Episode 2 Hidden Histories

'The Royal Commission is a government detective agency,

'set up in the same year as the FBI.

'Unlike the FBI, the Commission investigates the history of Wales

'and its case files are open to everyone.

'Today - The Norman town that time forgot.

'Does Grosmont have the oldest church roof in Wales?

'How a West Wales family lives a 21st Century life

'in an 18th Century cottage.

'A visit to the only full-sized handball court in Britain.

'And new views of Bardsey from your armchair.'

This is picture postcard pretty in remote north Monmouthshire.

We're so close to the border that there's no escaping the neighbours.

This though is Wales, although with an almost unique twist.

And it's all to do with invasion.

Grosmont is about as Norman as anywhere in Wales.

By name - gros mont, big hill.

And by architecture.

Yep, it's lovely.

But there's a hidden history here of strife

and of dreams that never quite came true.

'The days of glory are all around,

'when Grosmont was a Norman frontier town.

'1,000 years later, little has changed.

'The Royal Commission wants to date the exceptional church roof.

'Is it the oldest in Wales?

'A remarkable map from 1588 shows a town where time had stood still.'

The Elizabethan car boot sale! What have we got here?

This is one of the treasures of Grosmont.

It's a birds-eye view of the town,

showing all the elements of the town as it was in 1588,

the year of the Armada.

So we can see the key buildings.

The castle facing the church here with the central tower.

And then the main street with rows of houses on either side.

I think the point is that it shows all these buildings

which defined the town and the buildings are still here.

It's spread over a huge area. There's the mountain behind.

If that's all there is in 1588, does that mean

it hadn't become the dream town the Normans had imagined?

The map doesn't show everything.

It doesn't show all the houses, for example.

But yes, Grosmont is a case of a rested development.

It gets so far, and then it stops and becomes fossilised.

The interest of Grosmont is that we can actually examine a town

as it was in the late Medieval period.

'While they were still conquering England,

'the Normans turned their attention to Wales

'and their first castle here was Chepstow, built in 1067,

'a year after the invasion.

'Chepstow was the most southern of a chain of castles on the borders.

'The Normans quickly established three others.

'White Castle, Skenfrith and Grosmont.'

They're real statements of power.

They're expressions of the Anglo Norman ability to command men and resources.

They dominate the landscape, they're very difficult to attack,

and they're essentially imperial statements really in stone.

The contrast between the stone castles and the timber dwellings

is a very stark one.

But more than that, it's a good agricultural region

and they wanted to establish a prosperous settlement.

'Grosmont has an illustrious royal history.

'Henry III, Henry IV and Henry V

'were all associated with the fortified town.

'Indeed, Henry V, who was born in Monmouth,

'cut his teeth here, defeating the forces of Owain Glyndwr.

'Professor Ralph Griffiths sees Grosmont

'as a crucial stronghold for the English monarchy.'

Kings have always been interested in this part of the world,

ever since the Norman conquest.

It was a major defensive guardian of the of the route way,

which went from the plain of Hereford

down to the plain of Monmouth and Abergavenny.

But it is remarkable that this was...

You know, with Henry V born in Monmouth nearby,

with Henry III coming from here,

we're talking about a vibrant piece of Welsh history here.

Henry V, at the time of his birth,

was the grandson of the Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt.

So it's not surprising that he spent a certain amount of time in his youth

here in this part of the world,

before his father seized the throne as King Henry IV in 1399.

Of course, it was taken. A certain Owain Glyndwr.

Henry V, at the age of 18,

led an army and confronted Owain just outside the castle.

He was successful and the Welsh were defeated.

It could be a bit disturbing that the hero of Agincourt

actually practised on the Welsh.

It's quite common amongst historians to say that he cut his teeth

as a military commander in Wales, that's true.

The forces he had with him, we don't know a great deal about them,

but it's quite likely that he had archers and pikemen

who were drawn from the Duchy of Lancaster estates.

So men of Gwent, which is a common phrase, just like Men of Harlech,

after the defenders of Harlech against Glyndwr.

Men of Gwent were probably the archers who served with him

both in Grosmont as well as in France.

The centrepiece of the castle is this eye-catching chimney,

built in the 14th Century,

when three storeys of comfortable new apartments were added.

But the oldest part of the castle dates from the 12th Century. The Great Hall.

So this is downstairs life, is it? This was the kitchens?

This was life on the ground floor. This was a kitchen wing.

People scurrying everywhere, being shouted at by the chef!

That's right! With the fire place at the gable end.

-But the real business was on the first floor.

-Up there?

-Yes.

-The Great Hall.

-The Great Hall, yes.

And entered from that doorway there,

probably by wooden steps that have long gone.

The Great Hall is a place where the lord entertains

and it's just where he shows how powerful he is really.

We're missing a floor, but above all, we're missing the roof.

The roofs were tremendous pieces of carpentry.

Very few 13th Century roofs have survived.

But if you want to see a roof

like the one that formally covered the hall,

all we have to do is go to the church.

-Let's do that.

-Let's do that.

'As the Royal Commission's buildings expert,

'Richard has been wanting to find out

'if Grosmont Church has the oldest roof in Wales.

'A few weeks before our visit, he commissioned a test to date the timber.

'But first, Richard wanted to show me the interior,

'which speaks of another age.'

You've heard of the shock of the new,

but this is the shock of the old!

This space is more or less as it would have been in the 13th Century.

This is what it was. No pews.

Absolutely. No pews, an open space.

This big arcade with the heavy, round pillars.

And above all, the roof. We don't often look upwards in a church.

I think we're meant to!

But this roof seems to be part and parcel of a 13th Century church.

How rare is this?

This one is unusual. It's simple and it's very functional.

It pre-dates the ornate roofs of the 15th and 16th centuries.

How old it is is difficult to determine, except scientifically.

So we've tree ring dated the roof and we now know what date it is.

'Jean Prosser, the Vicar of Grosmont, is on tenterhooks

'to find out if the roof is indeed the oldest in Wales.'

We've had the information back from the Oxford Dendro Lab,

and we have a felling date range of 1214 to 1244.

-My goodness!

-I know. It is an extraordinary result.

It certainly means that the church, the nave, the roof,

is contemporary with the castle, built by Hubert de Burgh,

as part of a campaign of setting up the borough.

It means that this is the earliest scientifically dated roof in Wales

and one of the earliest in Britain.

So all in all, it's fantastic.

-And there's more!

-Really?

Not only do we have a date range,

but it fits in very well with the documentation.

In 1227, the Crown granted Hubert de Burgh 50 oaks

for his building works.

50 oaks is a lot of timber,

so certainly a lot was used in the castle.

But I think, almost certainly, some of these oaks were used here.

-These are still the oaks up here.

-That's right.

We haven't repaired them. We've done a little bit of strengthening,

but essentially, it's the same roof.

After 800 years, that's quite extraordinary.

We've done much more work to the Victorian restoration

than we've ever done to this!

That's a credit to the Medieval builders!

So not only the earliest scientifically dated roof in Wales,

but the earliest documented roof in Wales.

So if these oaks were felled in the 1220s,

the acorns from which they grew, well, they began to sprout

not long after the Norman invasion of 1066.

And perhaps the reason they survive

is because Grosmont didn't remain a mighty Norman fortress,

but rather hid its histories away in picture postcard peacefulness.

'To anyone who knows Bardsey, it seems inconceivable

'that the place has changed much over the centuries.

'But my eyes have been opened by work undertaken by the Royal Commission

'as part of People's Collection Wales,

'an online history of Wales.'

This is an exciting project

which allows you to view the history of Wales

in the comfort of your own home on your own computer.

'This is how Bardsey may have looked in the Iron Age.

'The houses were turf or stone walled.

'By around 1000 AD, the island reputed to be the burial place

'of 20,000 saints was an important Christian site.

'The early monastery was a humble affair.

'Monks may well have lived in circular huts nearby

'in outhouses which may also have housed a kitchen,

'refectory and guest accommodation.

'By 1400 AD, monasticism was at its height

'and the large Augustinian abbey dominated the landscape.

'The most striking aspect of the abbey was its whitewashed walls.

'At least five of the windows had stained glass.

'There may well have been a covered walkway joining the abbey

'to a lady chapel.

'By the mid-18th Century, croft style farming was well established.

'There was also an old chapel, in those days used as a schoolhouse.

'Today it is a visitor centre.

'By the 1890s, Bardsey's owner, Lord Newborough,

'had replaced the old crofts with more modern farmhouses.

'He also built a new chapel alongside the older chapel

'which was still used as a school and community centre.

'The lighthouse had been built in 1821.

'Bardsey's hidden history can be seen on the People's Collection.'

On this side it's a bit forbidding, a bit like a prison wall

which, of course, would have its own history.

But on this side it's the handball court of Nelson in Caerphilly.

It's so unique that it's worthy of being recorded

by the Royal Commission.

Handball. It's not fives, that's English,

it's not handball as played in the Olympics

it's not squash because that has a racquet.

It's Welsh handball and like the court, it's unique.

'It claims to be the only full sized handball court

'built on mainland Britain.

'Now, I'm a sporting lad but I have to confess

'I've never before come across the game.'

Here I am. I'm new to Nelson, I quite fancy his game.

What are the rules?

The rules of the game.

If you see that little square at the the front there

that originally had a flat stone for the service to start.

One bounce and that would be returned to the front wall.

-You can use the side walls?

-You can use the side walls.

That's why they're skewed out

so they direct the ball onto the front wall.

-Play vollies?

-Vollies.

-Both hands?

-Both hands.

Open hand, closed fist. As long as it was returned to the front wall.

Time to take on the Royal Commission about why they're interested.

I'll take the first point there.

Utterly hopeless!

Not a bad use for a pub wall.

The air shot! The air shot!

Do you think, if it had remained a pub wall,

that you wouldn't have become involved?

Probably not, no.

It's a fantastic structure and a very rare survival in South Wales.

It's the only handball court left in South Wales.

It was very popular in the late part of the 19th Century.

The idea of it being built by the Irish for the Irish...

Yeah, right next to the pub to attract all the pub-goers.

What were they doing? Working on the railway line?

Yeah. In the 1860s, we had the two railway lines coming close to Nelson

so there was a community move to work on the railways.

They were looking to develop sports they'd known in Ireland

and handball's a very popular sport in Ireland.

'After the heyday of handball the court fell into disrepair

'and another court got involved

'when the local council wanted to demolish it.'

The Welsh Handball Association took them to county court.

Fortunately, the judge who was hearing the case,

his father played fives.

When I explained to him what the position was

he told the barrister for the council

to reconsider what they were doing.

-Excellent.

-Within three months, the court was renovated

CADW came up and supervised it and put it back to its original state.

'Until about 30 years ago, handball players in Nelson

'thought they were a one-off.

'Then they heard of other handball players overseas.'

These are American.

It's actually the world championships in Canada we went to.

Any good? How did you get on?

I'd lost in the semi but one of our boys won the singles

and I think we had a doubles runner up.

-30 years ago when you thought this was the only...

-Court in the world.

Tell me how you made your balls then.

Then we'd get a tennis ball, we'd get a Stanley knife razor blade

and we'd shave the fur off because you can't hit the ball with the fur

because it takes the skin off your hand with the friction.

We'd play with those.

We thought we had world championships just for us

because we thought we were the only ones in the world to play it.

-That was your hidden history.

-Yes, it was.

Unfortunately, we found out the Irish and Americans played it...

And now you've seen the world with it.

Canada, America, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy.

We've been to these places playing their version of handball

and we bring them here.

We had the first European championships in '86...erm, '96.

We had countries from all over Europe and the Americans came over.

That introduced the village to a global version of the game.

Who have we got here? One of the immortals?

This is William Griffiths, who was the handball champion of Tonypandy.

His handball was played out of Porth

and it was twinned with this old court in Nelson.

In the 1850s, there were big-money games played on the two courts

on a home and away basis.

Any idea of the purse?

Purses at the time were around about £50 a side or £100 a side.

Such was the interest generated in these games,

people were known to bet their pigs on the outcome.

'Although handball was mainly a working class sport in South Wales,

'the old social distinctions were never far away.'

Down in Cardiff, I've got to show you this,

this is for a fives court, a related sport, but this is Cardiff.

I just love the line...

"On Mondays and Saturdays the court will be open for boys and members of the industrious classes,

"but on the remaining four days the court will be kept exclusively for parties of respectability."

The industrious classes were the people

who would play with bare hands.

The more posh, like yourself, Ed, would play with a racquet.

You'd pay a bit more money to use a racquet.

-Kid gloves, me.

-That's it.

It was nearly lost.

It nearly came down and it was saved by a good old judgement.

Is that the reason the Royal Commission exists,

to make sure that doesn't happen again?

Our role is to increase awareness of structures like this

so hopefully its long-term survival is assured.

'If the traditional Welsh cottage is in sharp decline,

'there are examples of how they can meet today's standards of comfort

'without losing their integrity.

'This is Pantyrhwch Cottage near Lampeter

'which retains original features while using renewable technology.

'Martin and Ann Jones have been living at Pantyrhwch with their daughter since 2008.

'Their new home is a labourer's cottage built around 1750.

'At first they wanted a complete renovation

'but then fell in love with the house and the simpler lifestyle.'

It was as I got to know the place a bit better

I found that a lot of original features were still there.

We came here with plans of doing a standard rebuild

and it was only when I started to see all the bits and pieces

that we didn't want to lose them.

There aren't many of them left.

I felt a bit of a vandal really, to destroy them and take them out.

'Richard Suggett is intrigued by what he's heard

'and is here as part of the Commission's research on Welsh cottages.'

This is perfection, Martin.

You never know what to expect from the outside

but this is fantastic.

You have all the features, from the fireplace to the quarry tile floor.

This is a remarkable fireplace, Martin.

It's a fireplace hood, isn't it? What's the structure here?

It's lath and plaster from here on up to the chimney.

Now, some of them are lath and plaster,

some of them are wickerwork.

Either way, they're a fire risk.

Yes, and that may be one of the reasons

-there aren't so many left around.

-Absolutely!

The reason we're able to keep it is that we've got

the wood-burning stove and an insulated pipe.

You would never have dared to have an open fire.

Not any more.

I'm very impressed that you've retained your quarry tile floor.

Lots of people just rip them up.

Yes, they're all original throughout the house.

There are various ages of quarry tile here.

These are the oldest.

They're hand-made. They've been set in lime mortar.

We don't get the dampness coming through.

It's a full breathing floor.

I'm very impressed with these windows, Martin.

I wondered whether they were genuine.

It's not a usual sash window or a usual casement.

No, it's got a central pivot on it which works very nicely

and much easier to work than a sash window.

-So you undo the catches...

-And it pivots.

And it pivots, yeah.

It's all wood. I have seen these but in metal.

It's interesting to see these - timber replicating metal.

The glass, again, the windows are all original.

We've had to do some repair on the bottom

but most of it is original cylinder glass.

We've had to replace a few of the panes, that's all.

And the finish is very good. It looks like new.

Wonderfully thin glazing bars.

It's a model window we could use today.

It works very functionally. Easy to clean, easy to paint.

'Indeed, the cylinder glass had to be ordered from France

'as Martin couldn't source a UK supplier.

'Martin and Ann have not only downsized,

'they've embraced a simpler life

'with a balance between conservation and innovation.'

We've tried to keep all the period features intact,

but we were having to re-lay the quarry tile floor.

So we put in under-floor heating and we run the under-floor heating

with a very modern ground source heat pump

which satisfies the conservation side and ecological side as well.

'A prime example of Martin and Ann's thoughtful modernity

'is that they've opted to use geothermal energy

'for under-floor heating.'

We don't want to preserve for preserving's case.

This is a living home

that I hope is going to be here for future generations.

We've kept everything we could but at the same time

made sure that it functions to a good standard in this day and age.

I like these doors very much, Martin.

It's all original including the ironwork.

The handle, I'm afraid, is a bit of my woodwork,

but it's an exact replica of what was there.

Unfortunately, the original has gone.

So a plank door - three planks, blacksmith-made strap hinges.

You've reproduced what was here with this handle.

What have we got here, Martin?

Well, the old llaethdy as it would have been,

but we don't need a llaethdy but we do need a bathroom.

A tin bath in front of the fireplace is not for me.

And a bathroom in a cottage much better downstairs.

Yes, we can keep all the plumbing downstairs

and keep the plaster work in place.

Well, this is a surprise, Martin. What's all this about?

It's an ingenious way of getting from downstairs to upstairs in half the distance

by putting a double step into each step.

In a small cottage you can get upstairs in much shorter distance.

A steep ascent and you stagger the climb.

Let's give it a go.

'Even the buildings expert has to watch his step.'

Ouch.

There are challenges.

You have to make the space work for you.

You have to think that every piece of equipment or furniture you need

works in its duality or that it's absolutely essential.

Sadly the dishwasher had to go. We're looking at a new one.

A bit temperamental sometimes

but I don't think we're missing out on anything.

We've had to think long and hard, probably like the people before us.

It's made us consider a more considerate consumers and users of equipment

and whatever we want to consume and buy.

There's a minimalist feel to this room, Martin.

It's an early 19th Century room.

There seems to be a perfect balance between the old and the new.

This looks like a storeyed house from the outside

but it's one-and-a-half storeys because we're in the attic here.

Just about, yes.

-What have we got here? The roof trusses.

-Yes.

-These were here, obviously.

-Yes, everything is as it was.

Even the lath and plaster on the ceiling.

That is still original for much of the ceiling.

I like the floorboards too.

But what's this area here?

There is a trapdoor there. You've seen the staircase.

It would have been difficult to get furniture up

or, as some people tell me, get the body out.

We're very, very lucky.

We read a small book by Martin Davies, Precious Inheritance,

and I think it changed both of our opinions and we did realise,

we're only going to come here and take down

what we always said we would like to find.

We've tried to make best of what was here

and not change too much but make it suitable for modern living.

'Richard Suggett thinks Pantyrhwch

'could be a blueprint for other traditional cottages.'

It does show that you can be traditional and contemporary.

The best of both worlds.

All those involved in a similar project should beat a path to Pantyrhwch.

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