Ceredigion Museum and Exploring the Town

Eisteddfod Chair 1

Eisteddfod Chair 2

Eisteddfod Purses

We spent most of the morning of this wet and gloomy day in the museum. It had an excellent collection of a variety of themes right back to BC - quite amazing. But what really took my eye were these eisteddfod articles. We grew up with Australian eisteddfods, but never knew the meaning of the word or the customs and history.

The Welsh word for "to sit" is "eistedd". I was really surprised a little while ago to learn, when I asked what  "sitting" had to do with an eisteddfod, that prizes in the earlier eisteddfods (eisteddfodau in Welsh) were chairs. The ones pictured are old treasured ones. The little purses were awarded as prizes with money in them. Competitors then put all their prizes in their little purse.

Kaye was more interested in the agricultural tools, beautiful crockery and furniture, and there was plenty to see. The museum itself was once a theatre called the Coliseum . It was opened in 1905 as a theatre/cinema, and closed as a cinema in 1976, later to become this museum.

Coliseum Theatre

After lunch, we explored the city. We were looking for a book shop that we had found on our first day, and we eventually found it. However, on the way, we went into every antique shop and every charity (op) shop we encountered (There seem to be hundreds of charity shops.). We bought some bits and pieces and I have now collected enough little things for Molly's birthday. Because it was raining lightly the whole time, we were then ready to collect a few groceries and head for our "home".