As a county archive, Conwy Archives keeps the history of the area that is now Conwy in North Wales alive. Although it holds a wide variety of records, Conwy Archives is eager to stay ahead of the curve and has a special interest in digital preservation. In recent years, this has meant digitising now obsolete media formats, such as video tapes and floppy discs. The result is a collection of film material that has been made easily available to the public – a collection that dates back more than 125 years! Enjoy a few highlights of this archive through the following clip collages and read more about the types of films Conwy Archives has stored in their vault.
Our Oldest Video Footage
The oldest piece of video footage in the Conwy Archives collection dates back to 1898. The film shows a train travelling the tracks around Conwy Railway Station. This short section of the video gives a taste of the wider footage, showing off the colourisation treatment that was added to the original film. This provides us with the added bonus of seeing how people presented archival film material in the past, as the same colourisation technique would not be used today. Those familiar with Conwy town will be able to recognise landmarks in the video that are still there now, even if the passenger waiting at the station looks old-fashioned by comparison.
Moments Worth Recording
Archival media doesn’t just show us what was recorded, but what people felt was worth recording. Footage from the Conwy Suspension Bridge centenary celebrations in 1926, including showing off some (for their time) high tech trains, indicates that the town wanted to preserve a historical moment. The 1907 Llandudno May Day Parade footage gives us a window into people celebrating a happy day in the distant past. Mundane moments making their way onto film, like someone shovelling snow, tell us a lot about the people who recorded them. When you consider the difficulty and expense of creating a film clip in the 1920s and 1930s, the fact that we have this footage now means someone went to a lot of trouble to capture a moment they personally felt was worth recording for the future. Archives then keep their work safe for those who would watch it with a similar sense of appreciation.
The Impact of Film
On the second of November, 1925, the small town of Dolgarrog was hit by a sudden violent flood, due to breaching of the area’s dams. This event came to be known as the Dolgarrog Dam Disaster. Sixteen people died, and the town and its community was devastated. As most people living in Dolgarrog at the time worked for or were related to someone working for the same company – Aluminium Corporation Limited, that used the dams to produce power – the community was deeply interwoven and it’s unlikely anyone living there would not feel connected to at least some of the victims. The disaster could have been even worse if much of the town hadn’t been watching a film together in the village hall when the dams broke.
This small mercy changed many people’s fates. Conwy Archives has been fortunate enough to preserve the detailed records of Aluminium Corporation Limited, shedding light on the working lives of Dolgarrog’s population, alongside video footage filmed in the aftermath of the disaster itself. We are able to take a shocking look back at the damage caused to the town, as we approach the hundred year anniversary of the event.
Connecting via Conwy Mussels
Although most records of area businesses held within Conwy Archives take on the more conventional form of finance books and paper files, there are some interesting outliers. ‘How Conway Mussels are Fished and Purified’ (the title uses the outdated, Anglicised name for Conwy), is a full-length film made in the 1930s by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. Conwy mussel fishing is still going strong to this day, enjoying an enviable reputation across the country.
This film is a valuable record of an important local industry, and the working people who carried it on their backs. Seeing their work in motion gives it more life than still images ever could, helping us feel connected to the people involved.
Come to the Clip Corner!
The Clip Corner in Conwy Archives gives visitors access to The National Library of Wales’ ‘Clip Cymru’ collection. This freely available digital collection includes television material broadcast in Wales, from the channels BBC Cymru Wales, S4C, and ITV Cymru Wales, as well as radio and film clips. The television collection goes back to the 1930s, and the wider collection dates as far back as 1898. Clip Cymru lets people look back into the history of their country, connecting with the cultural legacy of Welsh media and the world we’ve grown out of. Many important events, whether significant on a Wales-wide, UK-wide, or worldwide scale, are captured in the historical lens of the collection, showing how moments were thought of and reported on at the time. On a more personal level, anyone who was once featured in a Welsh broadcast has a chance of finding themselves in the archive.
Clip Corners make this magnificent collection accessible outside of The National Library of Wales building in Aberystwyth. Step into Conwy’s Clip Corner, and step onto an official patch of Aberystwyth soil within North Wales. Conwy Archives is proud to offer this service alongside our own impressive collection of digitised video. An overall excellent stop for those interested in how Welsh history has been captured through the medium of broadcasting.
