I’ve really enjoyed the process of researching and writing up my PhD study on the landscape archaeology of the Anglo-Welsh border. I’ve had the opportunity to generate and gaze at dots on computer screens representing everything from this borderland’s earliest Neolithic monuments through to its medieval castles and the results confirm that whilst its form may change over time its west, east, south-east liminal characteristics endure. Not even the arrival of external forces such as the Roman Empire cause much long-term disruption and arguably, they have the effect of throwing these patterns into sharp relief. These results are, however, for another series of blogs that I need to write up once the PhD’s submitted.

Within the limitations of my PhD I’m not able to look at the early modern period following the end of the medieval period, but nevertheless I’m still keen to explore how it might be possible to draw together the findings from my archaeological studies and the present day. COVID, after all, managed to remind us all that old borders certainly do not always fade away.

So, I’ve been looking into folklore as a means to try to create this bridge between the medieval period and the present, to provide some idea of how those living in more recent centuries viewed this landscape – though of course the tales may have much older origins. We are lucky on the Anglo-Welsh border that we have so much excellent folklore scholarship to draw on and of course it’s the type of folklore that relates to archaeological features and finds that I find particularly interesting. How did the previous inhabitants of the borderland, those who had an intimate understanding of this landscape, account for them? Llanymynech Hill provides a fascinating example of just this kind of local lore.

6519023AP. Llanymynech hillfort (and village) on the Welsh-English border – RCAHMW Colour Oblique Digital Aerial Photographs

It is thanks to Charlotte Burne, the unsurpassed folklore historian, whose work provides us with such a rich resource for the county of Shropshire that we know of this tale. Llanymynech Hill is a prominent feature in the landscape right on the border between Powys and Shropshire close to the town of Oswestry whose status as either Welsh or English is still a matter of debate. Most recently, during the 2020 Covid lockdowns the village of Llanymynech achieved short-term international notoriety as the place where the consequences of the differing approaches of the Welsh and English governments played out most conspicuously. As the border between England and Wales runs through the centre of the village the shops and pubs on either side were variously forced to close, or were allowed to open, depending on the chosen strategy on their side of the high street at the time. The golf course, with holes in both countries, found itself in a particular legal pickle about what was allowed, where and when.

Entrance to the Ogo Hole, CPAT Photo 3510-0004 taken during their 2016 excavations.

It transpires that Llanymynech’s liminal status, as a place in-between, is nothing new however and the evidence suggests it has very old bones indeed. We know this in part because of place-name evidence and through Charlotte Burne’s records of the folklore relating to the Ogo Hole. Despite its Welsh name (derived from the Welsh Ogof, a cavern) the Ogo Hole lies on the English side of the hill. The site is widely regarded as the likely entrance to the Roman copper mines, though the hill’s mineral resources may well have been extracted from as early as the Later Bronze Age. Within local folklore traditions Charlotte Burne relates that the Ogo Hole is credited as being the entrance to the world of the fairies.

Certainly, it’s possible to see how it wouldn’t take a great leap of imagination to attach such beliefs to this entrance into the side of these impressive limestone crags. With its extensive Iron Age ramparts and ancient mine workings Llanymynech Hill is steeped in evidence for earlier anthropogenic activities, so why would it not offer up the potential for other residents of the border to pass between their world and ours?

Within the wider context of Anglo-Welsh border folklore there is further evidence that even more may be going on. The site’s other worldly status may also be attributable not just to the Roman miner’s interventions in the rock itself, but also to some of the finds they left behind as Charles Henry Hartshorne writing in 1841 in Salopia Antiqua (p. 60) and quoted in Burne’s 1884 Shropshire Folklore: A Sheaf of Gleanings (p. 57) notes that ‘Roman coins have been found in it, and golden ornaments, and human bones.’

Evidence for such belief systems that tie not just archaeological sites, but also finds, and more specifically Roman coins, to local lore is to be found elsewhere in the border. The Tudor cartographer Leland (Itinerary, VII, 152) wrote that in Kenchester, Herefordshire Roman coins were attributed to the dwarves. Similarly H.L.V Fletcher (1948) in Herefordshire reported how Roman coins encountered at Bolitree were attributed to the fairies. Clearly, ascribing the presence of these finds to ‘other’ inhabitants of the landscape was a widespread mechanism to make sense of their presence. So, did the Roman coin finds cement the status of Ogo Hole as the entrance to the realm of the fairies? It certainly seems possible.

As an aside, in her footnote relating to the Ogo Hole Burne further reflects on the place-name evidence from this part of Shropshire that further confirms its liminal status

‘In the N. W. corner of Shropshire, round about Oswestry, there are a good many places bearing Welsh names. This part of the county is in the Diocese of St. Asaph, and a small portion of it lies west of Offa’s Dyke.’

Burne, C. (1883, p. 57) Shropshire Folklore: A Sheaf of Gleanings

The residents of Llanymynech’s recent lived experiences then suggest that they are only the most recent generation to live life not just on the edge of Wales and England, but in a wide-ranging borderland that defines itself as other again. Life on the border means you can uniquely be a limestone’s throw between pubs that were at once open or closed because of COVID regulations; a place to be both singularly inconvenienced, but also offered opportunities not available to those living elsewhere in Wales and England. Llanymynech’s rich landscape archaeology, folklore and place-name evidence combine to further suggest that you don’t have to dig too deep to discover that this in-between character has been a thread running through the lived experiences in this landscape for a very long time indeed.

Further reading and listening on Anglo-Welsh borderland folklore

An absolute mine of information on the folklore of Shropshire is Amy Boucher’s expanding archive on the subject available through her blog.

Charlotte Burne’s excellent 1883 Shropshire Folklore: A Sheaf of Gleanings is an unrivalled source of information on the subject. You’ll do well to find an affordable original copy, but fortunately, forgottenbooks.com have a reprint available in either print or PDF that’s available from a range of online bookstores.

Leland’s Itinerary is also online in many places including the Internet Archive.

In contrast to Charlotte Burne’s very collectable Shropshire Folklore there are lots of affordable copies of Fletcher, H.L.V., 1948. Herefordshire. Robert Hale, London (UK), United Kingdom.

For (lots) more information on Welsh folklore in general take a look at Mark Rees’ Ghosts and Folklore of Wales podcast

We’re lucky in the Anglo-Welsh border to have so many excellent publications on our folklore including this one written by Jacqueline Simpson, a highly respected author on the subject in general. Simpson, J., 1976. The folklore of the Welsh border, Batsford, London.

Logaston Press have several publications on folklore published on a county-by-county basis.