Shadowlands: Matthew Green (1965)
Dr Matthew Green, author of Shadowlands: A Journey Through Lost Britain
In this episode of Travels Through Time we witness the drowning of the Tryweryn Valley, a devastating event which galvanised the Welsh nationalist cause.
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It’s easy to think of history as a gradual accumulation of events, buildings and people. We don’t spend as much time thinking about its dead ends. Yet that is exactly what our guest today, Dr Matthew Green, does in his evocative new book Shadowlands: A Journey Through Lost Britain. In it, Matthew visits eight villages, settlements and towns stretching from the neolithic period to the twentieth century that fell victim to one form of obliteration or another. They include a city that fell off a cliff, a village wiped out by the Black Death and an abandoned island.
Shadowlands sets out to show, in Matthew’s words, how our country’s history is “shaped by absences”. The end result is a curious and haunting yet strangely uplifting alternative history of the British Isles.
For today’s episode, Matthew chose to travel through time to the beautiful Welsh valley of Tryweryn. Up until the 1960s, the valley was home to the village of Capel Celyn, one of the few predominantly Welsh-speaking communities left in Wales. It was a place where all the farmers would gather after a day’s work to recite poetry and where, in the tiny school, English was taught as a foreign language.
Read an extract from Shadowlands on Unseen Histories
In 1955 the inhabitants of Capel Celyn became aware, via an article in the newspaper, that their village was to be drowned. The Liverpool City Corporation had identified the Tryweryn Valley as the ideal location to build a dam and water reservoir that could serve the drinking water needs of the people of Liverpool.
While other villages in Wales had been flooded for this purpose before, this was the first time it had been proposed without the consent of the valley’s inhabitants. Unsurprisingly, the announcement sparked a long and passionate campaign to stop the drowning from going ahead.
To many Welsh people, the proposal was just one further example in a long history of English oppression. It had started with the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons, who had overcame the Brittonic kingdoms that had inhabited the island since the Iron Age, leaving only the ones that lived in the area we now call Wales. Under Henry VIII, the Brittonic language was banished from law courts, schools, palaces and mansions, forcing Welsh-speakers to learn English. Indeed, it was not until 1999 that Wales was granted its own parliament meaning that, when the issue of Capel Celyn’s future came to Westminster in 1962, the motion was passed overwhelmingly despite the nearly unanimous opposition of the Welsh MPs.
However, as we learn in today’s episode, the memory of what happened at Tryweryn has lived on for many decades since Capel Celyn was drowned. Not just in the hearts and minds of the Welsh people, but also in the ghostly remains of the village which are visible today when the reservoir dries up.
Cofiwch Dryweryn (Remember Tryweryn).
This episode is supported by Faber. Click here to find out more about their excellent and wide-ranging catalogue of history books. It was recored at Soho Radio Studios.
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Show Notes
Scene One: 15 August 1965. The Tryweryn Valley, freshly scoured of streets, houses, school, post office, church, farms, graveyards and trees, is filled to capacity after the Capel Celyn Defence committee loses its monumental struggle against Liverpool Corporation and English MPs.
Scene Two: 10 October 1965. The publication of a lurid newspaper interview in which the leader of the Free Wales Army says his organisation fully intends to prevent the opening of Llyn Celyn.
Scene Three: 21 October 1965. The Lord Mayor and Aldermen of Liverpool Corporation attend the grossly insensitive opening ceremony of Llyn Celyn at a tea party in a marquee overlooking the new reservoir. All hell breaks loose.
Momento: The trampled Union jack flag that the Free Wales Army through into the new reservoir.
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Presenter: Artemis Irvine
Guest: Dr Matthew Green
Production: Maria Nolan
Podcast partner: Unseen Histories
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About Dr Matthew Green
Dr Matthew Green is a historian, writer and broadcaster with a doctorate from Oxford University. He has appeared in documentaries on the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, and has written historical features for the Guardian and Financial Times. He is the founder of Unreal City Audio, which produces immersive tours of London as live events, podcasts and apps. His first book was London: A Travel Guide Through Time.
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