Strata Florida Project
The Strata Florida Research Project
The Project has a clear high-level research design working thematically across three main time periods, all within the general natural history of the Holocene:
- Iron Age to 12th century AD
- 1164 to 1539
- 1539 to the present day
The primary inter-disciplinary themes are:
- Cultural identity
- Class and status: hierarchies of territory
- Spatial and environmental perception and meaning
- Cultural production
- Spirituality and ritual performance
- Community
- Nature and culture
Currently, the following research programmes are being undertaken:
- Strata Florida Landscape Project
- Strata Florida Precinct and Environs Project
- Other Related Projects
- The Troed-y Rhiw Project
- The Monks’ Trod Project
- Aerial Photography Project
The principal disciplines involved will be:
- Archaeology
- History
- Welsh language and culture
- Geography and Earth Sciences
- Religious Studies
- Art and Architectural History
- Anthropology
- Creative Arts and Design
In spatial terms the project has a number of different scales of resolution, principally:
The wider landscape of Central Wales where land was once held by the Abbey of Strata Florida: this covers an area of approximately 400 km² and would include land not held by the Cistercians.
Photo: Map of the estates held by the Abbey of Strata Florida during the Middle Ages.
The core landscape of the main central block given in the early grants and which forms the great heartlands draped over the Cambrian Mountains: constituted later as the granges of Penardd, Mefenydd, Blaenaeron, Cwmystwyth and Cwmteuddwr.
Photo: Aerial photograph of Hafod on the upper Afon Ystwyth, once a holding of Strata Florida, with a snow-topped Pumlumon beyond (Toby Driver. Copyright: RCAHMW).
The central demesne or environs of the abbey in an area approximately 2 x 1 km around the precinct which contains place-name evidence of intense specialist farming and other activities.
Photo: Aerial photograph of the Abbey environs, its historic demesne (Toby Driver. Copyright: RCAHMW).
The abbey precinct spread potentially over an area of about 110 acres (44.5 ha), although the Inner Precinct with the main stone buildings covers an area closer to 16 ha.
Photo: Aerial photograph of the Abbey Precinct (Toby Driver Copyright: RCAHMW).
In order to facilitate the recording, presentation, analysis and interpretation of these spatial data, the research project is underpinned by ESRI’s ArcGIS v9.2 Geographical Information System. Development of the architecture (including hardware and software requirements, etc.) and data management protocols for this system and its initial field-testing were undertaken by Peter Talbot-Jones (funded by KEF grant: HE-08-FSP-1001).
The whole research design operates within a research partnership which includes the following key institutions (a list we hope will grow):
- School of Archaeology, History and Anthropology
The principal participants from the school are: Professor David Austin (Director), Dr John Crowther (Project Manager), Quentin Drew (Co-Director of the Precinct and Environs Project), Dr Jemma Bezant (Co-Director of the Landscape Project), Professor Andrew Fleming (Director of the Troed y Rhiw and Monks’ Trod Projects), Professor Janet Burton, Professor Mike Walker, Dee Williams, Nigel Nayling, Dr Martin Bates, Dr. Ros Coard, Canon Brendan O’Malley, Stephen Jones, David Sables, William Whiteley, Terry Bailey, Sarah Oakley and Peter Talbot-Jones. We are particularly grateful for the financial and infrastructural support of UWL through Dr Paul Rainbird, Head of the Department of Archaeology & Anthropology. We acknowledge also the role of UWLAS Archaeological Services
- The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales
We are grateful in particular to the Commissioners, the Secretary (Peter Wakelin) and the Head of Survey (Stephen Hughes) of the RCAHMW for their full support of the partnership, as well as the active participation of Louise Barker and Dr Toby Driver.
- The Dyfed Archaeological Trust
We are grateful to the Board of Trustees, the Director (both past, Gwilym Hughes and present, Ken Murphy) and the Head of Heritage Management (Louise Austin) for their roles in facilitating and enabling the partnership
Although not yet formal parts of the partnership we are grateful for support from a number of other organisations. The most notable amongst these are:
- Cadw: the Historic Environment Service of the Welsh Assembly Government
We have received constant support and encouragement from Cadw as the Project has developed in recent years. This includes their roles as guardians of the historic monument and as administrators of both the Scheduled Ancient Monument and the Listed Buildings on the site. We are particularly grateful to the present Director (Marilyn Lewis) and Chief Inspector (Gwilym Hughes) and to the regional inspector (Dr Kate Roberts)
- The Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies
We welcome the support of the Centre, especially its Director (Prof. Geraint Jenkins) and his colleagues, Dr. Ann Parry Owen, Prof. John Koch and Dr. Daniel Huws
The research programme is designed, however, not to be monolithic and will have a broadly ‘federal’ structure in which individual projects will be created, undertaken and completed under the direction of different individuals and groups. They will thus have different timescales and different specific research targets, but each will contribute to a growing understanding of Strata Florida and its context under the broad umbrella of the main research design.
We wish also to acknowledge the immense scholarship which has already gone into this site and its context: ‘we stand on the shoulders of giants’. We would want to name in particular, Stephen Williams, the excavator of the church and cloisters in the 1880’s and who published his findings so quickly; David Williams whose life-work on the Cistercians in Wales is such an important base-line for us all working in this subject; and David Robinson whose recent publications on the Architecture and Archaeology of the Cistercians in Wales are providing a key intellectual stimulus and background for our work. We are happy to acknowledge also, in the case of the last two, their support for, and input to, our programme of research, alongside many others outside of UWL who have contributed, and are continuing to contribute, to our work, notably: Louise Barker (RCAHMW), John Davies (CCW), Pete Davis (University of Wales Newport), Toby Driver (RCAHMW), Katie Fretwell, Moyrah Gall, Richard Hartnup, David Jenkins (Coed Cymru), Neil Ludlow (DAT), Gerald Morgan and Richard Suggett (RCAHMW).
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