Images of thatched buildings in Breconshire
Having found a plan and elevation of a thatched cottage in Trallong, I wondered what other images exist of thatched buildings in Breconshire. I began to search for these online.
My starting point was the informative website thatchinginfo.com. Here I found images of three thatched buildings from the county.
One of these is a c.1905 photograph of Rose Cottage in Llanwrtyd. This same image was also used as the background of a rather fanciful tinted postcard entitled ‘Welsh Tea Party’ in the collection of Powys County Archives. So far this is the only photograph of a Breconshire thatched building I have found.
‘Welsh Tea Party, Rose Cottage, Llanwrtyd Wells’, postcard © Powys County Archives
The website also has an engraving of c.1814 showing Brecon Castle from the south, with the Honddu Bridge and Honddu Mill below, after a drawing by Mrs M A Lathbury. To the left of the mill is a thatched cottage, with a small thatched extension or outbuilding to its left.
‘Bridge, Castle &c at Brecknock’, engraved by J Smith after Mrs M A Lathbury, c.1814 © Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru – The National Library of Wales
Finally, there is a Gastineau view of Crickhowell from c.1835 (not illustrated here) in which a portion of a thatched roof is possibly, but not clearly, visible.
So, this website displays a total of three images of thatched buildings for Breconshire, of which only two are really clear. The same website has at least eight images each for the neighbouring counties of Radnorshire, Monmouthshire and Carmarthenshire, and around 20 for Glamorgan, including several modern photographs of buildings which still stand.
This seemed a poor initial result. However, digging deeper, I did find images of several other thatched buildings through William Gibbs’ Tower Gallery blog. These include a sketch by JMW Turner, now in the Tate Gallery, showing a cottage just south of the west end of the Castle Bridge over the Honddu, a little upstream from Honddu Mill. Turner later painted a watercolour based on this, which is now in Manchester Art Gallery. It may also be this same cottage which appears in an early nineteenth century engraving of Brecon Castle by Thomas Cartwright (not shown).
Brecon: The Castle and Bridge, JMW Turner, 1795 © Tate CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-brecon-the-castle-and-bridge-d00653
There is also a 1788 watercolour by Warwick Smith (1749-1831) showing thatched buildings just upstream of Priory Bridge on the Honddu, on the east bank. These buildings, right on the water’s edge, were gone by 1834 when John Wood published his map of the town.
![Warwick Smith, View of the River Honddy [sic], watercolour, 1788 © Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru – The National Library of Wales](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/649d4579168838251e67aa8c/89826566-a020-426e-8b7f-5874d178c235/Warwick-Smith-View-of-the-River-Honddy-sic-watercolour-1788-Copyright-Llyfrgell-Genedlaethol-Cymru-%E2%80%93-The-National-Library-of-Wales.jpg)
Warwick Smith, View of the River Honddy [sic], watercolour, 1788 © Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru – The National Library of Wales
Another image, from a painted wood panel now in y Gaer, probably dating from the 1700s and possibly from the demolished Three Bells pub, shows a view looking up the Honddu past Castle Bridge. This includes one thatched cottage and what may be the gable end of another. These buildings appear be in or near the street known as The Postern.
Honddu Mill Looking towards Brecon Castle and Priory (detail), wooden panel, C18th © y Gaer Museum, Art Gallery & Library
https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/honddu-mill-looking-towards-brecon-castle-and-priory-178133
The last thatched building I have found is in an aquatint of 1797 by SW Fores which includes a thatched cottage by a mill, described simply as ‘at Brecknock’. The relative positions of the mill and thatched cottage are not unlike those at Honddu Mill, but the detail suggests that this is more likely a different set of buildings in a location as yet unidentified.
S W Fores, A mill at Brecknock (detail), engraving 1797, © Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru – The National Library of Wales
So, over a few days of online research I’ve been able to find images of about half a dozen thatched buildings in Breconshire, the majority of them near the banks of the Honddu. I am sure that there are others still to find, but it does seem a very small number. For comparison, are about three times that number just in one single 1797 drawing of Newcastle Emlyn, in which nearly all the buildings were thatched.
Thomas Rowlandson, Newcastle Emlyn, drawing, 1797 © Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru – The National Library of Wales
I want to go on to look at why so few images survive, and what that implies about the history of thatch in Breconshire, but before I do that, in the next instalment I’ll be taking a closer look at just one of the thatched buildings described above, for which a remarkable series of images survives.
