Preserving the past: Highlighting the Welsh heritage sector’s rich history and uncertain future

In last month’s ‘Sherds’ column, Chris Catling described the threat to the future of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales (RCAHMW), so we asked him to tell us more about the work of the Commission, as well as the heritage sector in Wales more generally. Here is his report.

The Royal Commission was set up in 1908, based on the far-sighted recognition that Wales needed a record of its historic buildings and archaeology to sit alongside the collections of the National Library of Wales and the National Museum (both founded in 1907). In the last 115 years, the core duties of the Royal Commission, set out in our Royal Warrant, have stood the test of time remarkably well. In essence, we are required to ‘provide for the survey and recording of ancient and historical monuments and constructions connected with, or illustrative of, the contemporary culture, civilisation, and conditions of the life of the people in Wales from the earliest times’.

Digital technology is transforming the speed and accuracy of RCAHMW’s survey work: Dr Jayne Kamintzis, Geomatics Officer, is shown using a Faro X330 laser-scanner at Cresswell Castle, Pembrokeshire, where we also carried out a photogrammetry survey.

The Commission was renowned in the past for undertaking comprehensive pan-Wales surveys of a building- or monument-type, resulting in major works of reference that were then used as the basis for listing and scheduling decisions, as well as feeding into historic environment records and the planning system. These were very demanding projects, requiring substantial resources and often taking – literally – a lifetime to produce. Today, with far fewer staff and much-reduced budgets, Commission staff have had to be much nimbler in delivering the Royal Warrant, with a strong emphasis on working in partnership with other people or organisations.

The Commission today records the ways in which people use buildings – for example, in documenting the now-demolished BBC studios in Llandaff, we trained BBC staff to record themselves at work in the studios, so that future generations will have a better understanding of their purpose. These posters from the 1980s were found in the basement bar at Pantycelyn Hall of Residence, Aberystwyth University, where the current King Charles III spent six weeks in 1969 learning about Welsh history, culture, and language.

In addition, RCAHMW now places much more emphasis on the second part of our mandate: ‘the life of the people’. Today, we are just as concerned with the social history of the structures we record, as we are with the physical buildings and monuments. Increasingly, we seek to record the ways in which people interact with buildings and landscapes; the meanings, values, and memories that they associate with them; and the ways in which these have evolved over time.

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