2026-03-31-accounts

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Trustees’ Annual Report for the period 1 April 2025 - 31 March 2026

Reference and Administrative details

Name of Charity: Abbey Cwmhir Heritage Trust

Charity No: 1196905

Principal address: Ty'r Ehedydd, Abbeycwmhir, Powys LD1 6PL

Current Trustees:

Julian Lovell - Secretary

Jackie Marriott - Treasurer & Membership Secretary

Sian Meredudd

Mel Walters

Phil Olivant

Angela Swindell

Julian Ravest

Objectives and Activities

The Trust’s Object is to advance the education of the public in the preservation and the historical and cultural importance of Cwmhir Abbey through the provision of information, events, research and continued learning.

The Trust carries out a range of activities, many of which are focused on Community Heritage under the project ‘Demystifying the Abbey’.

Our activities include:

• Assistance to Cadw in the content of the Exhibition Room at the Abbey ruins.

• Hosting a series of on-line talks that are open to the public

• Organising field visits to relevant sites

• Providing a public facing newsletter summarising the Trust’s research and community activities

• Offering the opportunity for volunteers to become involved in research activities associated with the Trust’s aims. This includes both desk based research and field based activities

• Provision of training events associated with the Trust’s research

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Trustees’ Annual Report for the period 1 April 2025 - 31 March 2026

• Maintaining links with other heritage organisations

• An annual memorial service for Llywelyn ap Gruffydd

• Maintaining our on-line presence through a website and social media

The Trust is extremely grateful for the substantial support provided by many volunteers. None of the activities above would be possible without their contribution. We are also most grateful to the Hamer family for allowing public access to the abbey ruins.

Abbey Cwmhir Heritage Trust Trustees have had regard to the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit.

Achievements and Performance below covers the 12 month period from April 2025 to March 2026

The Trust’s relationship with Professor Austin remains strong and productive. Our ongoing research is leading to the preparation of a book on Cwmhir Abbey within the series ‘Strata Florida Books’ https://www.facebook.com/YstradFflur/posts/3089811434576204/

Professor Austin continues to support us with our research and our team have had meetings with him during the period including hosting us on trip to the Strata Florida 2025 summer excavation. On this field trip, we also visited Temple Bar Farm and the Castell Nadolig Iron Age Hillfort.

A number of organisations have agreed to provide us with grants to enable us to publish the book on Cwmhir and we are extremely grateful for their support. Those organisations who have agreed to help us are Mortimer History Society, Cambrian Archaeological Association, Bryn Titli Fund, Radnorshire Society, Powysland Club plus a private donor. Other grant applications are ongoing.

As part of our research, Julian Ravest continues to conduct drone photogrammetry of a number of sites of interest to us and John Brandrick is assisting us with creating 3D images.

Our Research Discussion Group has regular meetings by zoom and recordings of these discussions are placed on our website and made available to the public. The Research Group have also benefited from discussions with Dr David Stephenson on medieval history and Lynda and Merfyn Tomos on Cymer Abbey.

In 2025 we continued archaeological excavations at Cwmffwrn Farm in the Abbey Home Grange. Our public excavation in July 2025 was supervised by Trysor Archaeological Services and 16 people attended our Experience Days and Trainee Week. We are most

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Trustees’ Annual Report for the period 1 April 2025 - 31 March 2026

grateful to OCU Group (https://www.ocugroup.com/) for their sponsorship of this event. Cwmffwrn Farm is owned by Angela and Ian Lewis and we thank them for their interest in our research and their permission for us to survey and excavate on their farm. Trysor consider that the site under excavation is potentially a medieval house platform. It is of sufficient interest that excavations will continue there in July 2026. See our website for further details and how to get involved.

We have made an application to Medieval Settlements Research Group for a grant to conduct dating of soils from the Cwmffwrn excavation. The outcome of this application is awaited.

We are making a plan for our main research activities for the next 5 years. Included in this plan is building links with the community heritage groups at Whitland and Cymer abbeys.

We hosted 3 on-line talks during the period:

• 2[nd] October 2025 Forgotten Landscapes / Radnorshire in Prehistory by Bill Britnell

• 13[th] November 2025 Wind and watermills in medieval and post-medieval Wales by Gerallt Nash

• 19[th] February 2026 Continuity and Change in the Marches AD 300-800 by Roger White

Sioned Webb performed a very successful recital on the Triple Harp at St Marys Church before at our AGM on 17[th] May 2025. The Trust and recital attendees donated £235 towards the upkeep of the church.

We are most grateful to our speakers/performers for the time and contribution that they have made to the Trust. Recordings of these talks/events have been placed on Youtube with links from our website.

The Trust uses the eventbrite.com donation method to manage the ticketing process for non-members access to on-line talks. The donation approach has resulted in £753.15 donations made towards the Trust’s heritage research fund over the period 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026.

We offer bespoke tours of the abbey and village, advertised through our website. The groups donate to our heritage research fund. We also ran a public tour of the Abbey and village in October 2025.

The heritage walks that were created by a grant from Cadw and National Lottery Heritage Fund in 2020/1 continue to be popular, with route descriptions in Welsh and English provided on our website, in the Exhibition Room at the Abbey, on the village notice board and at some local B&Bs in the village of Abbeycwmhir.

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Trustees’ Annual Report for the period 1 April 2025 - 31 March 2026

A public facing newsletter describing some of the Trust’s activities was prepared in Summer 2025 with copies made available in the Exhibition Room, the village noticeboard and on our website.

Our website www.abbeycwmhir.org has continued to develop over the period. Our thanks are given to Julian and Naisi Ravest who manage the hosting of the website and have designed its overall structure. We have a Facebook, Instagram and Bluesky presence and we advertise our activities on these platforms too. We also advertise in local publications and the press (County Times and Broad Sheep).

Links to Other Organisations

We give our thanks to PAVO who are always at hand to provide advice and practical support.

We have many links with the Radnorshire Society and we would particularly like to acknowledge the importance of their library resource. During the year members of the AHT committee have prepared a contribution on Cwmhir Abbey for the forthcoming Radnorshire County History book.

We submitted information on our Cwmffwrn excavation to the Council for British Archaeology (CBA) Archaeology in Wales journal.

As well as being members of The Radnorshire Society, CBA and British Association for Local History, our Trustee - Sian Meredudd - is a member of Cofio Llywelyn and Welsh History Forum and provides a link to these organisations; Julian Ravest is honorary Vice President of Radnorshire Society; Julian Lovell is a Trustee of Radnorshire Society; and Angela Swindell is a Trustee of Powysland Club.

Summary of the main benefits derived from the Trust’s activities over this reporting period

Our beneficiaries are:

• Our local community in Abbeycwmhir and nearby

• Visitors to Abbeycwmhir

• People who are interested in landscape and heritage in mid-Wales

• People who are interested in Welsh history

The key benefits that we have achieved over the period April 2025 - March 2026 are:

• An enhanced experience for walkers in the area of Abbeycwmhir

• An enhanced experience for visitors to the Abbey ruins and the Exhibition Room and thereby, a benefit to local tourism

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Trustees’ Annual Report for the period 1 April 2025 - 31 March 2026

• Opportunities for our volunteers and the public related to understanding our landscape and its heritage and learning archaeological techniques

• Information provided in a varied and engaging manner to enhance people’s understanding of the heritage of mid-Wales and Cwmhir Abbey and its granges

• ● Opportunities for social interaction in a fun and engaging manner

Financial Review

The funds held by Abbey Cwmhir Heritage Trust as of 31 March 2026 are as follows:

Main Account: £5,999.20 Deposit Account: £6,186.84 Petty Cash: £232.24 Total Funds Available: £12,418.28

For more detailed information on Income and Expenditure please refer to the Financial Accounts, sent separately, for the period ending 31 March 2026.

We hold our deposit account in reserve to enable cash flow ahead of grant income. Within our main account we hold £4,321.08 for our research activities.

Our principal source of funds this year are donations and membership as detailed in the attached accounts.

Equipment held by the Trust as at the end of this financial year has been depreciated due to age. The majority of this equipment was purchased during 2020 to 2023 using Grant money from National Lottery Heritage Fund, Cadw, WCVA and Magic Little Grants. The main assets include 3D Scanning models, laptop and tablet, excavation equipment, a camcorder and projector. They are currently held by Trustees or in our Exhibition Room at Home Farm, Abbeycwmhir.

If we need to replace any items we would look for funding via grants.

Subscriptions to other bodies

The Abbey Cwmhir Heritage Trust is a member of:

• The Radnorshire Society

• Council for British Archaeology (CBA)

• British Association for Local History (BALH - membership also includes Public Liability Insurance)

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Trustees’ Annual Report for the period 1 April 2025 - 31 March 2026

Grants Received during this period

• No grants received during this period

Membership Report

Current Membership Fees £15 Single £20 Family. These fees haven’t increased for some years.

Membership	This Year (2026)	Last Year (2025)
No of Members	46	47
Income	£460.00	£586.00

The income is slightly down on the previous year as three members took advantage of an 18 month subscription offer which expired on 31 March 2026. We have also awarded three Life Memberships.

Risks and Mitigation

The two main risks that the Trust faces continue to be:

Risk	Mitigation
Insufficient Trustees to progress the activities of the Trust	Encourage new and diverse Trustees by an active recruitment process
Protection of Data	We have taken steps to hold much of our data on Google Drive. Actions to continue to store and archive Trust data effectively will be ongoing.

Structure, Governance and Management

Abbey Cwmhir Heritage Trust is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) with voting members other than its charity trustees. Trustee selection methods, including details of any constitutional provisions e.g. election to post or name of any person or body entitled to appoint one or more trustees, can be found in our Constitution.

Our Constitution and our Policies can be found on our website: https://abbeycwmhir.org/uncategorized/policies-and-procedures

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Trustees’ Annual Report for the period 1 April 2025 - 31 March 2026

DECLARATIONS

This report has been prepared, on behalf of the Trustees, by Mel Walters and Jackie Marriott using the guidance set out by the Charities Commission Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP).

The Trustees declare they have approved the Trustees’ Report above.

Signed on behalf of the Trustees

Julian Lovell, Secretary, Abbey Cwmhir Heritage Trust

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