13856

 

II  

Designated  

06/10/1977  

28/11/2003  

Denbigh Cockpit  

 

Cardiff  

St. Fagans  

Cardiff  

Museum of Welsh Life, St Fagans  

311407  

177288  

 

One of the re-erected buildings in the open-air collection of the Museum of Welsh Life.  

Recreational  

 

Probably C18 but could be earlier. Brought from yard of Hawk and Buckle Inn, Denbigh. After the prohibition of cock-fighting in 1849 the building became first a slaughterhouse and then a garage. This meant that all the internal fittings were destroyed and their reproduction by the Museum on re-erection in 1970 was necessarily hypothetical. The Museum Council had recommended in October 1943 that 'an open-air museum was an essential auxiliary to the National Museum of Wales.' ; 'a Wales in miniature where in the confined area of one hundred acres the visitor will be able to wander through time and space.' This vision was made reality by Lord Plymouth's gift of St. Fagans Castle and Park to the National Museum of Wales in 1946. The gardens were opened to the public in 1947 and the house in 1948 but it was recognised that 'some time must elapse before any ancient houses can be re-erected in the Park'. The purpose of the Museum was that 'from different parts of Wales, farm-houses and buildings which would otherwise fall into ruin or be destroyed will be secured for re-erection, the chosen houses will of course be architecturally, historically and socially significant of Welsh culture'. The first building thus re-erected was the Stryd Lydan barn in 1951 and the ones which are included in the list are those re-erected between that date and 1972 and are thus all more than thirty years on their present site.  

Circular structure with walls of stone rubble and with a thatched roof. The walls are pierced by a single doorway and by twelve wide unglazed rectangular openings with their heads at eaves level. The roof crowned by an iron weather-cock.  

Complex roof construction of timber with cross-beam of over thirty feet; defective timbers replaced during re-erection. Crown-post rising from main cross-beam to form a 12-sided conical roof. Nothing remained of internal fittings before re-erection, these have been reconstructed to provide a circular stage surrounded by a gangway from which the seating accommodation rises in two tiers to a railed promenade. There are four niches in the circular wall at promenade level and stone pitched floors to the circular gangway and entrance passage.  

Included as one of the first complete buildings re-erected at the Museum of Welsh Life, then the Welsh Folk Museum. This building is of considerable historic interest as one of the early exhibits, both for itself and for the way it has been displayed.