Digitising Tithe Maps

Cynefin is a Welsh word for the area you are familiar with. It is also the name of a project for digitising the Tithe Maps of Wales. This is a considerable challenge, there are over a thousand of them and they are large, some are two by three metres or more. The maps are highly popular with the public, and with television programmes, and it is easy to see why. Not only are the maps very detailed, but they also have attached schedules or apportionment documents which include the names of the people who were paying tithes around the 1840s, and where they were farmers, as most were, more often than not the names of their fields are included.

The Cynefin project will produce digitised images of the maps and the apportionment documents, and much more as well. As there is such a wealth of information in the apportionment documents, they will be transcribed, but for this we are reliant on help from the community. We also plan to link the apportionment entries directly to the field numbers which are on the maps, this work will also involve volunteers. There will soon be a crowd sourcing platform giving the public an opportunity to contribute directly to the project.

There are also several local projects and workshops planned to promote the use of tithe maps. While the amount of work to be done is substantial and will keep us very busy for the next two and a half years, the beauty of the maps and the volatile history of the period in which they were made brings a certain excitement to the project.

As I write we are approaching the 175^th anniversary of the first Rebecca Rising on the 13^th of May 1839. To commemorate this we have prioritised the digitisation of the tithe map of Cilmaenllwyd in Carmarthenshire made in 1838 which shows the village of Efail Wen on it’s Pembrokeshire boundary. No sign of a turnpike tollgate of course, and even when they built one in April 1839 it didn’t last very long. The burden of paying so many road tolls, in addition to other costs such as tithes, were too much for some and hundreds of protesters turned up dramatically dressed as women and burnt the tollgate. Another big issue of the period was the fact that the vast majority didn’t even have the right to vote, that’s why there was a growing Chartist movement which we also plan to illustrate with tithe maps later this year.

This project will produce a great new resource to support all kinds of historical research in Wales. The more important aim of the project, however, is to enable people become more familiar, and to connect more directly with their history, and tithe maps are a great starting point for that.

Part of the Cilmaenllwyd Tithe Map made in 1838 showing Efailwen

Einion Gruffudd

Project manager , HLF funded ARCW ‘Cynefin : Mapping Wales’ Sense of Place’ project

http://archiveswales.org.uk/projects/cynefin-mapping-wales-sense-of-place/