As of the middle of January 2026, all of our grants for saving and improving the Museum have ended.
The final work included our fantastic new entrance doors (many thanks to Ben Black for making the doors and to James from Worthy Signs Ltd. in Conwy for the frosted window logos), re-varnished/painted windows and doors (thanks here to Glenn Found) and our new website going live (thanks go to Mark Anderson, Thomas Crane Associates and Claire from the Museum).
January 15th saw the first session of our newly founded Young Archaeologists Club being well attended. Eleven budding young archaeologists came along and thoroughly enjoyed their “Introduction to Archaeology”.
Sessions will be held at Llangollen Museum from 6-8pm on Thursday evenings and we are still accepting application forms for new members. Please email cdv.yac@gmail.com for more information or if you want to come along.
You can visit the Clwyd and Dee Valley Young Archaeologist’s Club at https://www.yac-uk.org/clubs/clwyd-and-dee-valley. The next meeting is on 12th February and we will be building a model Iron Age roundhouse. For details of the themes for upcoming meetings please look at our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/share/14TB2VbYbL6/.
Llangollen Museum will be closed from Friday 23rd to Friday 30th January inclusive, for our annual spring clean. We will re-open on Saturday 31st January. When we open, our new item of the month display will show a selection of documents that we recently acquired at an auction. The documents cover a whole range of subjects, from road tolls to council tenancy agreements and works.
A new display will feature items on loan from Pentre Hall, Bronygarth, together with a history of the Hall. Some items in the new display (e.g. a hazel wood wand) have been displayed before, but there will be many items that have not previously been displayed. Come along to the Museum and see all of these fascinating items.
Our popular talks programme continues, although there will be no talk in January or February. The first talk will be on Sunday 22nd March. Cathy Cox from Tasmania will give a talk entitled "A Different Kind of Valour - Remembering Australian Heroines of the First and Second World War".
On Wednesday April 29th, Dr Jack Hunter’s presentation will be "Re-Thinking Haunted and Paranormal Objects". Wednesday 27th May will see Andy Harrop-Smith talking about "The Folklore of Birds". On 10th June, we will have Dr Jenny Day examining the poetry of Gutun Owain and other Welsh poets (see below) and on 24th June, Gill Smith will continue looking at churches in North Wales, with a presentation entitled “Hidden Histories and Folklore of North Wales Churches Pt II”.
On 29th July Sam Thomson will give a talk entitled "Everest 1924 - The First Summit?" Talks and dates can be subject to change, so keep an eye on our social media for announcements. All talks start at 7:00pm at the Museum. Tickets are £3 at the door with refreshments provided. Do get the dates in your diaries - we hope to see you there!
On our Facebook page, we are running a series of regular posts on historical excavations at Valle Crucis Abbey. From the earliest clearances by Wynne and Dungannon, to geophysical surveys in 2001, and then excavations at Pandy and Eliseg’s Pillar in 2008 and 2012, the posts will summarise what work was done and what has been found. Go to our Facebook page to discover more details about what the different finds can tell us about the history of the Abbey and its immediate surroundings.
The next exhibition in the Janet Wakefield Gallery at the Museum will be by Grace Hughes, and is entitled 'My Little Welsh Home - Landscape and Nature in North Wales'. Grace is a local artist from Carrog and paints landscapes inspired by the beauty of the local area. The exhibition will run from the end of January until the beginning of March. There is an open evening at the Museum for Grace's exhibition, on Thursday 5th February at 7pm, so do come along.
In March we have Emma Petruzelli's exhibition, showcasing her photographs from Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Sites and entitled "The mysticism of Stonehenge and Avebury". It will run from 2nd to 30th March.
Do keep an eye on our Facebook page for the April and May exhibitions. However, in June and July, we have an exciting blend of art and history, with an exhibition, entitled ‘Poetry and Commemoration at Valle Crucis Abbey’ / ‘Cerdd a Chof yn Abaty Glyn-y-Groes’, created by a research project on the scholar and poet Gutun Owain (gutunowain.cymru).
Drawing together new artwork and interpretative material, it will portray aspects of medieval art and culture from the Cistercian abbey of Valle Crucis. As well as the magnificent and distinctive burial monuments surviving at the abbey, the exhibition will present the literature produced or performed there, including chronicles, genealogies and a variety of elegies and praise poems.
The poetry, composed by Gutun Owain and others, provides particularly evocative impressions of life at the abbey, from the generous feasts the poets enjoyed, to their appreciation of the heavenly voices of the choir in the abbey church.
The ‘Gutun Owain and the scholarly culture of north-east Wales in the later Middle Ages’ research project is funded by the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and is being carried out by a team of researchers, Dr Jenny Day, Dr Gruffudd Antur and Dr Martin Crampin, at the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies in Aberystwyth, and in partnership with CADW and the National Eisteddfod.
The exhibition is being developed in collaboration with Llangollen Museum and complements our existing displays on Valle Crucis and CADW’s own interpretative materials for the abbey ruins, which are in their care.
For all of the latest information about what is happening at the Museum, do keep an eye on our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/p/Llangollen-Museum-100057657969751/.
Finally, as with many voluntary organisations, we desperately need more volunteers, especially to cover the weekends. If you want to be more involved with the history of the area, and become a volunteer at the Museum, please contact our manager Gill Smith at gilliansmith2@hotmail.co.uk or on 07516 023524.
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