TRELLECH: Search for the lost city
Fewer than two hundred years after England fell to the Normans of France at the battle of Hastings (circa 1066AD) a thriving and bustling
town had already been established along the Catbrook road in Wales, and they called it Trellech. The history of Wales is pot-marked with gaps and questions that historians have been ill equipped to answer: among these was 'where was the site of ancient Trellech?' Modern day Trellech, it had been suggested, was actually built over the
old foundations of the original town but some believed it lay further to the south
buried beneath the accumulation of more than 400 years of dirt and debris. It would hardly be obvious to the untrained eye where buried home sites and collapsed buildings might be found in the pristine rolling fields and pastures. And for some, like the experts at the University of Wales, the question had already been answered: modern
TRELLECH was on top of the ruins and thereby made
excavation for study impossible. But Jonathan Badham had a problem with moles, destructive burrowing animals with bad eye-sight but, in his case anyway, an uncanny ability to dig up medieval pottery shards. So successful were they in their efforts that he question the Monmouth Archeological Society about the possibility that some of the old town was buried on his land. This agreed with the views of the society's treasurer and peaked the interest of Stuart Wilson who set about to devote as much time as he could for the next two seasons to uncovering what lay below Badham's field. It seemed to Stuart that an adjacent
property promised to hold more than the single
house they had located and he contacted the landowner about getting permission to dig there as well.
The bad news was that the owner wasn't prepared to have a bunch of people digging holes in his property. The good news was that he was preparing to put the property up for auction and that Stuart was welcome to bid with the rest. Well, he scrimped and he saved and pooled what funds he could find and won the property with a bid of $59,000. And the rest, as they say, is HISTORY - literally!
Stuart's 'hunch' has paid off in ways he could not have imagined. They have uncovered a large manor house that definitely dates back to 1250AD with a double entrance, two large courtyards, slag floors complete with drain, a portion of the old main cobblestone road to the front of the building, a well, a lot of medieval pottery, a round tower base, and a chimney. And they have only begun the excavation process. When asked how long he thought it might take to complete the excavation and restoration work Stuart gave a thoughtful "50 years" as his guess but he doesn't mind. He's left his job as a toll taker and now hopes to spend more of his time digging, cataloguing, and restoring what everyone agrees must have been a major building of ancient Trellech well up until the middle of the 1600's. And he's eyeing the adjoining properties with hopes of acquiring most of the old town plat for conservation of Trellech, now no longer lost thanks to the moles and Stuart Wilson.
For more information or to contact Stuart directly see :
www.lostcityoftrellech.co.uk
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