In September the 2005 Archives Awareness Campaign is launched.
It is an ongoing celebration of all kinds of archive treasures based around
the theme of ‘Beginnings’
A Charter of King Henry II issued c1170
The oldest document in the Glaorgan Record Office is a grant of land at Cofton in Worcestershire to William Hatchet. In the nineteenth century the land was bought by the Earl of Plymouth who lived at St Fagans Castle, and the charter eventually came to the Record Office with the Plymouth estate records.
The land is described as ‘all
the assarts at Cofton which were made before the first Whitsun before
the summoning of the King’s army for Wales’.
An ‘assart’ was an area of woodland which was cleared of trees.
Red and White cords threaded through the foot of the parchment once held
the King’s seal.
THE OLDEST GLAMORGAN DOCUMENT ?
Over 800 years ago Philip, lord of Marcross made a gift of 14 acres of land at Marcross to the Cistercian abbey of Neath.
This parchment deed, smaller than a postcard, records the gift. It describes the boundaries of the land and gives the names of witnesses including the prior of Neath abbey and several of the monks
The first
page from the Llantrithyd parish register
Parish registers of baptisms, marriages and burials were first ordered to be kept in 1538, but the oldest that survives in Glamorgan is for the parish of Pendoylan dating from 1569, and is held in the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth.
The earliest register which we have in the Record Office comes from Llantrithyd and begins in 1571.
The first few lines from the register transcribe as;
The names of such as be maried within the parish of Llantrithed as foloweth
Jevan ab Jevan and Cissell
Powell 1571
married the xxiiii of februarii
John ab John William and
Mary John 1571
maryed A sonnday the xix of maii
An enlargement of the first page from the Llantrithyd parish register
