News and updates from Plas Gunter Mansion

Interpretive Design & Fit-Out Consultant required

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 15:31:56 GMT

Plas Gunter Mansion Trust was awarded a Delivery Phase grant of £3,365,000 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund in early October 2025 to restore and redevelop Gunter Mansion.

The Trust is looking to appoint an experienced Interpretive Design & Fit-Out Consultancy to deliver the design and fit-out phase

Work will start on 06 January 2026 and the exhibition fit-out is scheduled to take place in October 2027.

For a full brief and application details, please visit www.plasguntermansion.org.uk/jobs .

The deadline for proposals is Friday 12 December 2025 at 12.00.

Project Manager RIBA Stage 4+ required

Thu, 27 Nov 2025 13:55:36 GMT

Plas Gunter Mansion Trust was awarded a Delivery Phase grant of £3,365,000 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund in early October 2025 to restore and redevelop Gunter Mansion.

The Trust is looking to appoint an experienced Project Manager to manage the restoration works at RIBA Stage 4 and beyond.

The Project Manager needs to be RICS qualified or equivalent and have experience of working on heritage buildings.

Work will start on 06 January 2026 and finish approximately by 31 December 2027.

For a full brief and application details, please visit www.plasguntermansion.org.uk/jobs .

The deadline for proposals is Monday 8 December 2025 at 12.00.

Mansion awarded over £3 million from The National Lottery Heritage Fund

Thu, 27 Nov 2025 12:56:11 GMT

Plas Gunter Mansion Trust has been awarded a delivery grant by The National Lottery Heritage Fund to conserve and transform the house into a fascinating visitor experience.

Plas Gunter Mansion Trust is announcing a £3,365,702 grant from the Heritage Fund to save the 17 ^th century town house located in Cross Street in Abergavenny and transform it into a centre for visitors, community activities and businesses.

Made possible by National Lottery players, the grant will allow the Trust to restore and conserve historic fabric, including a 17 ^th century ornate plasterwork ceiling and hidden chapel with evidence of wall paintings, to create a vibrant cultural and community hub.

The Trust is required to raise £500,000 in match funding, and the Heritage Fund’s award has already given confidence to other funders with pledges of £350,000 so far from Welsh Government’s Placemaking Grant, Monmouthshire County Council, UK Government’s Shared Prosperity Fund, and Abergavenny Town Council leaving a remaining target of £150,000.

Plas Gunter Mansion is a townhouse on lower Cross Street in the heart of Abergavenny’s historic quarter. One of the town’s most important historic buildings, it is renowned for its secret Catholic chapel—hidden for over 200 years—where Wales’ last Catholic martyr once preached, and for the remains of a Roman road lying beneath its garden. Without this funding from the Heritage Fund the building and its stories would be lost forever.

Plans include a visitor exhibition which will bring the mansion’s fascinating history alive, and a wide-ranging programme of events and activities has been planned to engage more people in the heritage of Gunter Mansion whilst strengthening ties with the local community. There will also be room for several local business to make their home in the building, helping the building become financially sustainable. Work on the building will start before the end of the year and it is expected to open in March 2028.

The Trust has also recently acquired the land behind the building which was the house’s original garden with support from Welsh Government’s Local Places for Nature Fund and the Town Council. Currently a derelict scrubland used as an ad hoc car park, plans are in progress to develop the land into an urban green space providing vehicular and disabled access to the house, small-scale parking for tenants, and a flexible event space. It will also include growing areas for schools and community groups, native planting to attract pollinators, and improved green links between the bus station and town centre.

If you would like to contribute to the project, please visit www.plasguntermansion.org.uk/supportus .

Commenting on the award, Owen Davies, Chair of Plas Gunter Mansion Trust said: “We are thrilled to have received this support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund. The potential of our project to engage more people with heritage, boost the local economy and make Abergavenny a better place to live, work and visit is considerable. Thanks to National Lottery players we will open the most historic parts of the building to the public for the first time and reveal a capsule of stories from the past 400 years. Local, national and international visitors will be able to learn more about the history and cultural identity of Abergavenny and its relevance to the wider themes of persecution, tolerance and sanctuary which are particularly pertinent today.

He added: “I’d also like to thank all the local organisations who helped us during the development of our plans and the funders who have put their faith in the project, including the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Architectural Heritage Fund, Welsh Government Placemaking Grant, Monmouthshire County Council, Local Places for Nature Fund, UK Shared Prosperity Fund and in particular Abergavenny Town Council who have shown us unwavering support.

Andrew White, Director of The National Lottery Heritage Fund said: “We’re proud to support Plas Gunter Mansion Trust in restoring one of Abergavenny’s most significant historic buildings. This project shows how National Lottery funding can help protect remarkable heritage, unlock hidden stories and create vibrant places for communities and visitors to enjoy for generations to come.”

Monmouthshire County Council's Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Planning and Economic Development, Cllr Paul Griffiths, said: "As a council, we are very pleased to be able to pledge funding to the Plas Gunter Mansion project. This is a historic building in the heart of Abergavenny, and as a council we look forward to seeing the building opened to the public in the near future. The plans to create a welcoming space for visitors and businesses will provide more opportunities in the town centre."

Join our new gardening project!

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 12:49:07 GMT

Are you interested in getting involved in a forthcoming gardening project in Abergavenny?

Plas Gunter Mansion Trust, based in Cross Street, Abergavenny, has recently acquired around one third of an acre of land behind Gunter Mansion. Our long-term vision for the land is a publicly accessible urban green space which creates an appropriate setting for the renovated 17th century Grade II* listed Gunter Mansion.

The Trust has detailed plans for the renovation and repurpose of the building and is currently waiting to find out whether its application to the National Lottery Heritage Fund for £3.3 million has been successful.

The purchase of the land and its initial development is being funded by the Welsh Government’s Local Places for Nature Fund, Abergavenny Town Council, Abergavenny Civic Society and generous individuals. This funding will allow us to treat the Japanese Knotweed, clear the land and secure the site. Because of the Japanese Knotweed and the need for a builder’s compound to facilitate the restoration of the building, we will be operating a no-dig garden for the first few years. During this initial phase, we have plans to erect a polytunnel which will act as a nursery for the plants which will eventually end up in the ground. We also need to develop a long-term garden design which has to be complete by December 2025 - we would love your help with the design!

If everything goes according to plan and we are able to start the house renovation before the end of the year, we expect the building works to be finished by September 2027 with the building opening to the public in March 2028. During this time, we will be fundraising so that we can implement the long-term garden design as soon as the building works are finished.

There will be a meeting on Thursday 23 October at 18.00 at the Methodist Church Hall for anyone interest in getting involved in the gardening project where our landscape architects, Element Urbanism, will talk through the constraints of the land and the possibilities open to us. The meeting is for anyone who wants to find out a bit more with no obligation.

Please let us know if you would like to come to the meeting by emailing info@plasguntermansion.org.uk .

Town Council support for land purchase

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 12:48:55 GMT

Plas Gunter Mansion Trust is delighted that Abergavenny Town Council has contributed

£30,000 towards our landmark purchase of the land behind Plas Gunter Mansion, the historic Grade II* listed 17th-century building. The purchase reunites the Mansion with its original garden at last.

This significant step of reuniting the house and the garden was enabled by the Welsh Government’s Local Places for Nature programme (just under £250,000), alongside contributions from Abergavenny Civic Society (£5,000) and individual donors (£5,000).

The Trust, supported by landscape architects Element Urbanism of Monmouth, is already developing temporary and long-term plans for the site. In the short term, the area will be secured to prevent unauthorised access, fly-tipping, and ad hoc parking, and will serve as a builder’s yard during restoration work. Part of the site will become a nursery, cultivating a range of flowers, fruit and vegetables for use in the future design. The permanent landscaping scheme, to be delivered after the Mansion’s completion in late summer 2027, will transform the land into a vibrant urban green space.

Once completed, the garden will provide vehicular and disabled access, small-scale parking for tenants, and a flexible event space. It will also include growing areas for schools and community groups, native planting to attract pollinators, and improved green links between the bus station and Tithe Barn, reflecting the Abergavenny Placemaking Plan.

The Trust is inviting local individuals and groups to help shape the garden from the very beginning; no experience is necessary, just enthusiasm. To volunteer, email info@plasguntermansion.org.uk .

Owen Davies, Chair of Plas Gunter Mansion Trust, said:

“The purchase of the land at the rear of Plas Gunter Mansion marks a major milestone in our efforts to secure the Mansion’s sustainable restoration and create a compelling visitor destination in the heart of Abergavenny. This achievement wouldn’t have been possible without the generous support of Abergavenny Town Council, the Civic Society, some generous individuals, our dedicated volunteers, and, crucially, the Welsh Government’s Local Places for Nature funding. The funding will be pivotal in transforming a long-derelict site into a new urban green space full of potential and promise.”

Funding success to buy land

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 19:33:27 GMT

The Trust is absolutely over the moon that the Welsh Government fund, Local Places for Nature, has awarded us £246,000 which will enable us to buy the land behind Gunter.

We have also secured £38,000 in match funding from Abergavenny Town Council, the Civic Society and supporter donations.

The funds must be used to purchase the land, clear and decontaminate the ground, implement an interim landscape scheme and improve biodiversity so the former gardens can be enjoyed by the community.

This is such exciting news as the land plays a pivotal role in our efforts to restore and activate Gunter. Without it the Trust won’t be able to restore the historic building as sensitively as we would like.

Subject to negotiations with the current landowners, we will purchase and transform the derelict land into an urban green space for the community with enhanced biodiversity, and reconnect the town’s heritage between Cross Street, Tithe Barn, and St Mary’s Priory.

Combined with our Heritage Fund grant the land purchase investment represents a £4.5m regeneration initiative for lower Cross Street - potentially one of the largest regeneration projects the town has seen in recent years.

Although this is a separate project to that of the building, the land purchase will allow us to create an extension at the rear of the house. It will enhance the accessibility of the building and give us the opportunity to install green utility options such as an air source heat-pump.

We are right at the beginning of the process and conveyancing will take several months but as plans develop we'll keep you posted!

Project Kick-off and Team Appointment!

Mon, 01 Jul 2024 12:17:15 GMT

We are thrilled to announce the start of the Plas Gunter Mansion restoration project. This ambitious initiative is largely funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and aims to transform our historic site into a vibrant business, community and visitor hub.

The Trust has appointed a distinguished team of professionals to lead the project:

World-renowned conservation architects, Purcell , have been appointed to head up the design team. Purcell bring experience of working on a vast range of heritage projects, large and small. The Bristol-based team impressed the trustees not only with their understanding of heritage buildings, but with their collaborative and community-centred approach.

Other appointments include the Funding Centre who will support the Trust with business planning and fundraising, and Headland Design Associates who will lead on activities & audience development and interpretive design. Local marketing agency, The Media Agency will be writing our marketing communications strategy.

The project's vision is to preserve the rich history of the 17th century Plas Gunter Mansion in Cross Street, Abergavenny while creating a new visitor experience driven by community engagement. The initiative includes plans for a mix of visitor centre, interpretation, and retail spaces, as well as flexible office space on the first floor.

Owen Davies, Chair of the Trust, expressed his excitement: "We are embarking on a journey to not only preserve a historic landmark but to also create a meaningful and engaging space for the community. This project is a testament to what can be achieved through collaborative efforts and shared passion for heritage."

Plas Gunter Mansion is grateful for the National Lottery Heritage Fund's support, and particularly to National Lottery players who have made this project possible. However, additional funds are crucial to meet the project’s goals. The Trust continues to seek donations, volunteers, and community support. Contributions, whether financial, voluntary, or through sharing the mansion’s story, are vital for the project’s success.

For those interested in supporting the Plas Gunter Mansion project, please visit www.plasguntermansion.org.uk or contact our office at info@plasguntermansion.org.uk for more information on how to donate, volunteer, or spread the word.

Together, we can ensure that Plas Gunter Mansion remains a cherished part of our heritage for future generations to enjoy.

Auction of unwanted clutter raises over £1,100!

Wed, 22 May 2024 11:47:51 GMT

“One person’s clutter is another’s treasure”, as the saying goes … well, sort of. And this was nowhere more apparent than at the auction of unwanted items to raise money for Plas Gunter Mansion (PGM) and Mind Monmouthshire in early May.

The Abergavenny Ladies Business Association (ALBA) and Anna Roberts, one of our long-standing volunteers, organised the event at the King’s Arms Hotel who offered the venue free of charge.

As you'll know, we've recently been awarded a development grant of £220,000 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to start the ball rolling to conserve and transform the house into a fascinating visitor experience. The grant won't cover our everyday running costs though and the funds raised by the auction will go towards much needed regular expenses.

Items donated for the sale included 3 beautiful hand-crafted patchwork throws (from Dragonfly Antiques), an antique washing bowl and potty set, a solar powered torch, several framed pictures, empty picture frames, a 70-year old Egyptian embroidered shawl, jigsaw puzzles, a lower body exerciser, handbags and as well as the more usual bric-a-brac.

The big sellers of the evening were a guided tour of Rockfield Studios for 2 people, donated by Jane Wyatt and a chimney sweep, donated by The Tidy Sweep and Stove Installers, an Abergavenny-based business.

ALBA also organised a raffle and the prizes were donated by local businesses and individuals: The King’s Arms; Kirsty at Headroom, Feodora Hairdressers, Chris Jones, Mary Davies, Trading Post, Pink Angels Office Services, EH Accountancy, Cooks’ Galley and Bailams & Co.

At the end of the auction, attendees were invited to browse through what was left and make an offer for items.

Proceeds from the night reached £1,116, 70% of which will go to Plas Gunter Mansion and the remaining 30% to Mind Monmouthshire, ALBA’s charity of the year.

Any items that did not sell were taken to a charity shop in town the following day.

Our Chair, Owen Davies, said: “We are so grateful for the support of ALBA at this year’s auction. The impressive sums raised will make a huge difference to the day to day running costs of Plas Gunter Mansion.

“Our Heritage Lottery Funding has to be spent on very specific preparatory work for the building’s restoration, whilst the charity's running costs continue to grow. I was personally delighted to have an enjoyable evening and successfully bid for the Tidy Sweep and a few other bargains.”

Event auctioneer, Anna said: “It was a win-win situation,”. “People had the chance to get rid of their clutter, raise money for a good cause and take away items that they wanted or needed more than items they’d donated.

“We were astounded by how much we managed to raise from people’s unwanted items. It’s another form of community recycling!”

Don't forget that Abergavenny residents and visitors can see a temporary exhibition of the history of the Plas Gunter Mansion and plans for its renovation on the ground floor of the building at 39a Cross Street in the town. Run by volunteers it is open on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10.30am till 4pm between March and December.

ALBA (Abergavenny Ladies Business Association) meets on the first Thursday of every month at the King’s Arms.

Springtime clear-out charity auction

Thu, 11 Apr 2024 16:38:42 GMT

Pick up some bargains and raise money for charity!

Abergavenny Ladies’ Business Association (ALBA) is offering the the chance to get rid of your quality clutter and bid for bargains at an auction that will raise money for Plas Gunter Mansion and MIND Monmouthshire, the latter being ALBA’s charity of the year.

Wednesday 1 ^st May 2024
Doors open 6.30pm for 7pm start (ends 9ish)

King’s Arms Hotel
Atrium (back) room, 29 Nevill St, Abergavenny NP7 5AA

Tickets on the door: £7 (includes a glass of wine, beer or soft drink)

All bargain-hunters welcome – even if you have nothing to donate - because we need buyers!

70% of proceeds to Plas Gunter Mansion* & 30% to MIND Monmouthshire
The King’s Arms is kindly providing the venue for free for this charity event.

Items for auction must be in good condition and full working order where applicable and things that sell well are antiques, small electricals, ornaments, jigsaws, pictures, picture frames, vouchers for services, unopened toiletries, gift sets, handbags, hats & scarves (etc). NB: no clothes, shoes or books.

Drop-off points on the day (or bring along on the night):
EH Accountancy: 1 Horsington’s Yard, Lion St, Abergavenny NP7 5PN
King’s Arms: 29 Nevill St, Abergavenny NP7 5AA

Please bring along plenty of cash! A card machine is available but this will incur charges and reduce the amount going to charity.

Gunter Jackpot! launched

Tue, 27 Feb 2024 12:06:36 GMT

Our recent successful application to the National Lottery Heritage Fund means the Trust can get on with developing restoration plans for the building. But the month by month task of maintaining it and making sure Gunter's regular financial outgoings are covered continues. That's why we've launched the Gunter Jackpot!

Pay £2 a month to be entered into a monthly prize draw and you could win £40.

The Jackpot! is open to anyone and you can buy as many tickets as you like. The monthly prize draw will take place at the end of every month.

Find out all the details and buy your tickets by clicking on the link to Gunter Jackpot!

Good luck!

Heritage Fund bid success!

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 18:21:52 GMT

Plas Gunter Mansion has been awarded a £222,340 development grant by the National Lottery Heritage Fund to start the ball rolling to conserve and transform the house into a fascinating visitor experience.

Plas Gunter Mansion Trust is receiving initial support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to develop plans for a major project to renovate the 17 ^th century town house located in Cross Street in Abergavenny.

Made possible by National Lottery players, the grant will allow the Trust to create detailed restoration plans, develop ideas, including events and activities, which engage more people in the heritage of Gunter Mansion whilst strengthening ties with the local community. It will also be used crucially, to seek over £600,000 of match funding to help deliver the overall vision. By carrying out targeted preparation the Trust will make a full application for a Heritage Fund delivery grant of £3.3m by December 2025.

If successful, the delivery grant will enable the full project to begin. This will include essential conservation work and the creation of an exhibition space which will bring the mansion’s fascinating history alive for the community and visitors to Abergavenny.

Two commercial spaces for local businesses in the building will also be upgraded so that they generate an income, helping the building to become financially sustainable.

Physical work on the building is still over two years away, but eventually there will be a range of educational and social activities, including training for volunteers to act as guides for the exhibition, and the opportunity for an apprenticeship in traditional building crafts and conservation. At present it is anticipated that the refurbished building will re-open in 2027.

Commenting on the award, Owen Davies, Chair of Plas Gunter Mansion Trust said: “The potential of our project to engage more people with heritage, boost the local economy and make Abergavenny a better place to live, work and visit is considerable. We will open the most historic parts of the building to the public for the first time and reveal a capsule of stories from the past 400 years. Local, national and international visitors will be able to learn more about the history and cultural identity of Abergavenny and its relevance to the wider themes of persecution, tolerance and sanctuary which are particularly pertinent today”.

He added: “I’d also like to thank the local organisations which have supported us including Monmouthshire County Council, the Town Council, Our Lady and St Michael’s and St Mary’s churches, King Henry VIII School and teams of committed volunteers who have helped keep alive the dream of restoring the mansion for our community.”

Andrew White, Director of Wales for The National Lottery Heritage Fund said: “We are delighted to support Plas Gunter Mansion Trust with this initial grant to help with the preservation of this important heritage building. Thanks to money raised by National Lottery players, this project will enable the Trust to work towards safeguarding this important local landmark for future generations and provide opportunities for its story to be shared.”

News from the AGM & annual presentation

Wed, 29 Nov 2023 11:18:37 GMT

The Trust's Annual General Meeting & Presentation took place on 16 November 2023. It was well-attended by around 30 supporters.

The formal business of the AGM was followed by a presentation from the Trust's Chair, Owen Davies. He reviewed activities during the past year and gave the audience a glimpse of what the building may look like after the restoration.

To find out more about what was discussed and for a glimpse of what the restored building may look like, click on the links below:

AGM minutes

Presentation and discussion

Urgent fundraising needed

Mon, 09 Oct 2023 12:47:12 GMT

We are waiting for the Heritage Fund's decision about our £3.1 million application which we should receive in December. In the meantime, the Trust's attention has turned to our everyday finances and we've recognised that we need to do some serious fundraising.

Context

Costs are going up for the day-to-day running of the Trust, e.g. insurance costs, and our income is not keeping up with expenditure. There have also been a few unexpected one off costs, such as necessary electrical work. This is our immediate focus and we need to raise additional funds to cover our costs.
If we are successful and get Heritage Fund funding, we will have to find match funding of around £600,000. We may also need more professional support, such as bookkeeping to manage the large sums of money. This is our longer term goal. We will go out to Trusts & Foundations as part of our fundraising plan but we will also need community support and we need to get into the habit of fundraising as a matter of course.

A fundraising group made up of trustees and volunteers had its first meeting last week and discussed a range of suggestions including a lottery, merchandise, events and a social media campaign.

We are in the process of firming up some of the ideas, but if you have any experience or interest in helping, or you have a brilliant idea, please get in touch at info@plasguntermansion.org.uk .

One of the ways you could really help is by giving the Trust a regular monthly donation. You can do this easily at www.plasguntermansion.org.uk/donate .

Heritage Fund application submitted

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 16:35:18 GMT

The Trust is thrilled to announce that a full application to the National Lottery Heritage Fund has now been submitted!

The application was extremely detailed with the Heritage Fund wanting to know what physical work we are planning and what activities we intend to run. We also had to demonstrate how we will include diverse audiences, what economic benefits the project will generate and how the project will continue to be sustainable after the funding stops. Fortunately, the work we did in the first half of the year looking at business planning, funding, audience development and interpretation answered all these questions and more.

If you're not familiar with the plans, the building will be divided into four spaces:

A visitor centre and exhibition, starting on the ground floor and taking in the most historically significant parts of the building on the first and second floors, including the ornate plasterwork ceiling and attic chapel.
One commercial unit on the ground floor.
One commercial unit on the ground and first floors.
A flexible space on the centre of the first floor which can either be used commercially or by the Trust for various activities.

There will also be a range of activities which may be run from the building or from other venues, aimed at bringing the Gunter story to groups of people who might not ordinarily be interested in this type of building. We want Gunter to be well-used locally and an essential tourist attraction for people visiting the town.

The total cost of the development is now £3.1 million with us needing to raise around £600,000 from other sources and we will have to wait until December to find out if the application has been successful. Our consultants, Headland Design Associates and The Funding Centre , who were extremely helpful when we were putting together the application, have assured us that we are much better prepared than the majority of applicants, but of course there are no guarantees.

If we are successful, we will go into a funded development period of about 18 months during which our plans will be finessed and finalised. We will commission a Conservation Plan which will advise us how to treat the building and how to maintain it after development, detailed architectural plans will be drawn up, exhibition interpretation will be explored and finalised, and activities will be tested and refined.

We understand that development applications are often not successful the first time, but this is further than the project has ever got before so we will continue to prepare with all fingers and toes fully crossed.

Sanctuary: The Secrets of the Gunter Mansion

Thu, 01 Jun 2023 10:45:00 GMT

We are eagerly awaiting the performance of Sanctuary: The Secrets of the Gunter Mansion , a new play by Contemporancient Theatre currently in rehearsal. You can see it at the Borough Theatre Abergavenny from 21 to 24 June.

"For more than four hundred years Abergavenny has provided sanctuary for those in danger - now the horrors and joys of their secret stories are told in thrilling theatre and music.

Carys is hiding in a garret in the Gunter Mansion in the centre of Abergavenny whilst building work and restoration goes on around her in 2023; Garnet and Oldcorne, two Jesuits priests are hiding in the same garret space in the early 17th century; Latifa has fled to Wales from Syria - all three find refuge and find each other in this hard-hitting, deeply moving and ultimately life-affirming and joyful story of sanctuary and of kindness in Abergavenny.

Told through original music and song, through visual images and through the power of theatre, this is a story of Abergavenny's past and its present and points very much to its future.

Celebrating Tolerance project in final stages

Tue, 16 May 2023 09:56:42 GMT

Over the past few months our consultants from Headland Design have being doing extensive research and have had many conversations with local community groups, with the intention of strengthening our application to the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Their work is now in its concluding stages and their proposals concern three main aspects of the project:

Use of the building
Identification of key stories
Interpretive plan for an exhibition

Use of the building

The proposals are in fact very similar to our existing plans, but with one major difference:

The previously proposed residential space on the first floor will now become an adaptable space to be used either commercially or by the Trust for various activities. This will provide far more flexibility for future use.

Otherwise, our plans remain the same:

A visitor centre and exhibition, starting on the ground floor and taking in the most historically significant parts of the building.
Two commercial spaces on the ground and first floors to ensure a steady rental income for the Trust.

Identification of key stories

Headland have identified several key stories which may be told in the exhibition. These include the history of the building itself, the Gunter family, the chapel and the Catholic priests, and the connection to food, plus others. Some of our volunteers are currently consulting members of the public about which stories inspire the most interest.

Interpretive plan for an exhibition

It's been a long time coming but we have started looking at how the exhibition might look. The image above is a sneak preview of an initial idea for the Pomegranate Parlour, the first-floor room with the ornate plasterwork ceiling.

Next steps

Now that we have a good idea of the way forward, we have commissioned Morgan & Horowskyj, the local architects who have already worked on the project, to make some adjustments to their drawings. They will also arrange for the quantity surveyor to update their figures for the cost of renovating the building.

This work should be complete in a few weeks and we will then be able to submit an Expression of Interest to the Heritage Fund. This is being prepared at the moment.

Thanks

We would like to thank our funders, National Lottery Heritage Fund, Architectural Heritage Fund and Abergavenny Town Council, for believing in this project and the National Lottery players who have made it possible.

New exhibition opens!

Mon, 13 Mar 2023 13:32:51 GMT

Our exhibition space in Cross Street opened on Saturday 4 March, new and transformed.

New information boards guide visitors around the exhibition. Boards telling different aspects of the Gunter story have been grouped to make each part of the story easier to understand.

You will also be able to see part of the original 17th century fireplace which has been revealed behind an acrylic panel.

The dark panelled walls which were inherited from the previous retail unit, and which were quite distracting, have been replaced with a neutral varnished plywood. This was the most cost-effective option with reasonable longevity as we are still unsure how long it will be before we are able to undertake the restoration.

The red and cream tiles haven't been dated yet, but it's likely they are Victorian and add another layer to Gunter's history.

Visit us at 39a Cross Street, Abergavenny. The exhibition will be open on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10.30am to 4.00pm. Come and let us know what you think of the new space!

Celebrating Tolerance

Wed, 22 Feb 2023 12:34:23 GMT

At the end of 2022, the Trust was awarded funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Architectural Heritage Fund and Abergavenny Town Council to enable it to strengthen its business plan by working with some experienced consultants.

Since then we have been working with a number of consultants, led by Headland Design Associates who have a great breadth of experience across the heritage sector. The project is being run under the name Celebrating Tolerance. In particular, we have been looking at the possible activities which could take place in the building.

In January, we ran a stakeholder meeting to hear contributions from different voices. The group included representatives from various departments in the local authority, the Town Council, different churches, Abergavenny's business community, our volunteers and others.

Ruth from Headland Design facilitated exercises looking at 'how might we'

Generate income
Provide a visitor experience
Engage local people in stories of tolerance and sanctuary
Use food to enable conversations and activities

We also looked at different activities and rated them from 'great idea' to 'don't bother'. Popular ideas included school visits, theatre performances, hard hat tours and guided tours. There were also suggestions for activities linked to historic research, audio trails, universities and academic research, genealogy, costume to connect hidden histories, traditional craft workshops, warm spaces, interfaith activities and food on a budget.

Headland are now working on the results of the workshop, looking at the viability of the various ideas and are due to meet the trustees this week with their recommendations.

Watch this space for updates!

Our exhibition is having a makeover!

Sat, 14 Jan 2023 14:56:55 GMT

Our exhibition space in Cross Street is having a makeover!

We were approached by Sian, who visited the exhibition towards the end of last year. She has years of experience in setting out displays for organisations such as the National Museum of Wales and suggested in the nicest possible way that the exhibition could be improved for visitors. Her offer to help guide a makeover was immediately seized by our volunteers.

Since the exhibition closed in December, our volunteers have been working hard in stripping out the existing room and working on new notice boards. We are thrilled that we've been able to expose a little of the original fireplace which visitors will now be able to see.

The new display will be ready for opening again in March. Here is the work so far:

Dating Plas Gunter Mansion

Thu, 15 Dec 2022 15:58:54 GMT

Another step in discovering more about the fascinating Gunter story has recently revealed more about the age of the house.

In October 2022, six cores of timber were taken from the main house in order to try and date the house using dendrochronology, otherwise known as tree ring width dating.

The cores taken could not give a precise date but gave a range between 1604 and 1634, tending towards the later date of 1634. This matches the information from our 2018 archaeological and architectural survey of around the 1620s.

Unfortunately, in the part of the house now used by Dynamite Branding, which we know was built slightly later than the main house, all the timber which could be accessed wasn't suitable, not least because of the devastating activity of the death-watch beetle. We hope that some suitable timbers will be revealed when the restoration is undertaken.

The dating of the extension to the main house is crucial to the Gunter story as the chapel sits on its top floor. As yet, we are unsure whether it was built before or after the executions of Fr David Lewis and Fr Phillip Evans in 1679. If built before, it's likely they would have used it, but if it was after, it might have been built as a memorial to them.

We shall have to wait a bit longer to have confirmation about the date of the building, but in the meantime, you can find out more about tree ring width dating at How old is Plas Gunter Mansion and how do we know?

Plas Gunter Mansion serves up a feast

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 12:42:30 GMT

The team driving the Plas Gunter Mansion renovation in Abergavenny are looking to Abergavenny’s historical connections with food and the food industry to help secure funding.

A bid to the National Lottery Heritage Fund (the Heritage Fund) for £1.6 million to restore the town centre 17 ^th century mansion was stopped in its tracks when the country went into lockdown. This was followed by a period of 18 months when no new funding applications were being considered.

During that time, the Heritage Fund changed its criteria for funding meaning that the Plas Gunter Mansion (PGM) team had to go back to the drawing board to rework their application now that there was an even greater emphasis on hard evidence as to how the building was going to benefit the community.

“With any heritage project you’re in it for the long game,” says Owen Davies, Chair of the Plas Gunter Mansion Trust, and the next 12 months are going to be critical. It’s important that we get the application right because the size of our project would take up all the funds available in one funding round for Wales so we have to make it as good as it possibly can be.”

Records have established a connection between the mansion, the Gunter family and Regency London. The Gunters, who built and lived in the building on Cross Street, would go on to be key players in the confectionery world, continuing to the present day.

“It seemed fitting to explore this part of the Gunter story because of Abergavenny’s reputation as a food destination,” says Owen Davies, adding that they’ve been awarded a development grant to look further into the food connection.

The Abergavenny Food Festival as well as the establishment of one of the UK’s first gastro pubs, The Walnut Tree - opened in the early 1960s by Franco Taruschio - have placed Abergavenny firmly on the UK and European culinary map.

Residents of Abergavenny will remember that up until a few years ago, part of the Gunter mansion was “The Pot and Pineapple”, a traditional sweet shop opened by Amanda Peters who was instrumental in initiating the building’s restoration project. The shop was so named because of the mansion’s historical connection with London in the 18 ^th Century.

Anne Gunter was the sister of Walter Gunter, the last Gunter we know to have lived in Plas Gunter Mansion. Anne married Domenico Negri, a skilled confectioner and ice cream maker and together they set up The Pot & Pineapple on Berkeley Square, London in 1757.

Anne Gunter herself ran the business and it became Gunter’s Teashop which Jane Austen name-checked in her novels. The recipe books, Gunter’s Modern Confectioner and The Complete Confectioner published in 1789, are still available and the business survives today as high-end event caterer, Payne & Gunter.

Local historian, Dr Gill Wakley, has written two stories relating to Plas Gunter Mansion’s historical food connection and these will be on sale from the weekend of the Abergavenny Food Festival, 16 ^th to 18 ^th September at the mansion’s pop-up exhibition space at 39a Cross Street.

“It’s people stories like these that bring an historical building alive and will capture the imagination of the community and future visitors to the mansion,” says Owen Davies. “The application for funding will still focus very much on the established themes of tolerance and reconciliation but we feel that food fits well with these themes as it has always played a part in bringing people and communities together.

“We now have to work on what the building is going to contain as a visitor experience but we feel confident that we have themes that will resonate: Tolerance, reconciliation and food history,” he adds.

The Grade II* listed building is of historical importance because of the discovery of a secret chapel in the attic where Catholics worshipped during a period when it was illegal and dangerous to do so. It is the only known recusant chapel that exists in Wales and one of the best surviving examples in the whole of Britain.

The themes of tolerance and inclusion allude to a darker side to the building’s history: one of the priests who led the secret services was denounced to Parliament by priest-hunter, John Arnold of Llanfihangel Court, near Abergavenny. He was arrested, hanged, drawn and quartered at Usk on 27 ^th August 1679. Father – later Saint – David Lewis was Wales’ last Catholic martyr.

As the team continues to work with funding experts to put together their bid, they are keen to bring more volunteers into the fold and to raise more funding in donations for the general upkeep of the building and the pop-up exhibition space which is open Tuesdays and Saturdays from 10.30 until 4pm between March and December. To donate please click on the link .

Anyone interested in helping out with research, surveys and connection with local and national organisations should contact the administrator and trustee, Deborah Holland at: info@plasguntermansion.org.uk or pop into the shop to speak to a volunteer on Tuesdays, Saturdays or over the Food Festival weekend.

More information, including a 360-degree video tour of the building as it is, is available on the website.

Strengthening our plans

Thu, 14 Jul 2022 20:58:06 GMT

Changing landscape

In 2020 the National Lottery Heritage Fund, which we expect will be our main source of funding for the restoration, suspended all new applications. When the programme of funding opened again in February 2021, the grant criteria had changed; the Heritage Fund now has fewer resources and competition for the funds is even stronger.

It is no longer enough to ask for funding to renovate a building, no matter how historically significant the building is. The Heritage Fund also wants to know how the project is going to reach wide audiences, how it will improve people's skills and wellbeing, how it will improve the local area, and how the local economy will be boosted. We need to show what activities will take place, either in the building itself, or because the building exists, which will fulfil at least some of the above criteria.

The proposal for the development of Plas Gunter Mansion must be driven by the business needs of the organisation, not just the physical needs of the building. Essentially, what goes on in the building, the needs of the organisation and the needs of the people it will serve will be of greatest concern to the Heritage Fund, in addition to the historical significance of the building and the events that took place there. In other words, we need to give confidence to our funders that their investment will be safe for many years to come.

The vision of restoring Plas Gunter Mansion as a place for local businesses, a visitor attraction and a centre themed around tolerance, understanding and dialogue immediately suggests a way of meeting the mandatory outcome of the Heritage Fund to involve a wider range of people in heritage. This broad concept has the potential to elevate our proposals for the project to the levels we will need to compete for the £1.6 million we will request from the Heritage Fund.

Despite the strength of the idea, the work we have done over the last year suggests that that more work is necessary in order to build a business case for the operation of Plas Gunter Mansion in the long-term.

Clarifying the plan

Our fundraising consultants have advised that the Trust needs to undertake a small development project to strengthen our application which will:

Engage with the local community to understand how Plas Gunter Mansion will meet current and future needs,
Establish who our potential partners might be in delivering the capital development, and more importantly,
What kind of activity might be delivered when the newly refurbished building is up and running.

The three main strands for such a project are:

Volunteer engagement
Community consultation
Project management

We recently discussed this approach with the Heritage Fund and they have encouraged us to apply for one of their small grants to do this work. We are also likely to approach a number of other funders to contribute to this small project. Our aim is to apply for funding within the next couple of weeks and run the project over the summer.

We want to explore aspects such as:

How wide an area volunteers and visitors will come from.
What exactly we can offer in the small mansion space.
How we can establish digital and other links to other projects, illustrating how the area and local people dealt with oppression and intolerance, e.g. other visitor attractions like Hay Castle or small museums which record local religious or ethnic tolerance and oppression in the past.
Drawing up alternative business plans, including one which doesn't rely on acquiring the land behind the house – the present owners are reluctant to enter into a sensible conversation with us and have expressed their intention to sell it elsewhere.
Making sure there is no clash between our plan and those of other local developments to avoid duplication.
Mapping voluntary organisations who might be involved, e.g. refugee organisations, young people’s services, religious bodies of various denominations, etc.
Establishing whether we want to offer free access (and how we raise income if so), charge for access, or a combination of both, e.g. charge for guided tours, but not unaccompanied ones.
How and what we might sell to raise income.

Partners so far

We have started to form partnerships with organisations we believe will make Gunter accessible to the wider community. They will also help us address the Heritage Fund criteria. Two of those partners are below, but the development project will allow us to form other relevant partnerships:

Supporters will be aware that in 2018 and 2019 in partnership with King Henry VIII School in Abergavenny, we ran a Year 7 Humanities Study Day about Gunter (history, tourism, regeneration), which included a pupil visit to the mansion and meeting with our volunteers. We are delighted that post-pandemic the school has confirmed a wish to continue this partnership.

We are also forming a partnership with Contemporancient Theatre , a professional theatre company which explores the history of Wales, engaging communities in their own stories, past and present. They are in the early stages of developing a piece about the story of recusant Catholics hiding in Gunter in the early 17th century, as well as looking at the stories and experience of contemporary refugees from Syria who are finding support in the the town today.

In conclusion

Like the project's supporters, the trustees want to see progress with the main renovation project, not least because the building is still deteriorating. However, unless we strengthen our business plan with the evidence outlined above, it is unlikely we will be granted the amount of funding required for the restoration and use of Plas Gunter Mansion.

We are grateful for the encouragement, ideas and contributions made by many people, including supporters with knowledge and expertise in developing the religious and multicultural aspects of our vision. If you have knowledge or expertise and would like to give a few hours a month to the project, we would love to hear from you.

We will of course keep you posted as the development project progresses. In the meantime, the trustees thank you for your patience and if you have any questions about what you have read above, please email administrator@plasguntermansion.org.uk .

Christmas gifts sale to raise money for Plas Gunter Mansion

Thu, 18 Nov 2021 13:42:58 GMT

Hand-knitted snowmen, Santas, Christmas puddings filled with sweets and hand-made picture cards are just some of the items for sale at the Plas Gunter Mansion Christmas gifts sale.

It will be held on the ground floor of the mansion at 39a Cross Street, Abergavenny from Monday 22 to Saturday 27 November from 10.30 am to 4.00 pm and all proceeds will go to towards the running of our exhibition space.

Other fayre will include home-made chutneys, hand-made tree decorations, little wooden mice and teddy bears and pin cushions made from a Welsh blanket.

The exhibition space is normally only open on Tuesdays and Saturdays, but volunteers will be there every day between 10.30 am and 4.00 pm on Christmas sale week.

Planning refused on land behind Gunter

Thu, 08 Jul 2021 11:58:35 GMT

Hot on the heels of Plas Gunter Mansion (PGM) Trust getting the green light to apply for restoration funding, we received further encouraging news when Monmouthshire County Council’s Planning Committee finally refused permission for a housing development on the original historic garden land located and directly behind the mansion. This opens the way for PGM to potentially negotiate the purchase of the land at an affordable price.

Our vision for Gunter Mansion includes reuniting the original garden with the mansion and restoring it for the benefit of the local community

The land has been in private ownership for many years and has been allowed to become overgrown, rundown and has been poorly managed. The restoration of the mansion is an opportunity to purchase the land and reunite the original garden with the building, to provide an appropriate historic setting and to open up new heritage features including the site archaeology and elements of the 17th Century garden.

Chair of the Trust, Owen Davies said: “The land is an essential aspect of the overall restoration project because it allows more people to engage with heritage than would otherwise be possible from visiting the building on its own. It would also allow us to strengthen the links with neighbouring heritage including St Mary’s Priory and Tithe Barn, creating a lynchpin in Abergavenny’s heritage trail.”

The planning application for new housing was originally submitted in 2015 and controversially the Planning Committee recommended approval despite concerns of local people worried about protecting the Gunter Mansion. However, the owners refused to sign a legally binding agreement known as a Section 106 to provide affordable housing on site and contributing financially towards improving open spaces and a children’s play area in the town. Attempts to sell the land for development were also unsuccessful and in the intervening period the situation for approving new housing in the area has become more challenging.

“We have been lobbying MCC for a number of years to bring to a conclusion the risk of residential development taking place on the historic garden of the Gunter Mansion, and we are glad that the Planning Committee decided this week to final refuse the scheme because the owners didn’t sign the legal agreement and because of new flood risk constraints. New and affordable housing is of key importance for Abergavenny, and this is why we plan to provide an affordable flat for a local family to live within the restored mansion. And speaking to local developers we know that the site has too many constraints and is not a viable site to build on” continued Owen Davies

Despite many attempts, PGM failed to buy the land from the existing owners at a price reflecting its true development value. We understand that the land is now for sale as part of a larger property portfolio of sites located across the country and are hopeful of striking a positive relationship with the new owners and opening up negotiations to buy the land for the local community.

Last month, the National Lottery Heritage Fund gave the go ahead for PGM to apply for £1.6m in funding with the Trust raising £400,000 to fund the £2m project.

The image above is an artist's impression of what the land could look like.

Could you be our next trustee?

Mon, 01 Mar 2021 14:20:41 GMT

We are seeking volunteers to join Plas Gunter Mansion’s Board of Trustees.

Plas Gunter Mansion in Cross Street was built in the 17th century and is a hugely important Grade 2* building. Now in a terrible state of disrepair, volunteers are working to restore the building and bring it back to life.

Chair, Owen Davies says: “We very much want our Board to reflect the community we support. But you don’t need experience of being a trustee. Enthusiasm for the project and a willingness to get involved are much more important. If you care about the town and our community and you want to be involved in this exciting heritage project, we want to hear from you.”

Speaking about the benefits of becoming a trustee, he commented: “Our trustees have the opportunity to get involved in this exciting historical project, working as part of an experienced team and with local partners, including the Town Council to help breathe new life into part of Abergavenny’s town centre. They are contributing to the town’s heritage and are creating a legacy for future generations.”

To enhance the diversity of our board the Trust would particularly like to hear from people of minority ethnic background, disabled people and marginalised groups.

Full information about the role and how to apply can be found at www.plasguntermansion.org.uk/new-trustees . The deadline for applications is 12pm on Friday 19 March 2021.

The Grade II* listed 17 ^th century building, bought for the community by the Welsh Georgian Trust (now Plas Gunter Mansion Trust) in 2017, is of historical importance because of the discovery of a secret chapel in the attic where Catholics worshipped during a period when it was illegal and dangerous to do so.

It is the only known recusant chapel that exists in Wales and one of the best surviving examples in the whole of Britain. One of the priests who led the secret services was denounced to Parliament by priest-hunter, John Arnold of Llanfihangel Court, near Abergavenny. Father – later Saint – David Lewis was arrested, hanged, drawn and quartered at Usk on 27 August, 1679. He was Wales’ last Catholic martyr.

The Trust’s vision is to turn the mansion into an historical, educational and community resource celebrating its local roots and attracting national and international visitors. It will include space for two commercial businesses, a residential apartment, and a visitor exhibition.

Urgent repairs to the roof are currently underway after the Trust was awarded approximately £70,000 by funders including the Architectural Heritage Fund, the Welsh Government’s Cultural Recovery Fund and Abergavenny Town Council. Once the work has been completed and the building is watertight, the trustees will be concentrating on their application to the National Lottery Heritage Fund for the restoration proper.

A fix for our leaking roof

Sat, 20 Feb 2021 13:44:00 GMT

The leaking roof at Plas Gunter Mansion has been putting the building at risk of deterioration beyond repair before we could even apply for the funding needed to restore it.

Fortunately, two key sources of funding have come to the rescue, allowing vital repair work to start on the leaking roof mid-February. Plas Gunter Mansion Trust has been awarded £34,600 from the Architectural Heritage Fund (AHF) which supports communities to save the historic buildings they love – and £30,000 from the Welsh Government’s Cultural Recovery Fund set up to help cultural sites and businesses that lost money due to the COVID pandemic. Abergavenny Town Council has also contributed £2,500 towards the repair of the roof. The repair work will make the building watertight and ensure that the fabric of the building, and especially the secret chapel discovered within it is safe.

Until last March, an exhibition on the ground floor of the mansion on Cross Street, run by volunteers three days a week, managed to bring in enough donations to make minor repairs, but we had to close this spa ce when the country went into the first lockdown and as yet we have been unable to re-open.

Adam Hitchings, Development Manager for Wales at the AHF commented: “We’re delighted to award this grant to Plas Gunter Mansion Trust. This support has been made possible due to funding we receive from Cadw, the Welsh Government’s historic environment service. The grant will address urgent repairs to the roof and halt further deterioration while the Trust prepares applications for the larger project to restore Plas Gunter to its former glory. ”

The Trust has commissioned historical buildings specialists, Taliesin Conservation, to carry out the major roof work which should take six to eight weeks to complete.

“What’s most important at the moment is that the building is watertight. Deterioration of the fabric of the building, especially the chapel, was a major concern given how long it’s likely to be before we can do the restoration proper”, says Andrew Beckett, Acting Chair of the Plas Gunter Mansion Trust. “And on top of our gratitude to all the bodies funding the roof repairs, I’d like to recognise the trustees for their hard work in putting together the funding applications”, he adds.

The Trust is currently sustained by the rent it receives from retail businesses on the ground floor and any damage to the fabric of the building due to water leaking through the roof might have resulted in the loss of this much needed income in the medium-term.

Trust becomes Plas Gunter Mansion Trust

Tue, 16 Jun 2020 16:00:37 GMT

The building preservation trust which owns Plas Gunter Mansion has now become Plas Gunter Mansion Trust.

Formerly the Welsh Georgian Trust, the Trust’s interest in other projects naturally concluded at the end of 2019. The change of name marks a new chapter in the life of the Trust which wanted to streamline and simplify activities to concentrate solely on Plas Gunter Mansion.

Five new Abergavenny-based trustees have joined the board. They bring with them a range of expertise which will serve the project well in its future endeavours. This includes town planning, finance, heritage, history, education, local politics, marketing and fundraising. You can find out more about the Trust and the individual trustees here .

Gunter embraces history, religion and persecution as main themes of restoration

Thu, 13 Feb 2020 19:03:43 GMT

History, religion and persecution of minorities have emerged as three key themes of the restoration of Plas Gunter Mansion.

Around 70 invited guests and interested members of the community gathered at St Michael’s Centre on Wednesday, 5 February in a series of presentations to hear more about the progress to restore the 17th century house.

“Our vision for the renovation is four-fold: we want to restore the building, ensure sustainability by generating an income, engage the public and embed the project in the community, and help regenerate a rather unloved part of town,” said Andrew Beckett, Chair of the Welsh Georgian Trust, the charitable building preservation trust which bought the building in 2017.

“Weaving through all this are three important themes: the history of the building and its occupants, its religious significance and the persecution of minorities. These themes are highly relevant today and our application needs to show we have fully embraced these issues and not just paid them lip-service.”

“In line with our theme of persecution, we are strongly considering offering the residential accommodation to house vulnerable people. We have had very positive talks with Monmouthshire Lettings Service who assure us this kind of housing is in demand and who would manage it.”

In other hot-off-the-press news, Owen Davies, Chair of the Plas Gunter Mansion Steering Group announced news about the land at the back of the building, “We have been told by Monmouthshire County Council's planning department that the time available to sign a Section 106 agreement relating to the development of the land at the back of the building has now lapsed, which means the original intention to allow Planning Permission will be withdrawn.

“We don’t know what this means in terms of us buying the land, but it does mean we are no longer faced with the spectre of eight new-build houses in close proximity to the house.”

He continued, “It must seem to the public that not much has happened during the past twelve months, but there has been a huge amount of activity. This is a long-haul project which is going to take years.”

He also recognised the community support engendered by the project. He said, “I have been involved in several such projects, but I have never seen such widespread support and a will to succeed as with Gunter.

“Our 40-strong volunteer team does everything, from welcoming visitors into the pop-up exhibition space to working on the Heritage Fund application form. We are very fortunate to have attracted the support of professionals with expertise in areas such as heritage conservation, history, town planning and marketing.”

Andrew Beckett commented, “We are at a crucial time in our application to the National Lottery Heritage Fund. They have accepted our Expression Of Interest, which is an outline of our plans. We are now in the process of putting together the full application which we hope to submit later this year.”

He went on to explain, “Our application will be judged on a whole range of outcomes which are about more than just restoring a building. The Heritage Fund wants to fund projects which have ongoing and deep-rooted effects in the local community, such as helping people develop skills and contributing to their well-being.

Plans for the building’s use have not yet been finalised, although in line with previous thinking it was confirmed that there would a mix of commercial, residential and visitor centre.

It is thought that three out of the current four ground floor units and an area on the first floor would be given over to commercial use. One or two flats would be created on the first and possibly the second floor, and a visitor centre would be sited over three floors.

Previous plans to create a Landmark Trust-style apartment for short-term accommodation have now been set aside. Andrew Beckett commented, “We have consulted extensively with the Landmark Trust and they have strongly indicated they don’t think this kind of accommodation would work well in this location.

“We have also spoken to the Tourism Department at Monmouthshire County Council and they have told us there is an over-supply of holiday accommodation in the area.

As far as the visitor centre is concerned, the chapel on the second floor and the ornate plaster ceiling on the other side of the house on the first floor are the most historically and architecturally significant parts of the building, and while the most desirable solution is to make both these rooms open to the public, Andrew Beckett explained that in order to make this viable, the fragility of one of the original staircases will need to be addressed.

He emphasised, “Whichever configuration we settle on has to be flexible. We have to consider the long-term use of the building and that specific uses may change over time. As well as preserving the historical integrity of the building, flexibility and sustainability have to be built into our plans from the very beginning.”

He did confirm that the religious significance of the building was going to be integral to the visitor experience.

Andrew Beckett also announced some changes in the Welsh Georgian Trust which was set up as a registered charity in 2011. As of the end of 2019, the Trust’s interest in other projects naturally came to an end and its sole focus is now Plas Gunter Mansion. To streamline activities, it is in the process of being renamed as Plas Gunter Mansion Trust.

Andrew Beckett said, “The time is right to narrow our focus to Plas Gunter Mansion and as Chair of the Trust, I am delighted to welcome aboard five new trustees who have already demonstrated their commitment to the project. The change of name should be completed by the end of March.

In consultation with the volunteer Steering Group, it was also agreed that the separately constituted Friends organisation would merge with the Trust. In place of the Friends, a new membership scheme has been set up which supporters are encouraged to join for a nominal fee of £10 per year.

Members will have voting rights on any issue presented at the Trust’s Annual General Meeting, they will be able to elect Trustees, and they will be invited to at least one dedicated Members event during the year.

Becoming a Member is easy and can be done online, by post or in person.

You can become a Member online here .

To join by post, you can download a membership form in English or in Welsh and send with a cheque made payable to Plas Gunter Mansion Trust to Plas Gunter Mansion Membership, 39a Cross Street, Abergavenny, Monmouthshire NP7 5ER.

To join in person, forms will also be available at the pop-up exhibition space where payment can be by cash or cheque.

The pop-up space at 39a Cross Street will reopen on Tuesday 3 March after being closed for the winter. The upstairs of the property is not currently accessible to the public, but the pop-up exhibition features photographs, historical information and artists’ impressions of the mansion.

3,000 people have visited the exhibition between its opening in July 2017 and December 2019. Around 30 volunteers supervise the space, which includes a permanent exhibition of the Plas Gunter Mansion project and an area for displays by local community groups. It is open Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10.30am till 4pm from March to December.

Anyone interested in getting involved should email: info@plasguntermansion.org.uk .

Presentation

Mon, 20 Jan 2020 15:19:35 GMT

We are holding a public presentation about our progress to save Plas Gunter Mansion in Abergavenny on Wednesday 5 February 2020 at St Michael’s Centre, Abergavenny.

There will be two similar presentations; one at 4.30pm and one at 7.00pm . We understand you may have a lot of commitments and want to give you the best possible chance of attending. We expect the sessions to last approximately an hour and a half. You are welcome to come to whichever session suits you better.

The project to save Plas Gunter Mansion is now three years old. Since the Trust’s purchase of the mansion in 2017, our pop-up exhibition in Cross Street has welcomed many visitors. We have undertaken an archaeological survey and you can read more about the survey results here . Our Expression of Interest to the National Lottery Heritage Fund earlier this year was received positively, and we are now at a critical stage of putting together a full Development application.

We believe this project is great news for Abergavenny and it has enjoyed wide support locally and further afield since its beginning. Not only will it restore one of our oldest and most historically significant buildings, it will help regenerate one of the main entrances to the town. We also expect it to be an educational and community resource.

Besides reporting on our progress with the project, we have news about the Trust and a new membership scheme. There is much to tell you about and we would love you to come and listen to our plans and tell us what you think.

Temporary repair work

Tue, 15 Oct 2019 11:10:32 GMT

If you're local, you may have noticed building work taking place recently at Plas Gunter Mansion. Nearby business owners have called into the pop-up exhibition space to ask if renovations have already started.

In August, we reported we were one step closer to receiving restoration funding. The National Lottery Heritage Fund had invited the Welsh Georgian Trust, which bought Plas Gunter Mansion (PGM) for Abergavenny in 2017, to submit an application for the development stage of the funding.

But the appearance of timber framed screens across the first floor of the building at 37-39 Cross Street and tarpaulins around the chimney stack and the flat roof at the back have been put in place as a damage limitation exercise. That is, preventing further damage to the building as well as potential injury to passing pedestrians from falling tiles and debris until the renovation can start.

Vegetation and loose material have been removed from the left-hand chimney-stack and the blue wrap is to prevent plant re-growth. Slipped tiles have been secured and missing tiles replaced.

The flat roof on the 20th century extension at the back is in a state of dilapidation but the Welsh Georgian Trust decided not to spend money on repairing it if it is to be demolished under the restoration. In effect, the extension – housing tea and coffee making facilities and a toilet for volunteers – is under a tent to prevent any more water ingress.

The shop front window on the right hand side of the building was vandalised in September and the boarding is in place until new glass can be fitted.

The pop-up exhibition space on the ground floor of the building is open for business as usual. Half of it charts the history of the building and the other half is open to community groups to set up a month-long display between March and December every year. During October, Abergavenny’s Adult Education Centre is displaying information about its classes and features work produced by the adult art group.

The space is open Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10.30 till 4pm. Community groups interested in using the display space should email: info@plasguntermansion.org.uk

Mansion invited to submit Lottery development grant

Thu, 15 Aug 2019 12:37:24 GMT

We are now one step closer to receiving restoration funding as the National Lottery Heritage Fund has invited the Welsh Georgian Trust which owns Plas Gunter Mansion to submit an application for the development phase of the restoration.

The Trust submitted an Expression of Interest to the Heritage Fund at the beginning of July in the hope the project would be approved to apply for further funding.

An Expression of Interest is required for large projects and is an outline application of the full project, giving historical context, potential future activities, work done so far, timescales, and costs. It has been important to include as much as possible at this stage as it could prove difficult to make changes further down the line. The Heritage Fund requires these outline applications because of the huge competition for available funds.

The next stage is for the Trust to submit an application for a development grant showing how they intend to manage the project. This will involve creating briefs for required expertise, sending out tenders to architects and other experts, technical planning up to a certain level, commissioning viability studies on the proposed commercial spaces, designing the exhibition space and understanding how to develop an audience, putting together a fundraising plan, and generally explaining in detail how the project will be delivered.

Andrew Beckett, Chair of The Welsh Georgian Trust, said: “This is very exciting. We are extremely grateful that the National Lottery Heritage Fund continues to have faith in the project and has accepted our Expression of Interest. The Trustees and Chair of the Friends recently met to discuss the work which is now required to submit the development application and it’s all systems go for us to meet Heritage Fund’s November deadline.”

He added: “We are having to attend to some urgent repairs as the building has been neglected and there are some pressing issues to deal with. Of course, any actual renovation work is still a long way off. Firstly, we have to satisfy Heritage Fund that we have everything in place to deliver a project which is likely to cost over £3 million. But eager as we are to get on with the work, it has to be approached in a considered and responsible way and we must take one step at a time.”

Watch this space!

Learning through local surroundings

Wed, 17 Jul 2019 18:11:20 GMT

Year 7 pupils from King Henry VIII School, Abergavenny, visited Plas Gunter Mansion last week as part of a Successful Futures project study day that reflects changes to the secondary school curriculum in Wales.

From 2021, secondary schools in Wales will have brought together all the Humanities subjects – History, Geography, Religious Education, Sociology and Psychology – and Welsh Government is granting schools the freedom and flexibility to design their own Humanities curriculum.

A new element to this curriculum is the idea of cynefin. Literally translating as ‘habitat’, in essence it means making what pupils learn in schools relevant to their surroundings.

Gwilym Morgan, King Henry’s Geography lead teacher, who accompanied the pupils said, “This new idea is that if they understand where they come from they get a grounding for themselves and can look out and understand the world from their perspective.”

And this is where Plas Gunter Mansion comes into the picture. A secret chapel was discovered in the attic of the house where Catholics could worship in the 1700s when it was illegal and dangerous to do so. It provides important local source material relating to history, religious studies and geography and provides an opportunity for pupils to work alongside one of Abergavenny’s most fascinating community heritage projects.

Two priests who led services in the chapel were denounced by a local Protestant landowner and priest-hunter. Father – now Saint – David Lewis was hanged at Usk in 1679 and was Wales’ last Catholic martyr. The chapel remained hidden for over two centuries until it was rediscovered in the early 1900s.

Stephanie Morgan, one of the visiting pupils said, “The bit about the secret Catholic chapel in the attic was interesting, how Catholic worship was banned and how people got together to create their own little place of worship to suit their needs, that really stood out for me.”

The day out also included visits to St Mary’s Priory, Our Lady and St Michael’s Catholic church and Abergavenny Museum. At the museum, pupils would have seen the Adoration of the Magi altarpiece, which was rescued from the secret chapel in Plas Gunter Mansion and transported to the museum in a wheelbarrow in the 1970s.

Four of the Plas Gunter Mansion volunteers divided pupils into groups and showed them the pictures and information boards on display in the pop-up exhibition space on the ground floor. They told them the history of the house, the story of the Gunter family who built and lived in it for over 100 years and the proposed restoration of the house, which stands on Cross Street.

Liz Terry, Odette Hutchinson, Anna Petts and Christina Maciejewski were impressed by the Year 7 pupils’ enthusiasm for the restoration project. A few had said they wanted to organise a sponsored event at the school to raise money for the project.

“One offered a donation of the £3 that he had on him,” said Anna Petts. “I told him that that was extremely generous but that when he was older, with a successful career, he could donate money then!”

One pupils said they were related to this Gunter family and another said they’d heard that there was a ghost in the Pot and Pineapple part of the mansion, a later extension to the property, and an old fashioned sweet shop until 2016. Amanda Peters who ran the shop named it after a famous confectionery shop set up by Gunter descendants in London in the 1800s.

“Another thought that the whole house should be knocked down,” said Christina Maciejewski, “and rebuilt from scratch!”

The Welsh Georgian Trust, which saved the mansion for Abergavenny in 2017, following a successful appeal, will be bidding for Heritage Lottery funding to restore and enhance the building, turning it into an educational and community resource that celebrates its local roots. The first floor, featuring the main chamber with its decorative plaster ceiling, would become accommodation similar to that offered by Landmark Trust properties.

One of the pupils told the volunteers, “It would be really cool to be able to stay here.” Another suggested a pool and a car park at the back for any B&B guests.

Although the volunteers encouraged the pupils to think about how the area behind the house, formerly the gardens, could potentially be developed this land does not belong to the trust. The intention is to try to acquire that land and restore it to an appropriate garden space that would form part of the visitor experience.

“It would have been nice to go upstairs but obviously the floor and ceiling are in a state, they need renovating badly, but when that’s done there’ll be a lot more to learn up there,” added Year 7 pupil, Stephanie Morgan. “It was interesting to hear about the garden and what that used to be like and it would be really nice to see that again when the renovations start.”

The following day, members of the Plas Gunter Mansion project committee were invited to the school to give thematic talks to the Year 7 pupils.

Gill Wakley talked about the history and heritage of the building, Owen Davies’ presentation was about regeneration and the role of Plas Gunter Mansion in reviving the town centre, and Tony Konieczny covered the significance of the project with regard to the community and tourism.

There is an exhibition of the history of the house in the shop on the ground floor at 39a Cross Street, Abergavenny. This is open to the public on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10.30am till 4pm.

The other half of this pop-up exhibition space is available to community groups for month-long displays. Until the end of July, visitors will be able to see an exhibition celebrating two years of the Plas Gunter Mansion project pop-up space.

In August, the Black Mountains Jazz group will be displaying photographs and information about their Wall2Wall Jazz Festival at the end of that month. Photographs with captions of Old Abergavenny will be on display during September.

Other community groups interested in using the display space should email: info@plasguntermansion.org.uk

First Plas Gunter Mansion survey raises more questions about the house's hidden secrets

Mon, 28 Jan 2019 16:33:53 GMT

History enthusiasts and interested members of the community gathered at St Michael’s Centre on Wednesday, 23 January, to hear the results of an archeological survey of Abergavenny’s 17th century Plas Gunter Mansion, aimed at unlocking more of its historical secrets.

The Grade II* listed building, bought for the community by The Welsh Georgian Trust in 2017, is of historical importance because of the discovery of a secret chapel in the attic where Catholics worshipped during a period when it was illegal and dangerous to do so.

It is the only known recusant chapel that exists in Wales and one of the best surviving examples in the whole of Britain.

One of the priests who led the secret services was denounced to Parliament by priest-hunter, John Arnold of Llanfihangel Court. He was arrested, hanged, drawn and quartered at Usk on 27th August, 1679. Father – later Saint – David Lewis was Wales’ last Catholic martyr.

The purpose of the meeting on Wednesday was to present the findings of the survey and to outline the vision for the future. Chair of the Plas Gunter Mansion project, Owen Davies, said in his introduction, “We are the history hunters, putting together a jigsaw of the pieces of history relating to this house. We have the edges to the jigsaw, we now have to fill in the middle bits.

“We’re not sure we’ll ever find all those missing jigsaw pieces because we don’t have the box for reference – so we don’t know exactly what it looked like in the first place,” he added.

Andrew Beckett of the Welsh Georgian Trust (WGT) said that the survey had uncovered some interesting findings but that it had in fact thrown up even more questions.

The mansion was a centrally planned renaissance house built by the Gunter family in the 17th century and inhabited by the same family for a number of generations. It is known that Thomas Gunter, a lawyer, was living there in the 1670s and plied his trade in the room facing Cross Street, to the left of the main entrance, where the pop-up exhibition of the mansion is currently located.

The upstairs of the property is not currently accessible to the public but the pop-up space at 39a Cross Street features photographs, historical information and artists’ impressions of the mansion.

The Trust will need to apply for Heritage Lottery funding to restore Plas Gunter Mansion so this initial archeological survey was commissioned to improve the chances of securing funding further down the line. Funding for the survey came from the Architectural Heritage Fund and Heritage Lottery Fund.

Local architects firm Morgan & Horowskij carried out the survey in collaboration with experts in conservation Holland Heritage, Archaeo Domus and McNeilage Conservation.

One of the survey’s aims was to establish a more exact date for the house and to date the later additions to the building.

Ovolo mouldings, fashionable in Wales in the mid 17th century, and evidence of a cross passage through the centre of the building from front to back are two features which date the main building at somewhere between 1625 and 1650.

The extension to the right of the original house, referred to as the Pot and Pineapple, was built between 1650 and 1680. An old-fashioned sweet shop business in the building was named The Pot and Pineapple by its owner, Amanda Peters, after a confectionery shop of that name in London that was operated by the Gunters of Abergavenny. The shop closed down but it is still referred to by that moniker and Amanda Peters was key in initiating the building’s restoration project.

One of the most striking features of the house, an ornate plaster ceiling in the first floor main chamber, had been the subject of debate among local historians before the survey was conducted.

Its vine trails and cherubs are typical of the late 17th century but its lack of symmetry in relation to the room had led to speculation that it was not part of the original house when the Gunters owned it, and that it had been brought in later, possibly from another manor house.

But Ruth McNeilage, an expert in wall paintings and decorative plasterwork and part of the survey team, is convinced that it is a 17th century ceiling that the Gunter family would have commissioned. After the family sold the mansion in the 18th century, the house was inhabited by a succession of less wealthy owners who would not have been able to afford to pay for such a ceiling.

The room that continues to provide the most uncertainty is the attic. Because the survey places the addition of The Pot and Pineapple extension to the original building at sometime between 1650 and 1680 it means that the secret chapel could not have existed until at least 1650. It is likely to have started functioning as a Catholic place of worship from the end of the Civil War in 1660.

Ruth McNeilage took samples of the layers of paint from the original wall paintings in the attic. “In vernacular houses owned by gentry like Thomas Gunter wall paintings were fashionable between 1550 and 1660,” said Ruth McNeilage. “Then the fashion changed.”

When brothers Edwin and Thomas Foster discovered the remains of the chapel in 1907 a wall painted altarpiece featuring the Adoration of the Magi was removed and was eventually moved to Abergavenny Museum in the 1970s where it is on display.

Ruth McNeilage believes the altarpiece mural was not painted until the early 18th century although she was unable to take any samples from it for this survey. Because of the secrecy surrounding mass being held in the house the owners might not have wanted any permanent religious symbolism in the attic.

She speculated that it might have been painted over an earlier painting or that it was created in the early 18th century as a memorial to the martyred priest.

“We have yet to establish the position of this altarpiece in the attic,” said Andrew Beckett. “A photo of the wall painting in situ in 1907 tantalisingly shows a gap to the left but there is not enough photographic evidence to establish where exactly it was,” he added.

During questions and answers with the 80-strong audience Andrew Beckett was able to confirm that a portion of the plasterwork from the attic is still attached to the altarpiece and it was suggested that Ruth McNeilage carry out analysis on this supporting plaster to establish its position in the attic.

Another feature of the house familiar to anyone who has seen the photographs at the pop-up exhibition at the mansion on Cross Street is the graffiti daubed on wall panels in the attic. Ruth McNeilage believes that it is too crude to have been part of a chapel – that graffiti at the time was decorative and beautiful – and speculated that it was daubed at a later date.

What emerged from the survey was the discovery of a blocked up window behind the graffiti panel, which strongly suggests that the panels featuring the graffiti were moved from somewhere else in the room or the house.

Another mystery that remains unsolved is whether there was an entrance to the secret chapel from the main attic. Reports from the time of the denouncement of the priest suggested a larger chapel than currently evidenced although those reports might have been exaggerated. If the larger attic formed part of the chapel then it is still unclear as to how it was accessed by worshippers.

This survey, unsurprisingly, has barely scratched the surface of what might lie below. “Only when we start taking it apart a bit more will some of these questions be answered” said Andrew Beckett from The Welsh Georgian Trust, whose task it is now to apply for major heritage grants to unlock more of the house’s secrets.

So what is next? The vision, according to Chair Owen Davies, is to solve a lot of the unknowns and restore and enhance the building, turning it into an educational and community resource that celebrates its local roots.

“The question we’re asking ourselves is: What should we restore it to ? Back to what we think it was originally? Somewhere in between? The feeling at the moment is to take the upper part of the front of the building back to what it looked like in the 1907 photograph – so filling in the extra window that’s been added – but installing replacement Georgian style windows. We have no evidence of what it looked like before that photograph,” he said.

Stefan Horowskiy, the local architect and the survey’s project manager said: “There is a difference between restoration and conservation . This is more a conservation project because listed buildings often retain echoes from different periods of their history and are rarely restored to their original form. We need a building that’s successful in retail terms whilst making it a meaningful experience for visitors.”

The ground floor facing Cross Street will feature shop front windows because this is part of the building’s more recent history and the granting of any heritage money will depend on building sustainability into the project.

As to the back of the building, Davies said that they would be consulting with conservationists, experts, Friends and the community. The land behind the building does not belong to the trust but the intention is to try and acquire that land and restore it to an appropriate garden space that would form part of the visitor experience.

Inside, on the ground floor, the idea is to recreate the cross passage from front to back, possibly leading to the original door (currently in the museum) and a garden. The only fixed plan at the moment is to turn the downstairs of the Pot and Pineapple building into a visitors’ exhibition and interpretation space.

Owen Davies added: “The remainder of the ground floor needs to be a flexible area that allows for adaptation of use over time to reflect the ever evolving nature of the high street.” One proposal is for a National Trust style tea shop on the ground floor which could spill out into a potential garden area.

The first floor, featuring the main chamber with its decorative plaster ceiling, would become accommodation similar to that offered by Landmark Trust properties. The Friends are looking to work with St Mary’s Church and Abergavenny Museum to create a complementary heritage offering to draw more visitors to the town.

“The building has to become an income generator. Entrance fees and donations alone won’t be enough to make it a sustainable project,” said Andrew Beckett. “Offering attractive, high-end accommodation for a significant proportion of the year would help ensure that income stream. Periods of time during the year would be set aside to keep that first floor open to visitors,” he added.

Beckett referred to Llwyn Celyn, a Landmark Trust property in nearby Cwmyoy, which has recently featured in a two-part series on More 4 . The two one-hour programmes, “£4 Million Restoration: Historic House Rescue” follows the painstaking restoration of the building as it is brought bank from the brink. The house is now available to rent as holiday accommodation through the Landmark Trust. The series is available to view on Channel 4’s catch-up service, All 4 , until 5th February (episode 1) and 12th February (episode 2).

Plans for the attic are currently the least developed and one question from the floor concerned the restoration of part of the attic space as a chapel, whether mass could be held there in the future because of its importance for Catholics as a place of pilgrimage.

Andrew Beckett replied that there were plans to recreate a space similar to what they think the chapel was, restoring some of the wall paintings. He confirmed that the religious significance of the building was going to be integral to the visitor experience.

It is hoped that the presence of a nationally significant historical manor house in Cross Street will help to regenerate that part of Abergavenny. Owen Davies said, “It’s taken nearly 300 years for us to realise we have an historical gem here that’s of potential national and international importance. There are layers of social history relating to the building that we’d like to unveil.”

Key stakeholder groups from the community are already involved: The Civic Society, Our Lady & St Michael’s Church, Abergavenny Local History Society and Abergavenny Museum. The Friends are keen to hear from other stakeholder groups or individuals who might like to get involved.

2,000 people visited the pop-up exhibition between its opening in July 2017 and September 2018. Around 30 volunteers supervise the space, which includes a permanent exhibition of the Plas Gunter Mansion project and an area for displays by local community groups. It is open Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10.30am till 4pm from March to December.

Anyone interested in volunteering or getting involved should email: info@plasguntermansion.org.uk.

Volunteers will be offered training in telling the Plas Gunter Mansion story and in operating the display screens, starting in February.

Annual General Meeting and presentation

Mon, 17 Dec 2018 14:16:55 GMT

We're pleased to announce that the key findings from the architectural survey on Plas Gunter Mansion will be presented at the Friends' Annual General Meeting on 23 January 2019 at St Michael's Centre.

The architectural survey has taken place over several months this year to fully understand and to explain the architectural and archaeological importance of the building. Speakers will include Andrew Beckett from the Welsh Georgian Trust, Stefan Horowskji, the architect who project-managed the survey, and other contributors. There will be an opportunity to ask questions.

The Friends of Plas Gunter Mansion will hold their AGM at 7pm and the presentation will start at 7.30pm. You are welcome to attend the AGM, although you may prefer to come just for the presentation. The venue address is St Michael's Centre, 10 Pen y Pound, Abergavenny NP7 5UD.

The Friends and the Welsh Georgian Trust look forward to your joining them at what promises to be an interesting and exciting presentation as some of the secrets of Plas Gunter Mansion are at last revealed.

King Henry VIII study day

Wed, 31 Oct 2018 14:26:44 GMT

For two days during July, Plas Gunter Manion became the focus for Year 7 pupils of King Henry VIII School taking part in a Successful Future study project.

The school chose Plas Gunter Mansion because of its important local source material for history, religious studies and geography. It also offered an opportunity for pupils to work alongside one of Abergavenny’s most fascinating community heritage projects.

On the first day there were talks from local experts on several themes including:

The architecture and heritage of the building
Regeneration, and the role of Plas Gunter Mansion in reviving the town centre
Community significance / volunteers
History

Pupils were divided into groups and the learning from experts’ presentations was taken into field work and investigations held at the Cross Street exhibition, Abergavenny Castle and St Mary’s Priory Church.

On the second day each group prepared classroom-based presentations.

Mrs E Lewis the school’s Headteacher thanked us saying “Our pupils really enjoyed the experience and their final outcomes were amazing. Working and learning with members of our local community is a valuable experience for our young pupils.”

Ann Payne, who coordinates the volunteers staffing the exhibition said “The volunteers were really buzzing after the KHS pupils left. They’re keen to do it again next year.”

We want to give a big thank you to everyone involved who made the day so successful. We’re very keen to involve young people in Gunter’s restoration and hope to make this event a regular fixture.

We want your green tokens in November!

Wed, 24 Oct 2018 17:52:11 GMT

During the month of November, Plas Gunter Mansion is one of the community projects at Waitrose Abergavenny.

Every month, Waitrose chooses three local causes to share £1,000. At the end of your shop, you'll receive a green token which you can give to the project of your choice. The more tokens a project gets, the more money it will receive.

Put your green token into Gunter's box and let's make sure we raise as much money as possible!

Home front in Abergavenny

Thu, 16 Aug 2018 11:39:12 GMT

Plas Gunter Mansion is playing host to the Home Front in Abergavenny exhibition during the month of August. It's being show alongside the permanent exhibition about the Mansion which was built around 1600.

Commemorating 100 years since the devastating hostilities of World War I finally came to an end in 1918, Abergavenny Local History Society’s exhibition focuses on the effect of the war on those living everyday lives at home.

The front pages of the newspapers at the time gave no indication of the conflict which had been going on four years. Only inside the paper were there bits and pieces about the war overseas, and adverts encouraging the people of Abergavenny to buy war bonds during Tank Days and War Weapons Week.

The Defence of the Realm Act, known as DORA, passed in 1914, had effectively suppressed any criticism or comment about the war effort. In the press, there was barely any coverage of the South Wales miners’ strike in 1915 or mention of the war widows who faced starvation.

DORA also reduced pub opening hours and the strength of beer to ensure that munitions, engineering and other work were not affected by absence due to drunkenness. In Abergavenny, the YMCA in Frogmore Street became popular as a Soldiers’ Rest, providing writing materials, cups of tea, and the chance to play billiards and bagatelle without the temptation of getting drunk.

As a side note, pub opening hours remained the same in England and Wales until the late 1980s when public houses were no longer required to close in the middle of the day.

In February 1915 it became apparent that underwear was not part of the uniform issued to the troops and that socks were desperately needed. Women and children immediately responded by knitting huge numbers to send to the trenches.

Wounded British soldiers were sent to Maindiff Red Cross Hospital for rehabilitation. The War Office paid about two-thirds of the cost of each patient, but the hospital had to raise the rest from subscriptions and fundraising events. The Abergavenny Chronicle regularly listed a who’s who of donations including milk, eggs, pheasants, rabbits and walking sticks.

After the Armistice, Abergavenny’s generosity was rewarded and the town was given a tank to display.

Home Front in Abergavenny can be seen throughout August on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays 10.30am to 4pm at Plas Gunter Mansion, 39a Cross Street.

If your group is interesting in exhibiting, please contact Rob Willbourn at info@plasguntermansion.org.uk .

Town Council give funding

Fri, 01 Jun 2018 12:51:46 GMT

We are absolutely delighted that we've received £1,000 from Abergavenny Town Council.

We are urgently in need of funding towards the running costs of the building, as well as marketing materials for a number of initiatives we are keen to get off the ground.

All activities to date have been funded by volunteers. We are very grateful to them for their support, but this is not really sustainable if we are to gather and maintain interest while the project gains momentum. This grant will enable us to keep the pop-up exhibition open and encourage interest in the project.

Architectural survey goes ahead

Fri, 01 Jun 2018 12:31:07 GMT

We're thrilled to announce that the restoration of Plas Gunter Mansion is moving closer as funding has been awarded for an initial architectural survey. The Heritage Lottery Fund has given £10,000 to the project along with £5,000 from the Architectural Heritage Fund.

The two grant bodies recognised that the project is of local and national significance and that the eventual proposed use of the building - with its residential accommodation and retail space - will make it a sustainable restoration prospect.

The Welsh Georgian Trust, which owns the building, invited tenders for the survey and the project has been awarded to local architects firm, Morgan and Horowskyj. The brief is to complete historical research and survey work, and prepare options and plans for the reconfiguration of the building, including retail and residential options.

The house is currently in a poor state of repair and urgently needs restoration if it is to survive. The plan is to restore external and internal features, and remove later alterations and additions that are not in line with the architecture from that particular moment in history.

The shops will remain but the historically important rooms will be open to visitors, allowing the building to be financially self-sustaining while allowing the public to see the significant rooms and features.

The vision is to turn it into an educational, historical and community resource, celebrating its local roots whilst attracting national and international visitors. This will also help to regenerate the lower end of Cross Street area of town.

We look forward to sharing the findings of the survey with you soon!

New look, new name

Thu, 01 Feb 2018 00:00:00 GMT

The Gunter Mansion project now has a brand new look and a slightly different name. The project has been going for over a year, and we felt it was important to consolidate our activities behind a recognisable identity. We have settled on the name, Plas Gunter Mansion, to acknowledge the Welsh and English heritage of the building. (Plas is Welsh for large house).

Our colours of burgundy, dark blue, dark grey and light grey are based on colours which would have been in use in the 17th century, but with a modern twist. Fortunately, we were able to secure the services of a professional graphic designer ( Andrew Smith Creative ) completely free of charge, so our brand new look hasn’t cost us a penny.

Most excitingly, the project now has a website www.plasguntermansion.org.uk . It’s full of historical content and information about our restoration plans. Take a look and if you have ideas for anything you think could be included, drop us a line . We’re in the process of setting up online donations, so we’ll soon be able to use the website for fundraising as well.

Volunteers at the exhibition space in Cross Street have been busy doing essential repairs and giving it a makeover. (You can see them working hard in the picture above.)

The revamped pop-up space re-opens on Friday 2 February. We're very grateful for all the hard work they've put into getting the space ready.

The house where Christmas wasn't banned

Mon, 18 Dec 2017 00:00:00 GMT

If you lived in Abergavenny in the mid 17th Century, Christmas would have cost you a lot less money. This is because the Puritan movement that came into being after the civil war banned any sort of Yuletide cheer.

One of the few places where the festivities might have continued was the Gunter Mansion, which still stands on Cross Street in Abergavenny. Thomas Gunter, a lawyer, was an ardent Catholic and allowed mass to be held in secret in the attic of the house, at great risk to him and his family. The Gunter family might well have continued to observe some Christmas traditions during the austere Puritanical years.

Between 1645 and 1660, Christmas was frowned upon and ultimately ‘banned’ by the two Houses of Parliament against a backdrop of civil war between Charles I’s Royalists and Oliver Cromwell’s ‘roundheads’. There were few Christmas cards, trees, crackers or Church services on Christmas Day. And gifts – traditionally given at New Year - would have been exchanged in secret.

The Puritans argued that Christmas was not mentioned in the Bible and declared it to be an invention of the old Catholic faith. Up to this point, they had tolerated the boisterousness of Christmas festivities even though they decried it as “trappings of popery and rags of the beast”.

Before the ban, the twelve days of Christmas – 25th December to 5th January – with the emphasis on driving away the winter blues would have been marked by games, dancing, music, food and drink all over the country. Churches and other buildings were decorated with rosemary, bay, holly and ivy and carol singers would have carried wassail bowls of spiced ale.

Lords might have organised Christmas dinners for their servants and tenants and employers would have given their servants presents in boxes, thought to be the origin of Boxing Day.

With the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 came the restoration of Christmas, not too dissimilar to what we know today. After 15 years of Puritan austerity, it was referred to fondly as ‘Old Christmas’.

Most people would have started again to deck the halls with holly and ivy, play cards, go bowling, hawking or hunting, give money or presents to your children, servants and apprentices and send the traditional present of a couple of capons (fattened, castrated cockerels) to a friend. They might well have eaten mince pies throughout, but made with chicken and tongue laced with sugar and spice. Only the most ardent Puritans would have continued to view the Christmas festivities with a jaundiced eye.

Visitors are invited to find out how the Abergavenny volunteers are bringing the Gunter Mansion back to life. Following a refurbishment, the pop-up shop and exhibition space at 39a Cross Street, Abergavenny NP7 5ER will be open from the beginning of February on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10.30am to 4pm.

King Henry 6th Formers get into Gunter

Tue, 28 Nov 2017 00:00:00 GMT

The Gunter Mansion project is getting welcome support from a member of the town’s younger generation. 18 year old Alex Evans, a year 13 pupil at King Henry VIII Comprehensive, will be collating and mapping important visitor information and assessing social media impact in relation to the pop-up exhibition space in the early 17th century manor house. Another King Henry sixth former, Alice Kent, helped out with setting up the exhibitions when the pop-up space first opened in July this year.

The Welsh Baccalaureate diploma (known as the ‘Welsh Bacc’) is equivalent to an A Level and includes a ‘Community’ element. Alex Evans says that it was after a conversation with the outgoing Chair of the Friends of Gunter Mansion, Amanda Peters, at King Henry School that he decided to volunteer for the project to restore the historic building in his home town.

“It’s interesting to learn more about the town I’ve lived in for most of my life. Even people who’ve lived here longer than me don’t know about the mansion project,” says Alex.

When visitors to the exhibitions sign up for on-going news of the restoration project they include their post-code; Alex will use this data to generate a breakdown of where visitors to the pop-up space come from. He will also build a table comparing the numbers of visitors to the Gunter project to other key attractions in the town as well as to attractions further afield that have similarities to the historic mansion.

The Grade II listed Gunter Mansion is historically important because its owners were practising Catholics in the 17th Century when this was illegal. The Welsh Georgian Trust, following an appeal, saved the mansion for the town and the pop-up exhibition space in the downstairs retail area of the building is aimed at informing the local and wider population about the restoration project.

It’s important that we engage a wide spectrum of ages in the project and raise awareness of the amazing heritage hidden in our town,” says Owen Davies, Chair of the Friends of Gunter Mansion.

"I became aware of the Gunter Mansion while I was studying for my A-Level History at King Henry VIII in 1989 - almost by accident,” he adds. “The secret chapel in the attic of the house is fascinating and it inspired me to learn more about the building’s history. I am delighted that Alex and Alice have volunteered to help out.”

An aspiring film-maker also studying for A Levels in Media Studies, Theatre and Chemistry, Alex has already thrown himself into his new volunteer duties, also visiting the pop-up. Whereas the main exhibition charts the history of the house and its planned restoration, half of the pop-up space is given over to temporary displays by local interest groups. “It was a good idea to split up the exhibition space,” says Alex, “to encourage more revisits.”

He has his own ideas for attracting younger visitors. “An exhibition of the history of rugby in the area might draw interest from people who are interested in sport. They’d then come across the Gunter project whereas normally they wouldn’t have heard about it.”

Alex’s interest in history normally centres on the 20th century world wars but getting involved with the Gunter project has taught him more about that particular era in history, one that he had come across only via the Gunpowder Plot and Guy Fawkes’ night.

The Gunpowder Plot was hatched around the same time that the Gunter mansion is thought to have been built; 1600. The Gunter family built a secret chapel in the attic where Catholics worshipped at a time when it was illegal, hence its historical significance.

The anti-Catholic fervour and violence that led Guy Fawkes and his troupe to plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605 continued into that century and culminated in the execution in 1679 of one of the priests, Fr David Lewis, who led mass in secret at the Gunter Mansion.

The Welsh Bacc has been the subject of controversy for some who question its usefulness and validity for applications to universities outside Wales. Alex Evans, however, feels that it sets young people up well for life after school.

As well as Community, it covers Enterprise & Employability as well an opportunity to study in-depth a topic of the pupil’s choice. Alex has chosen an extremely topical subject: How videos on social media affect opinion and propagate false news. He feels it has helped develop his problem-solving, idea-generating and investigative skills. The Baccalaureate also covers Global Citizenship and Alex feels this prepares them for becoming citizens of a global community.

“There’s a wider world out there,” Alex points out. “You might be sitting in your nice warm house when there are people in Puerto Rico for example, who have no electricity. It makes us realise how lucky we are.”

The Gunter Mansion pop-up exhibition is open to the public on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10.30am to 4pm. As well as the permanent exhibition on the history of the mansion, a temporary exhibition by the Abergavenny & District Civic Society will run until 16th December. The space re-opens end of January.