More from the History Group

After the talk about Agincourt, the meeting turned to the various projects that the History Group are involved with. They've been very busy!
Tim Pugh had come along from the Warren Club with a proposal for co-operation. At the end of the month, all being well, he should be handing over the money to buy the strip of land and fishing rights around the Warren. When he went to the Town Council to ask for some money towards the total, they said that they didn't want to be seen to contribute to something that would only benefit fishermen - it needed to be something that benefitted the whole community.
Tim Pugh has taken this to heart, and this is why he was approaching the History Group. There's a stretch of the old tramway (which was there before the railway was built) on the Warren. So he wants to produce a leaflet about the history, with a walking route, which can be sold by the Tourist Information office to raise money for them. The Tourist Information office is totally independent, and needs to raise it's own running costs. He'll also be talking to the Cheesemarket group, who run the Hay Tours walks around town. There was a lot of interest in the idea.
He was also able to give some information about old photos of shops that Alan, chairing the meeting, had brought along, including the fascinating story that digging around the cellar of what is now the St Michael's Hospice shop years ago had unearthed a Civil War era sword! The chap who found it took it home, though, so no-one knows where it is now. It's the sort of thing, though, that they are looking for to fill a museum cabinet of local history. They've been talking to Jayne at the Library, and she's keen to find a space for a cabinet in there.
Tim Pugh also knew something about the whereabouts of the gravestones that used to be outside the Catholic Church. In those days, it was the Presbyterian Church, and when the graveyard was cleared, the gravestones were sold to Boatside Farm, and stored in a barn there for years. They might still be there - or at least, someone up there might know what happened to them after that. There were gravestones at the Globe, too, but no-one's sure what happened to them.

Several people at the meeting have been writing books.
Eugene Fisk had brought along his book about Agincourt, illustrated by himself when he was artist in residence in the village, and for sale at £6.50.
Alan has been looking at local wills (less interesting than he had thought they would be for local information!), and is writing about the Wellington family who owned the Castle from 1720 to 1820. He discovered from parish records that one of the brothers of the man who bought the castle was the innkeeper at the Red Lion in Hay. This was possibly the building which is now Hay Wholefoods, but there is another house on Lion Street which mentions the Red Lion, near the Police Station, so there may have been two pubs of the same name.
He also showed a copy of a letter that had been found in an old wallet, from a Captain Crichton, who lived over at Wyecliff, on the Clyro side of the river, and who died, a month after he sent the letter, at one of the last major battles of the Boer War. He's been doing some research into the Crichton family, and it's possible that some descendants still live in the area.
Tim Pugh commented that the people of Clyro and the people of Hay never used to mingle, because of the toll on the bridge - you didn't just go over there for a walk because you had to pay!
David Bennett has written small leaflets for each pub in Hay, giving their history, and he has now combined them all into a thick booklet, which he brought along. It seems to concentrate on the public events that used to happen in pubs because there was no other large public space available, like auctions and inquests.
He also brought along his new book Major Injustice. He said he hadn't intended to write a book about the Armstrong case, but he got fascinated with the story to the extent that he has talked to Robin Odell (who wrote one of the standard works about the case) and looked at the court documents, and believes he has uncovered new evidence. He comes down on the side that says Major Armstrong should never have been convicted on the evidence that appeared in court, along with Martin Beales, the local solicitor who wrote the other standard work on the case.. This book is available from Haystacks record shop in Backfold, and it's a print-on-demand book from Lulu.com.

Mari, who was co-chairing the meeting, is involved with the Castle at the moment, doing work to help them with their grant applications, as they need to show that they are involved in educational work. So she has been getting in touch with the local schools for various projects, like the poppy making last year, where they did their own small version of the installation at the Tower of London.
She's also trying to track down the ownership of Salem Chapel. The paperwork has been lost - last seen at Gabbs solicitors - and without it, they can't do essential building work. They were also thinking about contacting the congregations in the United States that grew from Salem Chapel, when the preacher there, John Miles, emigrated with many of the original congregation in the seventeenth century. He's a lot more famous in the States now than he is here and they might be able to do some fund raising.

Finally, a new group is starting in Cusop. The Cusop History Group is, at present, mostly interested in the buildings of the area - and there are some quite interesting buildings up Cusop Dingle, for example.

The next meeting of the History Group will be on 18th March, details to be arranged.