This week on Darn Bach o Hanes Dewi Prysor goes to Tenby, Gwenan Schiavone goes to the National Library to look at papers from Brittany and Rhodri Llwyd Morgan looks at stories about meteorites in Wales.
Today, Tenby with its natural harbour is a popular town resort. There was a Welsh fort here on the hill but when the Normans came to the area they built a castle and a town. Then, after Llywelyn ap Gruffydd destroyed the town in 1260, they built a new town with walls to keep the Welsh out.
Under the town there are many tunnels. Dewi goes to talk to John Beynon about these tunnels. There’s a story about a man called Thomas White and his son hidding Henry Tudor and his uncle, Jasper in the tunnels before they escaped to France. Dewi also goes to see the tunnel which runs under Heledd ap Gwynfor’s house.
At the National Library in Aberystwyth there’s a set of papers about the work of a group of people from Brittany called ‘Bezen Perrot’. These people worked with the Nazis during the Second World War. Gwenan Schiavone goes to the Library to talk to Gwyn Griffiths about how the papers came to the Library and why people from Brittany worked with the Nazis.
Dewi Prysor goes to the village of Plwmp in Ceredigion to see where the name came from. There was a farm called Maes y Crugiau in the area and there was a water pump there. When people travelled past the farm they stopped for water by the pump and gave water to the animals. Then, someone came and put an L in the Word ‘pwmp’ and that’s where ‘plwmp’ comes.
In September 1948, a meteorite fell on the Prince Llewelyn Hotel in Beddgelert. Rhodri Llwyd Morgan goes to Beddgelet to talk to John Hughes; Harri Hughes, John’s father, was one of the people that went to see the meteorite. After Harri put the meteorite in his hand his hands started to swallow.
Rhodri also goes to Brynsiencyn on Anglesey to see where another meteorite fell in 19129. He goes to talk to Jack Roberts and to see the meteorite that’s in the living room in his house.
Aled Jones’s farm is near Caernarfon and on the farm there’s a special wall. They built this wall to train men for the First World War. In 1915, 1,200 soldiers from Accrington came to train in the Caernarfon area; many of these soldiers died in the Somme area in France in 1916.
Every week on Darn Bach o Hanes Dewi Prysor goes to St Fagans National History Museum and chooses a special relic. You have to guess what the relic is.
