History of the cottage
Swtan is a tyddyn croglofft, a crofting longhouse. This type of vernacular building was once very common on Anglesey, and was widespread throughout rural Wales. Today, similar thatched cottages can be seen in Ireland, Scotland and the isle of Man - in fact, they are traditional in the Celtic zone of the British Isles, as homes to the poorer labouring classes of rural areas.
These crofts were the principal of ancient landholding in rural Wales, but regrettably, over the years they have fallen into disrepair, or (worse still) they have been modernised beyond recognition. The restoration of Swtan has been done as accurately as possible, helped by the fact that the skeleton of the building was still intact when work began.
Although most of the contents are a fairly accurate reconstruction of life in the cottage, we have also tried to show other aspects of life in rural Anglesey in the late nineteenth century. Several items in the exhibition would not have been used or possessed by the families living in Swtan. However, they did exist in larger farms and houses in that period, and for that reason, we felt that they would be of interest to visitors. Mr Gwilym Jones, the last tenant until the roof collapsed in the early 1960s, is currently a member of Cyfeillion Swtan's Board of Trustees, and many of the pictures on this page show members of his family outside Swtan.
The first written reference to Swtan is an indenture of 1678, but it is likely that there had been several previous dwellings on the site, going back centuries. The original cottage would have been quite small, consisting of one main room in which the whole family would have lived. The children would have slept in the crockloft, and the parents on the ground floor.
The amount of land attached to the cottage would originally have been eight erwau. An erw is approximately three-quarters of an acre. By 1589, legislation encouraged crofters to work four acres of land. The acreage of Swtan over the past 300 years has varied between 3 and 7 acres.
During its history, the cottage has been in the ownership of several well-known families, including the Meyrick family of Bodorgan. In the early 20th century it was owned by the Thomas family, and later by the Tregarnedd Estate, which still has several properties in the Church Bay area. It is of note that the monument on top of Mynydd y Garn is to commemorate William Thomas, who was a great local benefactor.
Beginning life as a simple hovel, Swtan was upgraded over the years to its present size, which is unusually long for this type of house. The outbuildings were added as the fortunes of the family improved. The base stones and the ridges running up to the main chimney were dressed by a stonemason, which indicates that this was a building of some substance from around the mid-18th century.
The stone for the building would have been readily available from the ploughing of this very rocky area. The thatch, as expected in a wheat-growing area, would have been (and currently is) wheat straw. This is laid on a base of gorse or heather, which in turn lies on hazelwood lathes. The ridges, rafters, cruck and purlins would have been fashioned from trees and branches. Over the years, any repairs would have been made using all kinds of resources, particularly the abundant driftwood from the beaches. Shipwrecks around this coast have been a ready source of some fine timber!
The restoration of Swtan took 14 months, and was completed in September 1999. The rebuilding was financed mainly by European Union funding delivered through Menter Môn, the local delivery agency. Trainees and craftsmen worked together on the project, under the supervision of the project manager, Peter Muckle.
Most of the stone from the original building was still on site, and merely required masons to reconstruct the walls. This they did using clay from a pit dug in the field. Lime, gravel with aded straw, and cement were also used as bindings. All other material - wood, thatch, windows and doors - had to be acquired or made onsite.
