St Fagans National History Museum brings Tudor trader’s medieval home back to life

After being dismantled in Pembrokeshire more than 30 years ago, the medieval home of a Tudor trader has been brought back to life at St Fagans open-air museum in Cardiff, where the original team that first pulled the house down have now rebuilt it– brick by brick.

During the last 50 years more than 40 original buildings from different historical periods have been re-erected in the museum’s 100-acre parkland, including a farm, school, chapel and workmen's institute.

The newest edition is a small house from Haverfordwest, originally built in close proximity to the old quayside, suggesting it was likely to have been the home of a trader.

Replica items have been used to furnish the house to show how it may have looked in the period around 1580, by which time goods were being traded to and from Bristol and the West Country. Haverfordwest was the second most important trading centre in Wales.

The house will officially open to the public on 2 July at 2pm, with re-enactors welcoming guests with a traditionally cooked meal from the hearth.

“The mysterious medieval building near the quayside at Haverfordwest was dismantled 30 years ago by a team of young apprentices and those same men have reconstructed the house here at St Fagans,” says Gerallt Nash, Senior Curator at the site.

“Visitors can learn more about the historical context of this wonderful building and see how the Tudors managed to navigate the oceans and bring new goods and ideas into Wales from Europe and beyond.”