ISWE researcher shares history of local women at new community Hwb

The venue, located in the village of Pentredŵr near Llangollen, was originally built by Denbighshire Council in 1909 as a purpose-built school to serve the growing local population. After 70 years of success, dwindling numbers caused the school to close in 1982. Determined not to see this focal point of the community fall into disuse, the Pentredŵr and District Community Association purchased the building for use as a Community Centre. Since then, the centre, now known as Hwb Pentredŵr, has gone from strength to strength and regularly holds a variety events, such as art classes, baby and toddler sessions, bike repair workshops and history talks.

In recent years, Hwb Pentredŵr, in partnership with the Making Sense Community Interest Company and Llangollen Museum, with funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, has been exploring the history of the local area and its people, with an emphasis on the importance of the rural and agricultural characteristics of the area and its communities. For example, recently, the Hwb has unveiled a display, felted from local sheep wool, showing the variety of sheep ear markings that the local farms used for identification purposes.

Lizzy has had an active interest in the Hwb’s projects, as she grew up on a farm within the local community. After her involvement with a wool felting project and talking about her doctoral research on women and land in north east Wales with Sian Hughes, Hwb Pentredŵr’s manager, it was agreed that Lizzy would hold a talk at the centre. 

Lizzy’s paper was titled ‘Local(ish) women and their land, c.1600 to 1800’. She explored women that were landowners and landholders, as evidenced by leases held at Ruthin and Hawarden Archives, through four case studies. Three of these case studies focused on landowning women in the Wrexham area (Elinor Puleston of Hafod y Wern, Hannah Pate of Croes Howell, and Christian Pate of Croes Howell). Lizzy provided a biographical background to each woman, explaining how they came to be landowners, as well as a background to the land and estates they owned. She then went on to analyse the leases in which these women were involved, discussing their experiences and expectations regarding the land and estates. It was clear that each woman was actively engaged in land management and improvement. There were similarities between the women; support and survival of themselves and their estates playing a key role in their management styles, but how the women ensured this varied between individuals and time. The fourth case study looked at a group of women that appeared in leases as tenants of landowning men. Lizzy’s discussion on these women showed that, in general, female tenants received less support than male tenants. However, she highlighted that these women were expected to work the land and engage with land improvement practices, showing that, overall, women, whether landowners or landholders, were not that different from their male counterparts. The talk finished with various questions from the audience – all of whom were captivated by the interest and wanted to learn more.

Lizzy is planning to give another talk at Hwb Pentredŵr in the new year (date to be announced) which will be a more general look at women and land in north east Wales, c.1600 to 1800.