Welsh Journals

ORAL HISTORY AND SETTLEMENT CHANGE: A CASE STUDY OF ABANDONED DWELLINGS IN THE BLACK MOUNTAINS OF WALES, 1840 1983. ROBERT GANT Gant, Robert 1985: Oral History and Geographical Analysis: A Case Study of Abandoned Dwellings in The Black Mountains of Wales 1840-1983. Cambria Vol. 12 (1) pp. 97 to pp. 112. Part I of: Davies, W.K.D. (ed) Human Geography from Wales: Proceedings of the E.G. Bowen Memorial Conference. ISSN 0306-9796. Traditional sources for mapping changes in the habitation of dwellings rarely provide a complete and accurate coverage of the details of settlement history. Oral history procedures are proposed as a supplement to existing methods and are applied to a case study of abandoned dwellings in the Welsh Black Mountains. Since 1840 a lot of abandonment has occured especially at higher elevations, but many of these buildings are now used as holiday homes. Robert Gant, Dept. of Geography, Kingston Polytechnic, Penrhyn Road Centre, Kingston-upon-Thames, England. KT1 2EE. The detailed geographical study of the evolution of settlement in rural areas in Britain has always suffered from the difficulty of obtaining precise information on the timing and causes of change. This is even true from the nineteenth century onwards. Despite the utility of accurate Ordnance Survey maps and extensive estate records, gaps in the historical record of building growth and decline occur, unlike the situation in countries where land title offices record each change in ownership or construction. Within recent years, however, oral history has made an effective contribution to research in the social sciences (Vansina 1965; Thompson 1978; Henige 1982). It would therefore seem appropriate for human geographers to examine the potential of this technique as part of the wider exploration and use of time-honoured data sets and fieldwork practices particularly in dealing with settlement change. This paper discusses the procedures of oral history in an interdisciplinary context and uses it in a study of settlement change on the Powys-Gwent border of South-East Wales to supplement traditional data and provide a more detailed interpretation of the processes of settlement change. THE UTILITY OF ORAL HISTORY Oral history is based on the recollections of the elderly who have personal