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Placed with the kind permission of the Language and Heritage Committee.
This is a small cache with room of small trackables and geocoins. The cache is not meant to be difficult and doesnt require accurate GPS positioning, however, you must be fairly tall to reach the cache, sorry little ones and wheel chair bound. Hope you enjoy. Well done L6OURA for being FTF, and so quickly!
In 2009 BT ran a competition – Adopt-a-Kiosk – to find out what was happening to their remaining red phone boxes which had been bought by local communities (in this case the Community Council) for £1.00. Cilgerran’s kiosk was a local landmark, situated on a T-junction between Cilgerran (1/2 mile away) and Llechryd Bridge on the River Teifi (1 mile away). The Cilgerran Language and Heritage Committee entered BT’s competition and were the regional winners with their idea of creating a museum (smallest ever, double-sided, 24/7 museum) to display the photos of a well-known local photographer who lived very close to the site of the kiosk. The prize was £1,000. The kiosk, near Pontrhydyceirt bridge, was a K6 or Jubilee kiosk, designed by the famous Gilbert Scott and launched in 1936 to celebrate King George V’s Silver Jubilee. In 2009 it was in need of renovation – the paint had faded to pink and there was some rust to be removed. Unfortunately, on Christmas Eve 2009, just after the prize was awarded, the kiosk was hit by a vehicle sliding on black ice on the junction and was written off - the damage to the cast iron frame was irreparable. The only answer was to use some of the prize money to purchase a refurbished identical kiosk. This finally arrived a year later and was placed further away from the roadside, with a slate wall then built around it by committee members to protect it from further collisions as well as to enhance the site. From Spring 2011 onwards, in a rolling annual exhibition, the photographs of Tom Mathias (1866–1940) have been displayed both inside and outside the kiosk. The kiosk is always open, and visitors can relax at the picnic site opposite – also created by the Language and Heritage Committee – and admire the renovated signpost with a new finger “Kilgerran” which was re-cast in the same style as the other two fingers. “Aberdyfan”, Tom Mathias’s house, can be seen further down the road on the right – looking much the same as when he lived there. Tom Mathias was the son of a master mariner who lived in Bryndyfan, Llwyncelyn, Cilgerran. Not much is known of Tom’s early life, but he was a self-taught photographer and by his early twenties was confident enough to advertise his services as a professional photographer. He had no studio and took most of his photos outdoors. His subjects were extremely varied – local gentry, servants, family groups, craftsmen, shopkeepers, fishermen, industry, farming, buildings, vehicles and machinery, and many more. In 1897 he married Louise Paquier, a Swiss/French governess employed at Castle Malgwyn, and they settled in Aberdyfan, the smallholding next to the family home. Tom combined his career as a photographer with running the family farm. The couple had two children, Frances Matilda (Tilla) in 1898 and James Henry in 1902. James never married and remained at Aberdyfan for the rest of his life. Tilla married and settled in Cilgerran. Her daughter, Nesta, married a G.I. she met during World War 2 and moved to the USA. Following Tom Mathias’s death in 1940, all his glass plate negatives were dumped in an outhouse and remained there until James died in the early 1970s. The new owners discovered the glass plates and mentioned them to Maxi Davis – then the Chief Photographer at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Aberporth. Despite their poor state, he recognised the quality and originality of approach. It was not until Maxi retired in 1980 that he could set about conserving and restoring the negatives; an extremely painstaking and time-consuming process. His wife, Peggy, spent several years recording the collection in detail. Following a number of public exhibitions in the area from 1984 onwards, the majority of the photos in the collection were identified. The more obscure ones were published in the Tivyside Advertiser and more identifications were made. The Language and Heritage Committee hold a collection of more than 400 prints, and these supply the exhibition which is changed every Spring. The whole collection is held by the National Museum of Wales.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Tvir zr n evat