The Bolde Rental

I'm about a year into my part time PhD studies now with the Institute for the Study of Welsh Estates at Bangor, and I've been very bad at keeping this blog up to date, so I thought it was time to make a post, and try to resolve to post more often about the things that I uncover. 

Bangor MS 1939 'The Bolde Rental'

The abstract for my PhD proposal, when I submitted it, looked like this: The uplands of the Eastern Carneddau, from Gyffin parish in the north to Llanrhychwyn parish in the south, are scattered with farms and homes which became abandoned during the 19th and 20th century. This research will attempt to piece together the community and lives of these settlements between c. 1700 and the mid-20th century, discovering why these areas became permanent homes, how these habitations were used, investigating the lives of the inhabitants, and why they finally failed as viable places to live.

What are a few of the things that I've gleaned from my reading so far? Among other things, I've discovered that some of our local houses and settlements have very deep roots. When Edward I swept with his forces into the country in the late 13th century he was trying to bring a land foreign, to him, under his thumb. The locals were tribal, with very different customs to the English. Land was inherited by cyfran, equally between sons regardless of legitimacy, instead of being taken, through primogeniture, only by the eldest legitimate son. The Welsh made sure that their sons all gained a useful share of land, which led to land holdings becoming broken up and scattered, a bit here, a bit there. Our spreading parishes of Caerhun and Llanbedr were dotted with these scattered holdings, with few fences early on (Jones-Pierce believes the first references to hedging were in the sixteenth century[1]). When the crops were growing, stock was sent up to the hafotai on the mountains, where dairying went on, and brought down again in the autumn after the harvest. The area around Cwm Eigiau was documented to contain a large amount of hafotai [2].

One of my most exciting moments was unrolling the Bolde Rental in the Bangor University Archives. This is a wonderful 15th century scroll over ten feet long, the parchment crisp under the fingers, trying to roll itself back up under my hands to keep its secrets safe. It's an amazing transitional document because it shows the change from Welsh tribal holdings to a more Anglicised way of administrating land under English ownership. Jones-Pierce calls it the 'last stage in the decay of tribal institutions.'[3]

Bartholomew Bolde was part of a Lancashire family that had come into the Conwy area after the Edwardian conquest. He held important posts locally, and soon found himself buying up land in the commote of Arllechwedd Isaf. This is how the Bulkeley family gained their hold on the area; when Bartholomew died he left his estate to his daughter Alice. Alice married William Bulkeley, a member of a Cheshire family which had settled in Conwy. So we have the Bulkeley Mill near Ysgol Rowen (the school still owned by the Bulkeleys), Ffordd Bulkeley or Buckley running past the village, and Ffridd Bulkeley up on the hill above.

I have to admit that poring over this beautiful document in the archive was more an exercise in self-indulgence than anything else. To get sense from it, it's much easier to read C. A. Gresham's analysis and transcription in the Transactions of the Caernarvonshire Historical Society[4].

It seems amazing that over 500 years some of these local names have stayed solid and unchanged. So, what names stood out for me? Purely because of their familiarity; Gwern Heskoc (Gwern Hesgog); Lloydvayne (Llwydfaen); Boditha (Bodidda); Pull y Mogh (Pwll y Moch); Penvro (Penfro); Maynybarth (Maen y Bardd); Y Bryn Gwenythe (Bryn Gwenith). Names of people have been memorialised in the land through the centuries; Cae Ithel, Cae Asaph, and Tyddyn Rhobin, on the edge of Llanbedr y Cennin, are mentioned by scholars as mediaeval or 15th century enclosures[5].

'Tythyn Kay yr Tackenall' mentioned in Bangor MS 1939 'The Bolde Rental'

The most exciting for me was Tuthyn Kay yr Tackenall, a 'tenement and 3 acres of land from Gruf ap Gruf ap Mad'. Adjoining lands were owned by Laurence of Rixon late Dicus Whethe, and Tuder ap Ilin ap Ievan[6]. The house at Cae Tacnal was unremarkable - a late 1960s bungalow put down on top of the ruins of the old house[7]. The only old thing left was the ruins of the fulling mill down by the stream, site of a lot of childhood exploring, crawling through the square hole in the wall through to the stream, scrambling up to the remains of a dam higher up that must have created a reservoir to control the flow. Who knows how loud the mill would have been in its heyday, with the wheel turning and wooden hammers thumping up and down on wool cloth produced by local families. The field may have been white with cloth stretched on tenterhooks, drying in the sun. Undoubtedly the streamwater below the mill was far from glistening clear.

To see that name written out in the 15th century felt incredible. Some of the houses on this lane probably sprung up much later, but this unassuming little holding has been here for time out of mind, clutching to the side of the hill, lived in by generation after generation, until it fell empty in the late twentieth century.

I rolled the parchment up again and sent it back to rest in the carefully environmentally controlled recesses of the archive storage rooms. How it survived until this time, like the holding at Cae Tacnal, is a thought that staggers the mind.

Cae Tacnal Fulling Mill

[1] Jones Pierce, T. (1944). The Gafael in Bangor MS 1939. Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, Session 1942, 158–188, p. 171.

[2] Hughes, R. E. (1940). Environment and Human Settlement in the Commote of Arllechwedd Isaf. Transactions of the Caernarvonshire Historical Society, 2, 1–25, p. 21.

[3] Jones Pierce, 'Gafael'. p. 159.

[4] Gresham, C. A. (1965). The Bolde Rental (Bangor MS. 1939). Transactions of the Caernarvonshire Historical Society, 26, 31–49.

[5] Withers, C. W. J. (1995). Conceptions of cultural landscape change in upland North Wales: a case study of Llanbedr-y-Cennin and Caerhun parishes c. 1560-c. 1891. Landscape History, 17(1), 35–47, p. 41; Hughes, 'Environment and Human Settlement', p. 25.

[6] Gresham, 'The Bolde Rental', p. 37.

[7] Material relating to this construction is held at the Conwy Archive Service, but I haven't looked at it.