WALES IS A BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY AND THE RESEARCH IS GREAT!!!!

Our days are filled with so much it is hard to keep track. And of course I take too many photos. In the movie, Sabrina says "more is not better it is just more". But how can I eliminate photos of some of the beautiful scenes we have witnessed?  Sometimes I think "More" is better because it shows how amazing things really are. Less would not do justice.

We planned to work at home on Monday but then Steve got an appointment with an eye technician who could check his eye pressures. Since he has glaucoma it is always important to know if the drop regimen is keeping his eye pressures down. So when he was told to come right in we made an immediate change in our plans and drove to Pontypridd to find Specsavers. And what a delight to learn that his pressure were 14 and 12 which is as low as they have been in months. What a great relief! We will check again in a couple of months.

Of course we had to look around this part of the town just a little. Not too far away is the Church building where we attend church. We actually ran into the two missionaries who cover this area. They were taking a stroll down this market area on their preparation day. 

Cool monument just outside of Specsavers. It has the white and the red dragon on top. I love the beautiful detail on this monument.

Cool pedestrian street with shops. I never get tired of the detailed architecture.

And I like to poke around and found this interesting collection in an alley behind some stores.

When the weather is good we try to get out and walk. We often have rain and cloudy weather so it is a real treat when the sun is shining.This day we explored a little more of where we live. There are a lot of interesting things to see in this village of terrace or row houses. It is not what I consider a typical village but rather long strips of row houses. 

We enjoy that we are in the end house of our row as I tend to be a little claustrophobic. But I have to say the this house has been fixed up very nicely and it is convenient for us. When I reserved this place I thought we would be in a typical village, whatever that is. But I suppose the villages we see on TV are from a bygone era. People drive to work and where we are is basically a bedroom community. 

The  new wooden fence  visible behind the rock surrounds our private  'garden' which is encapsulated within this rock wall. We love the privacy the wooden fence provides but I  love the rock! and it is so interesting how so many plants just volunteer between the rocks. Sadly I think they will eventually deteriorate the wall. but it looks pretty cool now.

Just down the street there is a lovely rock wall which has these very small pink flowers taking up residence in the cracks. I cannot imagine how many hours it must have taken to produce these walls. And how much rock! There is not a shortage of rock in this country.

What is the story of this? How long has it been imbedded in the rock wall? Why was it installed and what  has it been used for? I suspect there are stories to be told if we  only knew.

We discovered this property filled with garden allotments. This shot only shows about half of it. Such fun to see plants growing. The garden peas were up 6 or so inches already! People have built green houses and even little sheds to hold their garden supplies. I love it.

This little door led inside the corrugated garage. Have no idea what is/was stored here. But a very tiny door.

Interesting rusty fence with its own beauty just by the bus stop across the street from our home.

Early Tuesday morning we began our journey to the National Archives in Aberystwyth. We had an 11 AM appointment for an orientation so left shortly after 7 AM. I was rather intimidated at the thought of being in that amazing repository. The drive should have been about 2 1/2 hours according to google maps. But Google maps did not account for the narrow roads which slowed us considerably. 

There was so much beauty but really no time to stop for photos. I drove and Steve snapped shots out the window. But occasionally I just had to  stop to take some photos! On another time we plan to have enough time to stop at some of the lovely places.  There will be no more morning appointments when we have to drive so far!

We saw SO many sheep and so many interesting field enclosures made of hedges. Although we travelled on A470 the roads were still pretty narrow. I wanted to stop but there were not really good places to stop. So, I have to store up in my mind the sight of the cute baby lambs in an enclosure, the amazing hedge fences and the beautiful pheasant with many red feathers.

The route led us right though narrow roads in the middle of towns and villages. Without the SatNav we would have struggled. I had not expected that the main road would wind through narrow and almost one lane village streets. Loved seeing them though and next time we will stop more and explore.

Just beautiful. Look like a painting.

A few sheep.

There was actually a place to pull off and enjoy this beautiful valley view.

Just a random church along the way.

One of the narrow 'main' roads. See how there is street parking? and it is a two way road. There is just a system where people pull over and wait for oncoming traffic to pass. Its all about flashing lights. You flash your light to let people know you are waiting fro them  and you flash your lights to say 'thank you' when someone waits for you. Overall I find the drivers here to be very considerate.

A couple of naughty sheep escaped their fence.

It seemed they were just clear cutting all the lovely trees. It made me sad. But I suppose they wanted more pasture land.

So many dead trees :(

We arrived at the library without getting lost and made it just in time to get signed up for  our new reader cards and make our way to the reading room. As soon as Steve set down his books an alarm went off! He wondered what he had done wrong when the staff alerted us that it was a fire alarm and that we had to leave everything and evacuate the building. So, out we went for about 30 minutes.

The National Archive is HUGE and IMPOSING! I could not even get a photo from where we were.  But Steve did stand by the guard whose name also happens to be Jenkins. We also learned of another man whose last name was Jenkins who was also visiting from the US. He was 90 years old so who knows maybe we have even more years than we thought left to research. And neither of these men seems to be related to Steve.

Looking to the ocean from the archive. It was a bit misty  but still lovely.

Interesting detail on the door.

These stairs lead to the reading rooms where our research adventure began.

We met briefly for our orientation appointment but were told that since we had already gotten to the 1700's we could not hope for much more information.  They basically could not advise us. The pedigree books begin in 1500 so we have a large gap to fill before we get to 1500. Of course I am stubborn and refuse to accept that we cannot find more. So, we proceed with hope.

It was an intense day of reading many documents. There were several marriage bonds and estate records which I had pre-ordered so the staff kept me well supplied. It was intense just reading through so many documents and trying to take good notes. They charge £20 for permission to take photos so suggested that we put everything we were interested in photographing aside and take the photos all at once. So we did.

When they closed at 6 PM we were tired and ready to leave.  Then we had to find Harry's Bed and Breakfast where we had reserved a room. It was less than 2 miles away but I would have been hard pressed to find it without the SatNav. 

But find it we did - but then did not know what to do about parking. So after circling the block I dropped Steve off to find out where the 'free parking' was. It took a long time and I was worried about just sitting on the side of the street which was kind of busy so I drove around the block again and this time took a turn into a tiny lane which ended up being the right place. Steve was outside with one of the employees being told where we could park. Well there was ONE place left. I guess when you are dealing with old properties there is just limited space. But we got parked and decided that any exploring that evening would be on foot as I was NOT about to give up my space!

This is a view looking out of the parking area.
This lane is so narrow I had to be VERY careful not to scrape the mirrors.

Another characteristic of older buildings are the STAIRS. We counted 32 stairs  in the
labyrinth journey we took to find our room.

But during a discussion at church about how to handle trials a lady  said when she is faced with challenges she just says "92" steps, squares her shoulders and presses on. That came because of her vacation in Tenerife where they had to go down 92 steps to the dining room and then up 92 steps again to their room. After doing that for a few days they became stronger and were more easily able to handle further steps.  I thought it was a great analogy. But Wales is definitely a country of stairs!

The lovely street where we stayed. I think the sidewalks were wider than the 2 lanes of traffic.

This is Harry's. Our room was on the left side on the third floor. It is an old building with slanting floors. But it is tastefully decorated.

Love the old buildings!

This wise old seagull enjoyed his perch.

The Old City College is SO huge and the architectural detail is amazing. It sits right on the sea front.

The Atlantic Ocean. I always love to hear the waves. They are just so peaceful to me.

The remains of an old castle in the back ground. A war memorial in the front.

View of the boardwalk and Old City College from the hill where the the war memorial stands.

Loved when I noticed this very cool snake. Every bench along the boardwalk was graced with these serpentine supports. So creative and I am sure they have some kind of meaning but what it is I do not know.

Random buildings.

Street scene

After our long walk through town and not finding anything that looked like a better option we went back to Harry's and ordered dinner. When our cute waitress came to our table she asked " Well how are you liking your visit to Aber?" I had to chuckle because it took me some time to learn to say and spell Aberystwyth and was pretty proud that I did and now I find out it is nicknamed "Aber".😳
We ordered one soup and one salmon dinner and asked for them to be halved. Even halved we had more than we could eat. And it was pretty tasty. The soup was a carrot/orange soup which I had not tasted before.

Wednesday morning we were ready to go back to the archive. I had not slept well  - should have brought my own pillow. Went to a thrift store after breakfast to buy some toy soldiers we had seen in the window on our walk the previous evening. I paid our £20 so I could take photos and asked the staff to bring out the documents. They would only bring about 7 at a time but they kept me busy. Some of the documents were so fragile. One of the marriage bonds I had looked at on Tuesday had suffered damage over night in the handling by the staff. It made me sad. But I was still able to get a good scan.

The evening before I had ordered a lot more records for Manor of Colwinston which I found in the catalog so I was kept very busy!  

All ready to scan. My little post that shows I had permission to photograph and my receipt for payment.

We are not allowed to publish copies of the documents from there due to copyright but here is a glance at how they look. Although these are some of the more intact items.

It was a grueling 4 1/2 hours of scanning. But how grateful I am for the Scanbot app. All I have to do is open the app and point my phone over the document. Often it immediately finds the outline of the document and just begins to scan. Sometimes I need to manually take the scan. Also I have filter options to enhance the scan. Works so great! It has allowed me to scan so many documents and immediately send a PDF to my sister-in-law who is working along with us at her home. And by sending it to her my gmail "sent file" has a copy so it is a win-win.

But we were exhausted and still had to drive home. We determined not to go back the way we came to avoid the many narrow winding roads so we filled up with gas and headed south. 

It was just so beautiful! I do not believe the shots do the GREEN justice. I have never seen such a beautiful green. I keep exclaiming to Steve and he kept trying to take photos but FINALLY there was a place to pull over so I could get out of the car and take some shots! Even with the overcast sky it was so lovely!

And it amazes me how much variety we have seen in the Welsh country side. In just a few hours we went from beautiful green meadows, to ocean views, to more beautiful meadows of a different kind, to winding hill tops to towns with LONG rows of terraced homes. I am sure one of the towns, Ferndale, had a whole mile stretch of terraced homes on  both sides without any breaks between them.

I believe this is Carmarthan. 

A few sheep near Aberdare. The SatNav routed us on a bypass so we ended up winding our way around Aberdare and up a hairpin curve to the top of the hills. So much for avoiding curvy roads! I guess there is just no way to easily get to Aberystwyth from anywhere!

So we made it home!!! a LONG trip with lots of driving but with great research results! And we were exhausted!

Thursday was spent writing a report of the Bowen Family in Colwinston. Steve's 4th great grandfather Evan Jenkin married Anne Bowen in Colwinston in 1765. He came from Neath but her family was from Colwinston. I have worked hard on this line these past 2 weeks. On that report I noted 65 documents from both the Glamorgan Archive in Cardiff and the National Archive in Aberystwyth in which we found information on that family. So far we have been able to track them back to the year 1700. We know her father was David Bowen Jr. and his father was also David Bowen. We found evidence that in the years 1711-1700 he transitioned from David Bowen to David ap/ab Owen to David Owen. The parish records do not go back that far so we have to depend on what we can find in the records on the Manor of Colwinston in the Penrice and Margam Estate.

There are earlier records but they are housed  in Aberystwyth so I anticipate another trip over there before the end of August when we will stay there for 2 weeks.

Today is a bank holiday so none of the archives are open. And today I will prepare a report on the Edmond family. Steve's 5th great grandmother, the mother of Anne Bowen, was Jennet Edmond. The documents from the Manor of Colwinston also tell about her father, Thomas Edmond, and further ancestors. It just takes a little time put it all together.

But Friday we returned to the Glamorgan Archives to work a bit more. We are so exhausted that it was not a very productive session. But Steve  managed to find some info that was suggested from the marriage bonds we looked at in Aberystwyth.

This is a document from the mid 1700's. It is sadly not one of Steve's ancestors but what a great document with an etching of Kind George the Second!

Our son one day asked if we were doing things to relax and have fun! Well on Saturday we decided to just take the day! But it started out pretty rocky when we tired to find the Morrisons store in the neighboring town of Porth. The SatNav failed us miserably and after going around the same area 2 times and not finding the right road to the parking lot I was angry and exasperated and just gave up and set the SatNav for the Antique mall in Pontyclun. After another NARROW winding road we found it and had a nice respite looking at all of the lovely items.

My goofy husband!

Only finding one thing to buy, a love spoon, we reset the SatNav for the old part of Llanstrisant. What an experience! first of all we parked on the side of the road. Traffic took turns letting people up or down the road. 

It was a beautiful sunny but rather chilly and windy day. We walked around a couple of shops including a center for arts and crafts which was an old workhouse that had been converted to support the arts. Several artists had working studios there with lots of intriguing items. I loved a store that had home items and after looking at other things and having lunch we stopped back so I could buy some very cool kitchen graters. We struck up a very interesting conversation with a couple of people in the store. They gave us all kinds of interesting details of the history of Llantrisant.

They told us that every 7 years there is a special day with the re-enactment of a battle of the Welsh people fighting the French with their long bows. The bowsmen took their bow strings off and stored them under their arms while it rained, no one fought in the rain, and restrung them after the rain stopped. Apparently the dry strings enabled those bowsmen to come off victors and the English rewarded the Welsh by giving up the property to Llanstrisant. Sadly the 7th year was last year.

But they also directed us to the old castle ruins up the hill. The castle was apparently destroyed by the English when they left to prevent the Welsh from having an advantage should there be another war with the English. It just makes me so sad when things of historical significance are destroyed!

We walked up to see the castle remains and also found the beautiful church and saw the beautiful views.

And that is us with the red license plate.

We visited the General Store where I had read there was good bread from a local bakery. It was just plain white bread - I had been hoping for some good whole grain dark bread - but it was just delightful to visit with the clerk. He made sure I had the bread with the latest expiry dates and was so nice to visit with. Ironically he asked where in Australia I came from. He decided Steve was from the US but that I sounded Australian.
Note the eggs in the basket. Eggs are not refrigerated over here.

And I loved this potato display!

Sidewalk stone work.

Back side of Llantrisant Castle tower.

Front of Llantrisant Castle tower - as the gal told us, held together by the ivy.

There is just something beautiful about old headstones. But it makes me sad that they have weathered so much they are illegible.

And more

The church in Llantrisant.

View from the churchyard in Llantrisant.

This is an interesting stature of Dr. William Price. The template beneath says he was Surgeon, Charterist, and self-styled Druid. He lived 1800-1893 and is said to have pioneered cremation beginning with his own son who he had named Jesus Christ.

A lovely field on our way out of town. It must be near the commons were the reenactment takes place.

Then we had Sunday which was a good day of respite. We enjoyed our church meetings and the great Spirit we felt, we enjoyed visiting with the young man we now pick up for church, we enjoyed a good nap and enjoyed just preparing for this new week.

We have noticed that the hills are getting greener, the trees are almost full leaved and it is a very beautiful place!