Collections

Summer 2015

Go behind the scenesat the NationalCollection Centre –page 6

On thecoverDiscover thestory of Bryn Eryr– page 4

takepartNational Museum Wales Volunteer Newsletter

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Croeso! Welcome!There have been a lot of changes over the last 12 months withnew programmes being set up and new team members. In thisedition we’ll start by introducing everyone on our team who willbe working at Amgueddfa Cymru to make volunteering availableto all at all of our museums.

If you have any queries please contactthe Volunteer Co-ordinator onvolunteering@museumwales.ac.uk

Introduction

Ffion DaviesVolunteer Co-ordinator

My role is to co-ordinator volunteering, youth forums, group volunteeringand work placements across Amgueddfa Cymru making sure you all get thebest possible experience.

Stephanie BurgeOur Museum Co-ordinator

My role is to work with Community Partners such as NewLink, Quest and Drug Aidto develop volunteering and community engagement across Amgueddfa Cymru.

Carys DaviesAdmin Officer

My role is to assist Ffion in the running of the Volunteer programme and manageany enquiries, timesheets, expenses etc. and of course to help the wonderfulVolunteer Supervisors who are the staff members across Amgueddfa Cymruwho supervise you day to day.

From left: Stephanie,Ffion and Carys

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Feature story4 Bryn Eryr, Iron Age Farmstead the

story so far…

Collections feature6 Bowl, Henan, China AD 1000-1200

7 Behind the Scenes

8 Meet the Staff – Joe Lewis

9 Meet the Volunteers – ValWilliams

10 Investing in Volunteers

11 Volunteers in Action

12 News and Updates

Contents

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Contributions by:

Dafydd Wiliam, Principal Curator of Historic BuildingsPenelope Hines, Curator of Applied ArtsAnna Olshansky, Samian Pottery VolunteerKate Breeze,Welsh Language Placement Sophie Kier-Byfield, Clore Volunteer Val Williams, Botany Volunteer

Edited by Ffion Davies and Stephanie BurgeThank you to Joe Lewis, Stephanie Burgeand Carys Davies for their contributions.

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Feature Story

Bryn Eryr was a small Iron Agefarmstead in the eastern cornerof Anglesey, and was in use fora period of about 700 years.

St Fagans National History Museum iscurrently building a replica based onthe excavations of the GwyneddArchaeological Trust held between1985 and 1987. These excavationsrevealed three substantialroundhouses. The first was builtduring the Middle Iron Age (c.300BC)and was enclosed by a timberstockade. The second roundhouse,built during the Late Iron Age

(around the time of the Romaninvasion), and enclosed by a morepermanent rectangular bank andditch, is of a much rarer form knownas a conjoined roundhouse, and it isthis house that is currently underconstruction. During the firstmillennium AD, as the banks wereeroding and the ditch silting, a thirdhouse on stone footings was built.

Sometimes known as figure-of-eighthouses, conjoined roundhousescomposed of two houses butted-up toeach other effectively forming abuilding with two cells (or rooms).

Bryn Eryr, Iron Age Farmstead the story so far…By Dafydd William, Principal Curator Historic Buildings

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As these buildings have only recentlybeen identified, no reconstruction ofsuch a house has been attempted.Moreover, the roundhouse identifiedat Bryn Eryr and rebuilt at St Faganshas walls of rammed clay 1.8m thick –another first for reconstructedroundhouses. As the archaeology wasonly around 0.3m deep, interpretingand reconstructing this posedconsiderable challenges with regardsto its design and its structure. Forinstance, did this building have twoconical roofs - one for each cell, or didit share a roof that spanned both cells?

After much deliberation, the roof wasbuilt of two cones and joined by a lowlinking passage. John Letts (an expertin early thatching techniques) and histeam – Ken and Gruff, have justfinished thatching the roof of thesmallest cell (itself 10m in diameter)

with yet another experimentaltechnique - ‘thrust’ thatching. Anunder-thatch of gorse was laid ontothe framework of the roof andcovered by a thin layer of well securedstraw. The final layer of thatch (the‘topcoat’) was then thrust into theunder-thatch, hence the name.

Although more work is to be done,Bryn Eryr is on schedule to becompleted by September of this year.This method of thatching is verylabour intensive and could not havebeen completed without the help ofdedicated volunteers.

Collections Feature

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Bowl, Henan, China AD 1000-1200Interest in this object comes notonly from its Chinese origins butfrom the unusual way it has beenfixed after being accidentallybroken. It has been mendedusing a Japanese technique withgold lacquer, called kintsugi.

Using gold lacquer to repair a brokenobject in this way means the piececan retain its functionality. It cancontinue to act as a vessel; incontemporary conservation, repairsare often undertaken on objects that allow them to return to thesame form as they were prior to thebreak but do not return thefunctionality. Think of breaking a

mug and gluing it back together-rarely can you continue to use it inthe same way as before. Basically, thisis an example of a ceramic item beingrepaired for functionality rather thanfor aesthetics.

Repairs like this suggest that weshould accept and celebrate change,and appreciate the beauty andserenity of age. In keeping with theJapanese aesthetic principle knownas sabi, this makes a treasured objectlook more beautiful and moreinteresting.

This bowl will be on display in ournew ceramics exhibition Fragile? atNational Museum Cardiff (18th ofApril – 4 October 2015).

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Behind the Scenes

A recent visit to the NationalCollections Centre provided agroup of Museum volunteerswith a very different kind ofvisit. A behind the scenes tourof some of the thousands offascinating objects that are notcurrently on display gave us aninsight into the wealth ofWales’s industrial past.

We were welcomed by Carolyn Charles,one of the curators responsible forcollections management at the NationalCollections Centre and taken on a'whistle stop' tour of the industrialobjects store. We had the opportunityto see objects ranging in size frombuilding bricks to large engines,illustrating the long and proud traditionof Wales as an industrial nation.

I was particularly impressed with theTransport Collection which featured avariety of bicycles, motorbikes, busesand even a yellow air sea rescuehelicopter. Included in the displaywere examples of the 'Gilbern', asports car manufactured in southWales in the 1950s.

In addition to the objects seen on ourvisit, the Collections Centre has awealth of other resources, includingthe Photographic Collections. Thanksto the committed and dedicatedteam at the National CollectionsCentre and all the museums in Wales,the industrial heritage of Wales isbeing conserved and recorded forfuture generations.

Visiting the National Collections Centre

Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows 1831John Constable (1776 – 1837)© Tate, London 2013

By Anna Olshansky, Samian Pottery Volunteer

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What is your role with AmgueddfaCymru – National Museum Wales?I create educational resources forchildren, schools and families. I oftenhelp with special events such as StDavid’s Day and anything that willattract a lot of visitors – I like havinga lot of people around me. At themoment I have no particular projectwith Amgueddfa Cymru but I helpwith developing videos, e-books,educational resources on the websiteand ‘Hwb’, a project with theNational Library of Wales.

What’s your favourite part of the job? I definitely enjoy talking to the publicduring events at the Museum andsharing information about thedifferent collections with visitors.

What do you think about learningWelsh within Amgueddfa Cymru –National Museum Wales?It’s good, many people in theMuseum speak Welsh, either as a firstor a second language, which createsa good balance in the workplace andfor visitors. The Museum is bilingual sothere are many opportunities to usethe Welsh language across the site.

So is there support for learnerswithin the Museum?Yes, the Welsh learners support eachother and the first language speakershelp by encouraging learners tospeak the language every day,learning new words. Also, I’velearned to speak more naturally andto use more idioms and metaphorslike a first language speaker would.

If you had to recommend one part ofthe Museum to visitors, what partwould it be?Well, the learning department isgreat of course but it depends on thevisitor. Children and families tend tolook forward to the traditional fair,especially during the summer, whilecouples and older visitors enjoy thecastle gardens or just relaxing in oneof the cafes with a cup of tea andenjoying the scenery. I think thatthere’s something for everyone here.

By Kate Breeze, Welsh Language Work Placement

Meet the Staff: Joe LewisLearning, Participation and Interpretation Officer

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By Val Williams,Flora Volunteer

Meet the Volunteers:

“It was suggested that it might beof interest to volunteers if I wereto tell of my long associationwith National Museum of Wales.

This was in the 1950s!

At the age of twenty I was a researchtechnician in the Asthma and AllergyUnit at St David's Hospital Cardiff. Theteam of six took it in turns to visit theroof of the Museum in Cathays Parkwhere we removed the jelly coveredglass slide which had been placedthere twenty four hours previously. Itwas placed in a specially designedapparatus known as a Hirst trap. Wereplaced it with a fresh slide.

Pollens and spores in the atmospherewere trapped on the sticky jelly, afterstaining it with a dye back they werestudied using a powerful microscopeback in the laboratory.

The team were trained to identifypollens and spores which had uniquecharacteristics and to record numbersof each type present on a particularday. Using a mathematical formulawe could calculate the densitypresent in a cubic millimetre of air

the previous day and predict likelyhigh densities of grass pollen forexample to which many people wereallergic. This usually occurred duringthe month of June and sufferers weretold to stay indoors at the worst times!

Our work was overseen on a weeklybasis when a member of the Botanystaff at the Museum visited us.

We drew charts of our researchfindings each year and thus observedpatterns of changing levels of thepollens and spores over time. Theunit was transferred to Sully hospital.

I left to have my family and workedin educational laboratories for manyyears ending up working with schoolsadvisory staff in The Teachers Centre.

On retirement I was pleased to returnas a volunteer within the BioSybDepartment of the Museum workingwith plant material collected by keendedicated people. These materialsnow need remounting onto moresuitable acid free paper.

There is no end in sight for there is somuch work needing to be done still!”

Photo, Val and Frances

Investing in Volunteers The Investing in Volunteersquality standard has beenpresented to AmgueddfaCymru – National MuseumWales for involving volunteersin its work and meeting bestpractice standards.

We received our Investing inVolunteers Award in June 2015 andare very proud to have received thisfor all eight of our locations. Ourvolunteers, youth forums and workplacements contribute hours of theirtime to Amgueddfa Cymru and helpus maintain, conserve and share ourcollections and museums for the peopleof Wales to enjoy again and again.

David Anderson, Director General ofAmgueddfa Cymru said:

“Volunteers make an importantcontribution to the work ofAmgueddfa Cymru. Their involvementincreases the institution’s skills andknowledge base and introduces afresh perspective to our work.

Volunteering provides someindividuals with the opportunity togain confidence and self-esteem andfor others it offers the skills,knowledge and experiences thatmight help them to get back intowork or change careers.“

A big thank you to everyone thathelped and gave their time for theassessment process. We are very proudof our volunteers and ourprogrammes, and hope to continuethis great work.

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Volunteers in Action

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1. Museum of Volunteeringduring Volunteers’ Week 2015

2. Museum of Volunteeringduring Volunteers’ Week 2015

3. Preventative ConservationVolunteers, Meredith andElizabete

4. Museum of Volunteeringduring Volunteers’ Week 2015

5. Kat, from NewLink on alambing experience

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3.4.

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• Our website is changing! Takea look at our new revampedwebsite and volunteeringpages! If you have anyfeedback let us know.

• We have new discount cards forthe shops and cafes acrossAmgueddfa Cymru available forvolunteers and youth forummembers. If you don’t have oneplease let us know and we willmake sure you receive one.

• St Fagans National HistoryMuseum was nominated byDiverse Cymru for Excellence inEquality – Public Sector for ourwork with communities andvolunteers in December 2014.Well done everyone in St Fagans!

If you have an interest in volunteeringwith Amgueddfa Cymru – NationalMuseum Wales have a look on ourwebsite or contact our VolunteerCo-ordinator to find out aboutavailability and new opportunities.We openly advertise all volunteeringroles to make it as fair as possible.

If you have any questions aboutanything featured in this newsletterplease contact the Volunteer Co-ordinator onvolunteering@museumwales.ac.uk or(029) 2057 3419

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