat Hole Cave in Paviland, on the Gower coast.

This reconstruction of a Stone Age burial is based entirely on the archaeology

found inside the cave.

These bones are incredibly important to our understanding of people's lives at this time.

It provides us with

a snapshot into life 29,000 years ago

that we would otherwise not be able to retrieve from stone tools

and fro the animal bones alone.

Stained red, the skeleton was originally thought to belong to a woman from Roman times

and became known as the Red Lady Of Paviland.

The name stuck but today our understanding of modern anatomy

makes it clear that the Red Lady is actually a man.

He was probably about 5 foot 7 in height

and weighed around 11-and-a-half stone at the time he died

and that's based on the characteristics of his legs

and some of the muscle attached to what we can see on the leg bones.

And one theory for the red staining is that ochre was sprinkled ceremonially over the burial.

Something we still can't work out is how, or why, he died.

Of course we don't have the head so did something happened there,

was he caught by one of these big carnivores,

was he killed during a hunt? We simply don't know.

But how did our production team set about staging their reconstruction?

What I've tried to do is to recreate shapes

from the actual skins.

So, being practical really, what they might have done

or how they would have draped things on them

and how they would have made clothes practically to keep themselves warm.

Dawn based her designs around the skins of animals

that would have lived in Wales at the same time as the Red Lady.

This, for instance, is a reindeer skin.

As you can see, it's got a natural shape to it.

I've tried to utilise that, as they might have done it.

If that's a basic wrap, that's how I would have done it.

Winters would have been harsh in this period of Stone Age Wales.

By looking to modern arctic dwellers, Dawn found the inspiration for her costume designs.

The stitching, going back to the Eskimos, they used the sinews from the animal.

What I've done, I've cheated and I've used dental floss.

I've dipped the dental floss in staining and the like

and that is what the Eskimos use to this day to make their skins and their boots.

The result is our best approximation of life and death in Stone Age Wales.

Over the coming millennia, Wales will see an Ice Age come and go.

It'll see wave after wave of evolving human societies,

leaving their mark on the landscape.

Neolithic tombs like Pentre Ifan, still impressive and haunting today.

Bronze Age mines at Great Orme, hints of early industry and wealth.

And impressive Iron Age artefacts that reveal a trading network between Wales and mainland Europe.

But our next key moment in making The Story Of Wales

comes at a time when Wales becomes part of a huge foreign empire.

It is, of course, the Roman occupation of Britain in 43 AD.

Caerleon, near Newport in South Wales,

is one of our best known and loved Roman sites.

In its heyday, this open-air arena would have seated up to 6,000 people

and been the scene of gladiatorial games against men and beasts.

I think we need to come up but...

Specially commissioned CGI in the Story Of Wales helps to bring that scale and structure to life.

But how did the creative team turn shots of stone ruins

into a virtual amphitheatre from around 90 AD.

The first thing we did, on location at Caerleon, was to place markers around the area

of the amphitheatre

and they really enable us to track the movement of the camera.

A reference image from the National Museum Of Wales

provides the basis of the model.

As you can see, a lot of the details are very similar.

The amphitheatre is basically a stone wall, wooden seating

and then a lot of detail at the back which we don't actually see in the shot.

Here we've got the projection mapping stage which is basically

projecting matte paintings onto our 3D geometry.

Here is the finished shot of Huw walking into the amphitheatre

as it is today and the CG model sweeps in and surrounds him.

This shot, which lasts approximately 30 seconds, took us a month to complete, I'd say.

Back in Caerleon, many people thought the layout

and extent of the Roman ruins were well established.

We knew the site as a legionary base and little was thought

to lie beyond the amphitheatre and military barracks.

But we didn't previously know that, at one point,

Caerleon was shaping to become one of the major Roman centres of western Britain.

Every single hour of every single day that we are here

new things are coming to light,

new buildings being discovered,

new finds being made. It's a very exciting time.

This extraordinary new dimension was only recently uncovered

when a team of undergraduate archaeologists

were learning how to survey in this part of Caerleon.

We knew that there had been some occupation here

and some finds had been made here over the last century or so.

But what they found was truly remarkable.

They found the remains of an entire suburb of very large buildings.

We're standing in the basement of a Roman room that's collapsed.

Already we know that areas of this room had patterns painted on it.

We've got red lines, yellow and red lines.

Bright blue, that's an expensive pigment, made of crushed glass.

The decoration in here, the under-floor heating

it's all very expensive.

You can't heat these rooms without slave labour.

Someone has to feed the fuel into the furnace at the back.

It's unpleasant work.

The discoveries are changing our view of how Caerleon connected Britain

to the rest of the Roman Empire.

At the moment, our theory is that Caerleon may well have been

intended to become one of the main administrative centres in western Britain

and that's what this complex of public buildings was for.

This is where the tribes of Wales and south-western England

would have been administered from but for some reason that didn't seem to continue.

It never became that great western capital of Roman Britain.

Why that might have been is something of a mystery

but it's one of the questions that we're hoping to answer.

And with this dig excavating just 1% of the archaeology that we know lies underground,

there may be plenty more yet to discover.

Unfortunately, that richness of archaeological evidence

simply doesn't exist for the 500 years of Welsh history that follow.

Known as the Dark Ages, the period from the 5th to 10th century

is characterised by scarcity of physical and written evidence.

One site where we have found some significant archaeology

is Llangorse Lake in the Brecon Beacons.

In The Story Of Wales we learn that 1,100 years ago

this man-made island was the headquarters of a local ruler.

Known as a crannog, the island was home to a medieval settlement

thought to be the 10th century Welsh kingdom of Brycheiniog.

The excavations at Llangorse took place over 20 years ago,

but one find still causes excitement and speculation amongst the experts.

A small fragment of fragile linen, embroidered in silk

was discovered in the silts surrounding the crannog.

Painstaking conservation and computer enhancement revealed a work

of extraordinary skill and intricacy.

A border of lions, vine scrolls and little bird images.

Imagery and workmanship that suggested Wales must have been

part of an extensive, international trading network.

The implications are hugely significant for The Story Of Wales.

And for people like Fiona Grant, archaeologist and re-enactment enthusiast,

the find also has significance outside of academia.

It's amazing that they actually preserved this piece of textile.

It's lasted for over 1,000 years and it provides a direct link

to a real human being, to somebody over 1,000 years ago who wore this garment.

I think that's what makes it fascinating for me.

The textile has given Fiona an opportunity to experiment

with what kind of clothing the material could have come from.

My interest primarily came from the re-enactment side,

the way that we try and recreate what people are doing, and that involves what they were wearing.

So I was quite interested in looking how the fragments of material

had been conserved, may have fitted together to form a garment.

Unfortunately, too little remains to make accurate, detailed assumptions about its broader shape.

Various theories suggest that the textile was part of a tunic or dress,

and Fiona has come up with her own ideas.

We realised that if you put it over the shoulder, like so,

the triangle formed a bodice.

There's also two circles on the original which they think were a fitting for a clasp.

It would make sense to clasp across the chest

and then that puts the two borders of lions the right way up on either side of the sleeve.

It's only my theory.

From there, Fiona went on to make up a full-sized garment

using her idea of positioning the panels.

I just used some linen that I had, so it's purple, which isn't the correct colour.

You can see how the triangular panel fits over the bodice.

The panels of lions would fit across on either side of the sleeve.

As a mother of two small children, the appeal of this style was immediately clear.

Can we have some carrots?

Whilst I'm doing re-enactment, we have closed kirtles.

It's very difficult to breast-feed.

If there was a front-fastening garment like this,

it works perfectly for feeding your baby.

By wearing it, that's the only way you're going to understand the practicalities of the garment

and that's what we do within the re-enactment as the process of experimental archaeology.

Our next great change in The Story Of Wales

comes with the Norman invasion of 1066.

With their mighty military machine, the Normans crush any sign of resistance.

A series of bloody rebellions follow as the Welsh fight to regain control of their lands.

But it would take a new, young leader to really have an impact on Norman power in Wales.

The fire power and political prowess of Rhys ap Gruffydd,

or the Lord Rhys, makes him the acknowledged leader of the Welsh.

By 1165, England and Wales had been at war for over a century.

Both sides wanted peace

and the Lord Rhys positioned himself at the heart of the negotiations.

In the process, he bags himself the role of Justiciar of South Wales,

an incredible position of power for a Welshman in a Norman empire.

But Rhys wanted to be remembered for more than his political achievements.

Under his patronage, learning and writing flourished in our monasteries.

MONASTIC SINGING

He also established what many think of as Wales' first ever Eisteddfod

at his castle in Cardigan.

This is the crwth.

It's a medieval instrument which was common throughout Europe.

It hung on in Wales longer than anywhere else.

Knowing what kind of music people would have played can be difficult.

We can only try some of our older tunes on this.

We discover that over time different notes have been added

because it was possible with more modern instruments.

When you try and play those tunes with these medieval instruments,

the instrument weeds out the notes that had been added

because you cannot get those notes.

So, we're...

coming to a conclusion that way.

Today, Dan is one of only a dozen or so crwth players left in Wales

and he's passionate about holding on to our medieval musical legacy.

This is part of our heritage which has remained with us.

I think we should be very, very proud and be promoting it.

So medieval Wales is evolving.

A country with its own language and legal code is now also growing in cultural confidence.

But, what we still don't have, is a united country.

Split between warring kingdoms, it's not until the 13th century

that a Wales under one leader becomes a reality.

This is Pen-y-Bryn House in Abergwyngregyn, North Wales.

In The Story of Wales, we learn that some experts believe it to be

the site of the palace of the Princes of Gwynedd...

..Llewellyn Fawr, and his grandson, Llewellyn The Last.

Today Pen-y-Bryn is a family home.

But, that's not to say, the owners aren't keenly aware

of the heritage that comes with their house.

When we first came in '88, people in the village started to come up one-by-one.

They bought eggs and strawberries and presents for us... Fish.

And they said, "By the way,

you do know you're living in Llewellyn's house, don't you?"

And from that moment on, life changed.

It wasn't a family house we'd just bought, it was a piece of history... Living history.

That took our breath away.

As a professional historical researcher, Kathryn was well aware of the value

of this type of local, verbal history. She set out to find the evidence behind the stories

that been handed down the generations in Abergwyngregyn for the past 700 years.

I went to the archives in Bangor and then moved onto Aberystwyth

and the London archives.

The Bibilotech National in Paris.

I went down the marches of Wales and knocked on doors of big houses

where they might have an archive and just asked to be let in

and sat down and chatted to them.

They produced letters and documents that still haven't found their way into archives.

I went all over. It became a passion.

But there was one key to the puzzle that didn't quite fit.

Although the house is called Pen-y-Bryn,

local tradition has always identified the site as Garth Celyn.

To prove her theory, Kathryn needed to find

a link between Llewellyn the Last and Garth Celyn.

Finally, in 2006, she made a breakthrough.

It came from the climatic correspondence between Edward I and Llewellyn himself

at a time when the conflict between England and Wales was at its height.

In November 1282, Archbishop John Peckham had come here,

negotiating between Edward and Llewellyn

and a series of letters passed back and to.

So I went to Lambeth Palace archives and looked at the letters

and there Llewellyn had written the name, Garth Celyn.

It was one of those incredible, incredible wow moments.

There was more than one, there were several letters

and it was that whole series, October/November 1282

and it was just incredible.

Hard to explain after all the years of searching, there it was.

Llewellyn's own letters.

And the content of the letters is no less powerful.

Edward was offering Llewellyn a bribe.

£1,000 a year and a large estate in England

if he would abandon Garth Celyn and leave Wales.

But Llewellyn's reply was unequivocal.

He said he would never abandon the people of Wales.

It was a decision that would ultimately lead to his downfall.

It is that same notion of ancestry and inheritance that Kathryn

feels duty-bound to protect today.

This is my inheritance to pass on, to my people

and their future and so you feel a responsibility and it's that duty.

It's hard to explain in words but Wales needs this.

Though the pieces are coming together,

Llewellyn's old palace still has some secrets left to unearth.

We know that there is a tunnel that goes from underneath the house to the sea.

Several people have seen this tunnel.

It's higher than a man's head. Wider than with his elbows stretched out.

Unfortunately the tunnel was blocked in to stop the driveway collapsing.

This place is full of mysteries.

We don't have a fraction of the answers but the questions are really intriguing.

Its medieval figures like Llewellyn, who refuses to give up his throne to England,

that we often see as emblems of our nationhood.

But eventually Wales and England will be ruled by a self-proclaimed Welshman.

In 1485, Henry Tudor returns from exile in France,

defeats King Richard III in the Battle Of Bosworth and takes the crown.

Initially the consequences for Wales are promising.

But, under his son, King Henry VIII, Wales would come to pay

a huge price for its new, closer relationship with England.

In the Acts of Union, Henry unifies the government and legal systems of the two countries

in a way that has a profound effect on the Welsh language.

In The Story of Wales, we had a unique opportunity to film the original Acts

when they were in Wales for the first time since they were written over 450 years ago.

It's a tremendously exciting moment. I'm a little bit nervous as well

because we are about to film the Act Of Union

and Huw will be able to hold it, albeit with gloves on,

but it's been kept here under the most careful conditions.

The level of light and humidity has to been monitored and regulated

very carefully to ensure the document remains in the best possible condition.

It's being checked now before it goes back to London

to ensure that absolutely no damage has occurred.

As you can imagine, just at the moment, because we're the only crew

who's going to have access to do this, we are a little bit tense.

Who's got the controls on the house lights?

Navigating your way around old documents like this one can be difficult for the uninitiated.

There's one sentence we want to highlight

and I have to find where it is.

There's a little clue because

there is a little marker in bold.

There are pieces of script,

pieces of text here

that are written bigger and bolder than anything else.

I know that the line I'm looking for is just one line below that one.

"Henceforth, no person or persons that use the Welsh speech or language

"shall have or enjoy any manner or office or fees within this realm

"unless he or they use and exercise the English speech or language."

So simple and so unthreatening laid out before me there.

And yet, this is the most important document in the entire Story Of Wales.

Its effects on the Welsh language would be felt for centuries to come.

And what about women in The Story Of Wales?

Whatever their position, it's been hard to ignore the sense

that women are largely missing from our recorded history.

One of the first to have left a record of herself is Catrin Berain.

There were dozens of Catrins,

hundreds of Catrins,

throughout Wales in this period.

We know nothing about them because the records just aren't there.

They couldn't write for themselves. They weren't important enough to be recorded.

But for Catrin Berain, the most powerful and wealthy woman in Tudor Wales,

we can piece together bits of her life from documents held in our National Library.

What we have here is an example of a rental roll

which gives us some indication of just how much Catrin was worth.

We're talking here

something in the region of 3,000 acres.

That brought in a very substantial income yearly, over £100 a year.

That was a lot of money in this period.

And Catrin was careful.

She nurtured her wealth and increased her influence

through a series of four strategic marriages.

She also had six children and numerous step-children.

And this is, of course, why she is known as Mam Cymru

because those children went on to marry into further gentry families.

She had over 30 grandchildren.

So she was seen as the Mother Of Wales in that sense.

She was a matriarch for many of these great landowning families.

But the record of pedigrees and rental deeds

tells us little of Catrin, the woman.

She's a fascinating woman who we'd really like to know much more about.

Her personality, how she operated.

We can see that in this letter that she wrote to Sir John Wyn, her step-son.

She says here, "I am but a woman foolish and fond."

She's playing this card, "I'm just a weak woman, I need your help."

So she's trying to get her way by flattery to a certain extent.

So there's a suggestion there that she is quite clever at manipulating the men around her.

But her tactics backfired to a certain extent

when rumours about a murderous nature emerged.

There is a sort of mythology about her because she lost so many husbands.

There is a suggestion she poured molten lead into their ears when she was bored with them.

These traditions and legends would have defined people's image of Catrin.

She was not just the Mother Of Wales, but this kind of black widow.

It's perhaps not surprising that those images appeal.

They are the kind of urban myths that we have today, still.

Catrin's legacy is unique for her time,

but, increasingly, detailed records were being kept.

And the coming centuries offer a rich store of archive for us to explore.

In the next episode of Making The Story Of Wales,

we'll look at how the pace of change propelled us from a basic agricultural society

to one at the cutting edge of technology.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd