Guide

Where the Things Are

Powys has no national museum, so the county's material is spread across a dozen small collections and two large ones in Cardiff and Aberystwyth. Here is what is where.

Almost everything significant excavated in Powys has left the county. That is not a complaint — the national collections have the conservation facilities and the security that small museums cannot — but it does mean that finding an object usually involves going somewhere else.

In the county

Brecknock Museum and Art Gallery, Brecon. The principal collection for the south of the county, in the old Shire Hall of 1842 with a Victorian assize court preserved inside it. Roman material from Y Gaer, medieval and post-medieval collections, and a strong local art holding.

Powysland Museum, Welshpool. The oldest county museum collection in Wales, founded by the Powysland Club in 1874, in a converted canal warehouse at the wharf. Montgomeryshire archaeology, including material from Strata Marcella and the Breiddin.

The Judge's Lodging, Presteigne. Not a collection so much as a complete building — Georgian courtroom, judge's apartments and servants' quarters, lit by gas. It has its own page.

Radnorshire Museum, Llandrindod Wells. Local collections for the old county, including material from Castell Collen.

Robert Owen Museum, Newtown. Small, free, devoted to the reformer born in the town in 1771.

Newtown Textile Museum. A genuine six-loom weaving shop with the workers' dwellings beneath it, which is the point: the building is the exhibit.

Llanidloes Museum, in the upper floor of the sixteenth-century market hall, covering the town and the Van lead mine.

The Regimental Museum of the Royal Welsh, Brecon. The South Wales Borderers collection, including the Rorke's Drift material.

Llanwddyn, Elan Valley and Dan yr Ogof all have interpretation centres attached to their sites rather than collections as such.

Outside the county

Amgueddfa Cymru — National Museum Wales, Cardiff. Where the important excavated material goes. The Llangorse crannog finds, including the embroidered textile, are here. So are the Guilsfield hoard, material from Gwernvale and Penywyrlod, and the Davies sisters' Impressionist collection from Gregynog.

St Fagans National Museum of History, Cardiff. Founded by Iorwerth Peate of Llanbrynmair. Re-erected buildings, rural trades, and the reconstruction of the Llangorse crannog. If you want to understand the vernacular buildings and the rural crafts described on this site, this is where to go.

The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. Manuscripts, estate collections, probate, tithe maps, photographs, and the digitised newspaper and journal archives that a great deal of this site rests on.

Powys Archives, Llandrindod Wells. The county's own records: parish, poor law, school, quarter sessions, estate and council material. Much of it uncatalogued online and none of it consultable from an armchair.

Coflein and the record

For any site, Coflein will tell you what is recorded and frequently where the archive is. Archwilio gives the regional Historic Environment Record.

If you are trying to trace an object from a particular excavation, the excavation report will usually name the receiving museum, and Coflein will usually cite the report.

Before you go

Opening hours in small Welsh museums are seasonal and often part-time, and several are volunteer-run. Ring first. This applies more strongly the smaller the museum and the further it is from a main road.