St David's Day

Posed here on Goscar Rock on Tenby’s North Beach, these women were fishwives from the village of Llangwm, eleven miles cross-country from Tenby. Each day they would walk from Llangwm to Tenby to sell their prawns, cockles and oysters. They are shown here wearing their traditional costume.

"I was brought up in Blaenau Ffestiniog and lived there until 1971. This High Street photograph brings it all back. The shop on the extreme left of the photo was my mum’s hairdressing shop and we lived in the flat above. My dad was the Superintendent Registrar and he used to marry people, usually on Saturday mornings. I well remember the lobby to his office always had bits of confetti in it. His office was called Caerblaidd Offices and they were a bit further left again to this photo. Every morning at about 7am the miners would congregate in the middle of the High Street to the left of this photo and the buses would take them to their various quarries around the town. In June every year the funfair would come into town, and it was always when you had to revise for the summer school examinations. They would set up camp just behind the square to the extreme left of this photo. Blaenau Ffestiniog was a busy town in its heyday and we had 2 train stations, 3 cinemas, and 2 dance halls. People cared for one another then and if we ever went on trips by ourselves, if there was ever a problem there would always be someone on the coach who would look after you. In midsummer we would have a Carnival Week which staged celebrity concerts, variety shows, and a Miss Merioneth Competition. This culminated in a grand carnival parade through the town led by the Royal Oakley Silver Band, ending up at the local football ground where they would judge the best entrant. Happy days."

A memory shared by Eurwyn Jones.

Cardiff became the capital of Wales in 1955, making it one of Europe’s youngest capitals. This lively modern city stands on historic foundations. The Romans established a fort here, and later the first Norman castle was built in about 1091 by Robert Fitzhamon, Lord of Gloucester, as a motte and bailey fortification. Cardiff began to establish itself as an important trading centre and port in Elizabethan times, but was also known to be a den of cut-throats and pirates, many of whom were drawn to the town from their base on the island of Flat Holm in the Bristol Channel. By the 1780s the town was in decline, with a population of about 1,500 people. However, the Industrial Revolution was to turn Cardiff into ‘Coalopolis’, one of the busiest ports in the country, exporting Welsh coal to all over the world. After the opening of the Glamorgan Canal in 1794 the local landowner, the 2nd Marquess of Bute, developed Cardiff into a deep-water port, exporting Welsh coal across the globe. The prosperity this brought Cardiff is evident in the grandiose commercial frontage of St Mary Street in this view. In the distance is Cardiff Castle, which was turned into a medieval fantasy palace by the 3rd Marquess of Bute.

Cenarth, on the Teifi, is set in a spectacular gorge with a number of waterfalls, and is famous as one of the last places in Britain where licensed coracles were used, both for salmon fishing and (as we see in this view) sheep dipping. Coracles are made on a willow frame. They were originally covered with horse or ox hide, but since the late 19th century cheaper canvas or calico has been used, which needs only a single coat of pitch to make them waterproof.

The Welsh Highland Railway ran from Dinas Junction to Porthmadog. It was constructed to serve the quarries, although many closed shortly afterwards. It was re-opened as a heritage steam railway in 2012.

This photograph from 1895 was taken looking north-west up the tranquil lake of Tal-y-Llyn; the view is virtually unchanged today. The hotel still stands on the right, and the foothills of Cader Idris rise to the left of the lake. At the head of the lake, the hills crowd in to the pass of Bwlch Llyn Bach, which takes the road to Dolgellau.

Snowdon in Gwynedd is the highest mountain in Wales, rising to 1085 metres (3,565 feet). Its Welsh name is ‘Yr Wyddfa’, said to mean ‘the barrow’ (a burial mound) and legend says that a giant called Rhita Fawr who was slain by King Arthur lies buried beneath it. It was the Anglo-Saxons who gave the mountain the name of ‘Snow-dun’, meaning ‘the hill of snow’. Today the mountain gives its name to the Snowdonia National Park, a popular playground for outdoor sports enthusiasts.

Anglesey (‘Ynys Môn’ in Welsh) is a large island extending into the Irish Sea which is separated from north Wales by the Menai Strait. At the time of the Roman conquest of Britain in the first century AD the island was a centre of the Druidic priesthood, and was attacked by the Romans in AD61 as part of their campaign against the Druids. The Roman writer Tacitus described the scene as the legionaries prepared to attack: ‘On the coastline, a line of warriors of the opposition was stationed, mainly made up of armed men, amongst them women, with their hair blowing in the wind, while they were carrying torches. Druids were amongst them, shouting terrifying spells, their hands raised towards the heavens…’. But the spells were in vain – the Romans were victorious, massacred the Druids and burnt their sacred oak groves. Nowadays thousands of more peaceable visitors cross the Menai Strait to the island each year for holidays. Thomas Telford’s Menai Suspension Bridge over the Menai Strait, between the mainland of north Wales and the island of Anglesey, was opened in 1826 as part of a scheme to improve communications between London and Holyhead. It was not only a pioneering engineering achievement but a beautiful and elegant structure, the gateway into Anglesey, which soon became a tourist attraction in its own right. The strait was bridged at the highest point because of the Admiralty’s requirement that a fully rigged sailing vessel should be able to pass underneath.

Built by Edward I in the 1280s, Harlech Castle is the very image of a medieval stronghold. It was here in the early 15th century that the Welsh leader Owain Glyndwr had his stronghold and seat of power during the rebellion against English rule, but his attempt to bring independence to Wales came to an end when Henry V stormed Harlech and captured Owain and his family. The massive towers and walls withstood some of the earliest cannon used in Britain, and its starving inhabitants only surrendered after a lengthy siege. The well-known song ‘Men of Harlech’ relates to the eight-year siege of the castle during the Wars of the Roses, later in the 15th century.