Woven Memories

Take a trip to Llanerchaeron to see CAS member Vicky Ellis’ dramatic weavings of sails. They provide a poignant reminder of the dangers of a life at sea. It is a perfect compliment to our own maritime display in the CAS cabinet in the Billiard Room.

Read more about it in the write up below :

Local artist weaver Vicky Ellis’ exhibition about past seafaring coastal communities called Woven Memories of Ceredigion Shipwrecks, is currently on show at Llanerchaeron. Vicky who has been weaving for over 50 years lives in Aberarth, once an important shipbuilding village. She makes woven responses to paintings, places, and people that inspire her, often integrating words to tell Welsh stories about the sea. Seven monumental woven sails, form the heart of this exhibition and can be found in the laundry. Through them, Vicky reimagines stories of loss, resilience, bravery, and human fallibility, bringing forgotten maritime histories vividly into the present.

In the 18^th and 19^th centuries, ships were the main form of trading transport for coastal communities. Yet it was often a dangerous occupation for mariners, who were regularly faced with storms and unpredictable weather conditions while relying on their own seafaring experience, without the technology that helps sailors today. Between 1855 and 1879 alone, an unbelievable number of 49,322 shipwrecks were recorded in the UK, with a loss of life of 18,319. At the end of the 19th century, about one out of every eight shipwrecks happened around the Welsh coast. The exhibition memorialises some of those ships and their fates. The varied descriptions of ships in the records as sloops, smacks, schooners, or brigs were determined by how many masts and sails they had. Often, vessels were given the names of their owner’s wives or used words that reflected sentiments of the time such as friendship, hope, vigilance, and harmony. Sometimes the descriptions of their fates had a poignant synergy to their names; Vigilance was Abandoned, Cupid was Saved, Prosperity was Salvaged.

Artist Vicky Ellis with some of her woven sails.

The story of one ship is particularly pertinent to Llanerchaeron. Vigilance was mentioned in a 1764 letter in the National Library of Wales to John Johnes from his sister Elizabeth Lewis of Llanerchaeron, as a wreck with a cargo of oranges and white wine. The wine stored in several ‘pipes’ holding up to 105 gallons each had been ‘scrambled over by country people’. Guards were employed to stop more wine being stolen. Elizabeth reports that wine was for sale locally for four shillings a gallon; worth £47 in today’s money, surprisingly similar in cost. She wanted to buy back some for her brother, but as her husband had issued warrants to those suspected of taking the wine, this would have been embarrassing. She did, however, manage to get him some!

Some of Vicky’s framed pieces are also shown in the drawing and sitting rooms of the house, placed next to Victorian seascapes and paintings loaned by art historian and curator, Peter Lord.

The exhibition continues at Llanerchaeron until September 6^th 2026. There is no charge for the exhibition itself but normal admission charges to the house apply.