Reviving Ruins

Medwyn Evans’s farm at Gwerncarnyddion is tucked in a plateau between the high mountains and the coast in Eryri National Park in Ardudwy, North Wales. The mixed farm of cattle and sheep has been in his family for generations. Now, the ruined cottages on the farm are revealing more about the communities and individuals who lived and worked on the farm in the past. Collaborative research into the ruins by Medwyn, his neighbour Iolyn Jones and a team from the Eryri National Park and University of Sheffield, is giving insight into these cottages.

Built more than two centuries ago for labourers and the rural poor, the stone buildings endure in the landscape when the memories of those who have lived there have faded. They tell of a history of squatting (in Welsh, tŷ unnos, the one-night house), and their ruins reflect the hardships that the people working in this landscape endured.

But the research project on the ruined cottages has brought new communities to the farm, in the form of archaeologists and groups of school children, locals and artists. We hear from archaeologists John Roberts (Eryri National Park), Jess Johns (researcher for the project) and Bob Johnston (University of Sheffield) about the work they have been undertaking with Medwyn at the farm. And at one of the cottages, we see the work that Medwyn has been doing to restore the building, and with it the stories and memories of the people who lived in it.

Presented and produced by Rose Ferraby