Bath-St Fagan National History Museum (Wales)

The weather started sunny, then got cloudy and then rain showers. We took a train to Cardiff in Wales, about 1 hour but then had to get off 3 stops before our destination and take a bus supplied by the train because the train track was closed for Engineer works. The bus took 1 hour but provided us with a nice look at some of Wales. Then we took a 30 minute bus ride to St. Fagans (all the museum in Wales are free). St Fagan National History Museum

This is a fantastic museum and it would have been nice to spend a lot more time there especially in sunny weather This 100 acre site is something like Heritage park in Calgary with 40 carefully reconstructed buildings. My favorite is an 1805 row houses, which displays ironworkers homes as they might have looked in 1805, 1855, 1895, 1925, 1955, and 1985. It was so interesting to see how different the homes look when done for the different time periods. The early homes had little furniture but what there was is dark and heavy. In the last one (1985) there is a TV and a dishwasher, looks roomier with furniture not being as heavy, even though there is more furniture.

17th century Cockpit-used for cock fighting until banned in 1849





Store-1880

My next favorite was St Fagan’s Castle one of the finest Elizabethan manor houses in Wales. The house was started in 1580 with many of the internal fittings done in 1620. In 1946 the castle and 18 acres were donated to the Museum. The grounds are beautiful with fountains, waterfalls, ponds, formal gardens etc.
St Fagan’s Castle

Row houses

Row house-1805

Row house-1925


Row house-1985

St Fagan’s Castle Garden

When we returned to Bath the train was running so only took 1 hour for whole ride and we sat with a very nice Welsh gentleman, who gave Ches a Welsh beer. When we got back to Bath we had supper at the Royal Hotel and everything we ordered from soup to dessert was excellent, by far the best meal we had in Britain.