ARTISTIC RECREATIONS BUILDING AND LANDSCAPE SURVEY CONSULTANCY AND HERITAGE LOTTERY FUNDING DOCUMENTARY RESEARCH HERITAGE AND GUIDES MUSEUMS AND INTERPRETATION PLANNING
CONSULTANCY AND HERITAGE LOTTERY FUNDING
Almost all of the work carried out by John van Laun Associates has an element of Consultancy, but the following have been chosen as relating directly to gaining, or exercising the use of, Heritage Lottery Funding.
John van Laun Associates was commissioned by The Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty to produce a report on the Angiddy Valley which runs westward from Tintern Abbey. To some extent the interest in the natural beauty of the Wye is a revival of one of the most popular Picturesque Tours which grasped the interest of the artist and tourist at the end of the 18th century. Nelson made the tour during a lull in the Napoleonic Wars and Wordsworth wrote those famous ‘Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey’ in the 1790s. At the time industry was not appalled in the way it was later and was actually sought out for its ‘fearful and terrible’ qualities – it was the search for the sublime that brought the Reverend William Gilpin to make the trip in 1770 and publish his artistic observations.which ran into editions well into the 19th century.
The Angiddy had all the qualities sought after with eight holding ponds which sustained a number of industries associated with wire making. This began in the 16th century when the Company of Mineral and Battery Works achieved a near monopoly maintaining blast furnaces, forges as well as drawing mills for their wire-making industry.
The Arms of the Society of Mineral and Battery Works 1568
Finished products were transported on the River Wye from a floating dock (where there was also Tintern Lower Forge) but, from the 1870s, tinplate making superseded wire making and a connection was made with the newly-arrived Wye Valley Railway by a bridge across the Wye.
‘Iron Forge at Tintern, Monmouthshire’ (Tintern Lower Forge at thje confluence of the Wye and Angiddy)) drawn in 1794 by Thomas Hearne and engraved by B T Pouncey 1798
The Report produced ‘The Ferrous and Non-Ferrous Industries of the Angiddy Valley’ provides an outline of the history and archaeology of the valley (37pp with 10000 words). The Report makes use of some well-known illustrations but also some recently discovered by John van Laun and published in ‘The Wye Tour of Joseph Farrington’ in The Diary of Joseph Farrington – Index, 1027 - 1053 (Yale 1998)..
Wire drawing in Italy in the 16th century
Just west of Newport the Monmouthshire Canal rises by a spectacular run of fourteen locks all of which are closely connected. With Heritage Lottery Funding it is proposed to put four of these locks back in water. As a Scheduled Ancient Monument this requires the consent from Cadw and John van Laun Associates have been commissioned to present a management plan to ensure that the engineering works are in harmony with this important monument
Cast-iron healpost anchorage at a headgate © Michaeil Blackmore and John van Laun