Unrecorded historic place names are being collected and recorded
through community gathering sessions, adding to a national record
of more than 715,000 entries.
Sessions have taken place across Eryri, in partnership with the
National Park Authority, and Ynys Môn, adding over 7,000 names to
the list. Work has now extended to Bannau Brycheiniog and
Pembrokeshire Coast National Park with further sessions planned
across Wales over the coming year.
Alice Thorne, Heritage Officer for Bannau Brycheiniog, said:
“Place names carry generations of knowledge about how people have
understood and shaped the landscape and are an important part of
our shared heritage. We're pleased to work with the Royal
Commission and communities across Bannau Brycheiniog to capture
this local knowledge and strengthen the National Park's place
name record for future generations.”
The List of Historic Place Names of
Wales contains hundreds of thousands of place names,
providing insights into the history of Wales and its language.
Its curator, Dr James January-McCann, has been running community
sessions to capture place names that exist in local memory but
have never been formally recorded.
Dr James January-McCann said: “A community's sense of place, and
its sense of itself is intrinsically linked with its place names.
Through collecting them before they are lost we ensure the
survival of these linguistic and cultural treasures, and the
knowledge which they encapsulate.”
Dr January-McCann is also preparing a toolkit to allow community
groups to run their own sessions independently and submit
collected names directly to the list. Anyone can look up place
names on the list's online map, and
they can submit their own unrecorded place names by using the
Welsh Government's recently launched online collection tool.
Welsh Language Secretary said: “Historic place names
offer a window into the linguistic, social and historical forces
that have shaped Wales over centuries. Once lost, they cannot be
recovered. These sessions are vital to capture names held in
living memory so that they can continue to be seen, heard and
used.”
