People's Collection Wales: History archive goes online
Post categories: History & Memories,Ìýgoodnews
| 13:58 UK time, Tuesday, 3 August 2010
It's amazing what turns up when you go rummaging through old things, like this £5 banknote from 1844 carrying the name , originally set up as Lloyds (Wrexham) Bank, no less, in 1785 by local merchant Richard Lloyd.
Go digging in a new online archive launched yesterday called , and there's no telling what you'll find.
Or, as ±«Óãtv history broadcaster and blogger Phil Carradice puts it, the site "promises new ways to explore, share and engage with Welsh history and culture".
So, I went looking and turned up the of a young Daniel Owen in a tailor shop in Mold in 1851, before he became a famous Welsh novelist; there was ; from 1847-1856.
And there's a fascinating , to the Bishop of St Asaph and others, urging them to build a 'new' town hall in Denbigh.
Today, it's .
The letter starts:
"A Lettre from ye Earle of Leycester to ye Bishop of Saint Asaph, and Jon Salusbury, Ellis Price, and the rest of ye Iustices of ye County of Denbigh recommendinge it to them to levey monie towardes building a new Shire Hall in Denbigh - Wth my right hartie commendaçons."
I trawled the archive using the name of towns in north east Wales to see what's, so far, available - as it's important to note that anyone can add their own 'history' to the archive.
Staying in Denbigh, the archive holds relating to the town, including aerial views and old prints such as a lithograph of a .
Of the , there's an hotel and its grounds.
But more interesting is a picture showing surrounding only by muddy tracks and views across empty fields - nothing like the scene today.
I searched places along the coast such as and in searching for you can see how much the front has changed since 2001 which was when archive contributor T.G. Driver took a .
Among other personal favourites, there are interior views of machinery in the now flattened ; a photo of the , near Wrexham, taken in 1952; and a in 1909.
