Cynefyn
‘Terroir’ is very much a francophone concept of landscape and culture but other languages and nations have similar words to express this complex concept. The Welsh cynefin is as hard to define as terroir, but has strong links to ideas of place, of habitat, of belonging, of welcoming familiarity, of a location which feels like home. And it is an aspect of cynefin which occupies Terroir today.
As part of the research for a blog post on art in lockdown, we have been following a young Welsh artist and architectural designer who specialises in vernacular structures, particularly traditional Welsh buildings. Rob Thompson says,
“As an artist, my subject is the everyday. Although humble, [these buildings] seem to sit proudly in the landscape, and appear very comfortable in their habitat. The cottages, farmhouses and barns which are scattered across Wales’ western seaboard, offer a direct connection to those who shaped this land before us [and] are indelibly linked to the werin bobl (the rural people). Using locally sourced materials such as stone, slate, mud, timber and heather, they were relatively quick and cheap to build. By sketching and painting these buildings, I hope to record them before they disappear. Over the last few decades they have been vanishing at an alarming rate and when they do survive have often been so changed that they are barely recognisable.”
The paintings which have emerged from this understanding and appreciation of the west Wales cynefin have really caught Terroir’s attention.
One of Rob Thompson’s Instagram accounts (how many does a young man need?) started today’s journey across west Wales by introducing us to the ‘Crog Loft cottage’.
Rob writes:
“[the Crog Loft cottage is] essentially a single storey dwelling with a lofted space above for sleeping. Similarities exist in Ireland, Scotland and Brittany but the Crog Loft cottage version is uniquely Welsh. Its origins are linked to 19th century poverty and encroachment onto common land.” Those who were fortunate, would own a cottage with a tiny land holding [called Tyddynau] and could maybe keep a cow or other livestock, but the Ty Moel, or dwellings of the poorest members of society had no land and thus no additional resources to fall back on when times were hard. If, however, ‘you could successfully build your home overnight, and have smoke rising from the chimney by the morning, you could claim the land your house sat on.” These cottages were known as Ty Unnos, or overnight houses.
Single-room cottages such as these were divided by a dresser “placed half way across the space, thus separating the main cooking/living area from the bedroom. At some stage, planks of wood were placed over the box beds to create a sleeping platform and the Crog Loft cottage was born! Later, formal timber partitions, and in some cases stone walls, were built, creating a three-roomed space. The Crog Loft only sat above the bedroom, so the living and kitchen space was double height. There are many words for the Crog Loft. In Welsh it is called the taflod or in English, the cockloft. It is hard to know where it came from originally.”
Rob has been able to continue drawing and painting throughout lockdown, thanks to a library of photographs taken when travel across North Wales was still possible. But lockdown is also responsible for a new artistic venture, an exploration of lino cuts which has added a new dimension to his cynefin portfolio. Rob Thompson again:
“I have never done lino prints before. The notion of forming a negative on the lino was tricky to get my head around at first, and once you remove a piece with a cut you can't go back!
“I have a file of drawings of … vernacular cottages, farmhouses and barns around the coast of Wales which I would like to prepare [as lino prints], and which I think would bring the collection together, the aim being to produce a book one day. I like the way the process calls for a simplification of an image, yet the simplification is the difficult bit!”
Here is a Crog Loft cottage ‘simplified’ as a lino print.
Once again, Terroir discovered Thompson’s skill with lino and chisel through another Instagram post displaying a Welsh stick chair (below). I found it utterly compelling and symbolic; the very kernel, the quintessence of rural Wales, not in slate but in a piece of lino!
Lino print of three legged Welsh Stick Chair
The origins of this particular chair are equally compelling. Here is Rob’ story:
“I built the actual chair a few years ago while working on the construction of an oak framed visitor centre at the Felin Uchaf cultural and ecology centre in north west Wales. As well as building we were making welsh stick chairs, signposts, and all manner of rural craft objects. Before I left I was given some wood to make my own chair. The timber for the seat was elm from a fallen tree in Criccieth. The oak is from a forest behind Bodnant near Conwy, the peg joints for the arm are Yew from Llangernyw, and the joints for the seat are made from one thousand year old bog oak from mid Wales. The saddle of the seat is carved with an adze and chisel, the legs shaved with a draw knife on a shaving horse and the spindles for the back turned on a lathe, although not your traditional pole lathe but one powered by the engine and gear box from a Reliant Robin car! It took months to make all the parts and many a late night was spent in the workshop carving away. The assembling of the chair is similar to constructing a building. You have to understand the compression and tensions of the structure and how the different wood will react. It is like north west Wales in a chair! The chair now sits in my cottage. It has changed within it's now ten-year life: the arms and seat are worn, and some of the joints have risen a little from being in a heated room. It is in its own cynefin, and like the Welsh cottage of the past it is very fitting, as exactly like the home built furniture that would have existed then.
“The print came from a pen sketch done at the time when I first drew what I wanted to build. The three legs is a Welsh thing, three legs being more forgiving on wonky Welsh flagged stone floors. I translated it into a pencil sketch directly onto the lino rectangle. The tones are tricky to get right as you work as a negative. So whatever you scrape away becomes white and what is left is black or whatever colour ink you choose to use. If you remove too much then you can't go back so it is a bit nerve racking! You just have to go for it and a glass of a good ale (Welsh of course) helps along the way! The ink is rolled over the lino block and is then ready to print onto anything you like.
“The print is a very primitive design yet it took time to consider how best to put it together – a very similar process to the construction of the actual chair!”
Most of Robert’s paintings have stories attached. Terroir is now conversant with the grouted roof, another feature of the west Wales vernacular. Roof slates (often of poor quality) were bedded into lime mortar to prevent the wind driving through the gaps. Over the years, more lime mortar was applied to fill new gaps and to weather-proof the tiles, “so in some areas the roofs are white and appear like tents or cakes dotted across the landscape.”
“As for the farmhouse, a very different journey must be made to the uplands of Wales to find the most ancient Snowdonian houses, which is a building typology in its own right. These were homes of gentry hill farmers from when there was alot of wealth in the Welsh uplands - many go back five hundred years.”
Wales is famous for its terraces of quarry workers cottages, but a different quarry-related landscape developed on the slopes around Caernarfon. As a result of rural poverty on Anglesey and the Llŷn Peninsula, many moved to the Caernarfon area and built detached Tyddyn or Ty Moel houses, basing their livelihoods on a mix of quarry work and farming, creating a scatter of cottages and small farms across the local scrub land.
Rob’s work is important as a record of a vanishing landscape and architecture. He paints with the emotional understanding of a Welshman and the eye of the trained architect and craftsman. In Terroir’s view, it doesn’t seek to romanticise his environment, but to record his cynefin in the full meaning of the word.
Rob can be contacted via his infamous Instagram accounts @rob_thompson_artist @robthompson_architect @ty_bach_ and his website https://www.robthompsonart.co.uk/ (there is currently only one website but rumour has it that he is working on that too).
All images © Rob Thompson