An ambitious and extremely comprehensive reference book with hundreds of colour photos, presenting the whole of Wales' maritime history.

Documenting Maritime Heritage at Risk addresses the risks posed to coastal piers and quays due to climate change, the urgent need for documentation and attendant questions regarding long-term conservation, and the role communities could have in this endeavour. Case studies from communities, researchers, and national agencies offer insights into the documentation and analysis of coastal heritage, guidance on survey methodologies, and the potential of digital tools. Communities living along the coast, who are deeply attached to their heritage, are facing these threats very directly – and often with a sense of having little agency in the discussions or decisions being taken. Yet, as the book demonstrates, they could have a central role to play as first-hand observers of the impact of climate change on their heritage. The collection offers an overview of the invaluable role of different participants, working collectively in the documentation and management of endangered maritime heritage. Documenting Maritime Heritage at Risk provides a vital resource for researchers and students engaged in the study of maritime heritage. It will also be of great interest to practitioners, such as local heritage or conservation officers and marine engineers who bear the primary responsibility for recording and maintaining maritime heritage.

A highly illustrated voyage through shipwrecks ancient and contemporary. Out of the Depths explores all aspects of shipwrecks across four thousand years, examining their historical context and significance, showing how shipwrecks can be time capsules, and shedding new light on long-departed societies and civilizations. Alan G. Jamieson not only informs readers of the technological developments over the last sixty years that have made the true appreciation of shipwrecks possible, but he also covers shipwrecks in culture and maritime archaeology, their appeal to treasure hunters, and their environmental impacts. Although shipwrecks have become less common in recent decades, their implications have become more wide-ranging: since the 1960s, foundering supertankers have caused massive environmental disasters, and in 2021, the blocking of the Suez Canal by the giant container ship Ever Given had a serious effect on global trade.

While the Edwardian castles of Conwy, Beaumaris, Harlech and Caernarfon are rightly hailed as outstanding examples of castle architecture, the castles of the native Welsh princes are far more enigmatic. Where some dominate their surroundings as completely as any castle of Edward I, others are concealed in the depths of forests, or tucked away in the corners of valleys, their relationship with the landscape of which they are a part far more difficult to discern than their English counterparts. This ground-breaking book seeks to analyse the castle-building activities of the native princes of Wales in the thirteenth century. Whereas early castles were built to delimit territory and as an expression of Llywelyn I ab Iorwerth's will to power following his violent assumption of the throne of Gwynedd in the 1190s, by the time of his grandson Llywelyn II ap Gruffudd's later reign in the 1260s and 1270s, the castles' prestige value had been superseded in importance by an understanding of the need to make the polity he created - the Principality of Wales - defensible. Employing a probing analysis of the topographical settings and defensive dispositions of almost a dozen native Welsh masonry castles, Craig Owen Jones interrogates the long-held theory that the native princes' approach to castle-building in medieval Wales was characterised by ignorance of basic architectural principles, disregard for the castle's relationship to the landscape, and whimsy, in order to arrive at a new understanding of the castles' significance in Welsh society. Previous interpretations argue that the native Welsh castles were created as part of a single defensive policy, but close inspection of the documentary and architectural evidence reveals that this policy varied considerably from prince to prince, and even within a prince's reign. Taking advantage of recent ground-breaking archaeological investigations at several important castle sites, Jones offers a timely corrective to perceptions of these castles as poorly sited and weakly defended: theories of construction and siting appropriate to Anglo-Norman castles are not applicable to the native Welsh example without some major revisions.Princely Ambition also advances a timeline that synthesises various strands of evidence to arrive at a chronology of native Welsh castle-building. This exciting new account fills a crucial gap in scholarship on Wales' built heritage prior to the Edwardian conquest and establishes a nuanced understanding of important military sites in the context of native Welsh politics.

Dedicated to Martin Bell (University of Reading), this book outlines how wetland and inland environments can be related and investigated using multi-method approaches. Papers fall under three themes: coastal and intertidal archaeology; mobility and human-environment relationships; heritage resource management, nature conservation and rewilding.

Based on extensive research, The Naval History of Wales tells a compelling story that spans nearly 2,000 years, from the Romans to the present. Many Welsh men and women have served in the Royal Navy and the navies of other countries. Welshmen played major parts in voyages of exploration, in the navy's suppression of the slave trade, and in naval warfare from the Viking era to the Spanish Armada, in the American Civil War, both world wars and the Falklands War. Comprehensive, enlightening, and provocative, The Naval History of Wales also explodes many myths about Welsh history, naval historian J.D. Davies arguing that most Welshmen in the sailing navy were volunteers and that, relative to the size of national populations, proportionately more Welsh seamen than English fought at Trafalgar. Written in vivid detail, this volume is one that no maritime or Welsh historian can do without.

An authoritative account of the maritime history of the British Isles over the last 1500 years. Ian Friel defines 'maritime history' broadly to encompass naval developments, sea trade, exploration and colonization, fishing, social history, the technology of shipbuilding and a host of other themes related to the ways in which maritime activity has affected the history of Britain. Conversely, he examines the ways in which British seafaring enterprise has affected the world, for good and ill. Beginning with the maritime world of late Roman Britain, Ian Friel reviews seafaring in the Celtic world, Viking raids and settlement, and the Norman invasion and conquest. The second chapter studies England as part of the 'cross-Channel kingdom', the wars with France 1204-1453 and the rise and fall of English naval forces. Chapter three deals with the early British voyages of exploration, the Tudor and Stuart navies, and the first permanent naval dockyards. Following on comes the rise of empire and a growing public consciousness of the sea in national affairs: the defeat of piracy, the establishment of English colonies abroad and the growth of economic structures that supported empire, such as the slave trade. Chapter five describes the Pax Britannica, with England becoming the greatest naval and mercantile power in the world, until she fell into war in 1914. This period saw the development of the steamship and motor vessel and the establishment of major commercial docks; also the growth of trade unionism, class-consciousness and labor disputes in the maritime industries. The final chapter describes the rapidly changing technology of naval warfare in the two World Wars, and the decline of Britain as a naval power and as a shipbuilding nation. Offshore oil and gas industries signaled major changes in maritime trade and industry; traditional ports declined, and the European Union had profound effects on British maritime industries.