National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales preserves and celebrates the sound and moving image heritage of Wales, making it accessible to a wide range of users for enjoyment and learning. Its film collection reflects every aspect of the nation’s social, cultural and working life across the 20th century, giving a fascinating insight into Welsh filmmaking, both amateur and professional.
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Maesmawr Hall, Welshpool: a family farm
Maesmawr Hall, Welshpool: an elegant 1690s mansion, hub of the Trant family’s farming life, with cattle, ponies, donkeys and spuds.
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Overview
Maesmawr Hall, Welshpool, a mansion dating from the 1690s and home of the Trant family, is seen here in all its summer glory, cattle grazing its front field. The Trant children – and Welsh collie Patsy - are out and about on ponies, feeding donkeys, making a bonfire, and rowing across the lake to cut hazel for pea sticks. A caterpillar tractor pulls both a reaper/binder at harvest time and carries a load of potatoes home after they have been lifted by spinner and gathered by hand.
Ion Trant of Dovea Farm, Tipperary, Ireland, studied agriculture in Canada and then joined the staff of the Welsh Plant Breeding Station, Aberystwyth, where he met his future wife, Janet Owen of Maesmawr Hall, Welshpool, both of them researching improved grasses for upland farms. The Trants farmed at Maesmawr Hall, the adjoining farm Cefn Du, and a hill farm - Esgairdraenllwyn at Llaithddu, Llandrindod. Conscious of a gulf emerging between town and country, Ion welcomed school visits to his farms and created/filmed the "Country Close-Up" series for children (BBC TV - 1956-62), often featuring his own three, and subsequently obtained work as a freelance cameraman.
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