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Gathering the Jewels features over 30,000 images of objects, books, letters, aerial photographs and other items from museums, archives and libraries throughout Wales.

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  • The Welsh Library, University of Wales, Bangor, was named after Thomas Shankland (1858-1927) who was a member of staff at Bangor University Library between 1905 and 1925. The University buildings were designed by the architect Henry T. Hare (1861-1921) and officially opened in 1911. The barrel ceiling of the Shankland Room features wainscot ribs and 36 heraldic shields displaying the counties and boroughs of Wales in oak-framed panels. Thomas Shankland was born in St. Clears, Carmarthenshire, and following a period as a student at the University in Bangor, he served as a Baptist minister in Mold and Rhyl. He returned to his old college as assistant librarian in 1905 and achieved notable work in collecting rare books, periodicals and newspapers. He published widely on the history of the Baptist denomination and hymn-writing.
Shankland Reading Room, University of Wales, Bangor [image 1 of 2]
  • This illuminated book of hours was written in Florence in the middle of the fifteenth century and contains illuminations by Zanobi Strozzi. The manuscript came to Wales in 1846 when it was donated to St David's College, Lampeter, by Thomas Phillips (1760-1851). In all, Thomas Phillips donated some 22,500 books to Lampeter, which, when added to the collections given and bequeathed by Bishop Burgess and the Bowdler family, made the library of the infant college the largest and most comprehensive in Wales.
A folio from an illuminated fifteenth century Italian book of hours [image 1 of 10]
  • This manuscript was transcribed from the Harleian Manuscripts now in the British Library, London (BL. MS. Harley 6250). It was commissioned by Thomas Burgess 'at his own expense'. Thomas Burgess (1756-1837) was the founder of St David's College, Lampeter. He was the Bishop of St David's from 1803 to 1825, and of Salisbury from 1825 until his death. A selection of pages from this manuscript are shown on the following pages.
An early nineteenth century transcript of George Owen's 'The first book of the Description of Pembrokeshire', 1603 [image 1 of 49]
  • Latin vulgate Bible, written in Normandy, 1279. This Bible was written over a period of rather more than 3 years and was completed in 1279 by a lame monk from Fécamp whose name began with the letter 'G', on the instructions of his abbot, James [Jacobus], at (and for the use of) the monastery of St. Pierre-sur-Dives in Normandy (as a note in verse at the end of the manuscript states). Abbot James may be depicted on folio 233v. The Bible is illuminated with capitals and miniatures throughout. Neil Ker estimated that about forty leaves of the Bible are missing and only the text of Psalms 1-118 (added by another in the late 15th century) survives. The manuscript was evidently in England by the fifteenth or early sixteenth century, apparently in the possession of the Carthusians, since English names occur at a number of points, e.g. 'W. Crofton [or Croston]' on folio 1. It would have been dispersed, along with other monastic libraries, at the time of the Dissolutions (1536-40) if not earlier. Its later provenance history is not known until it came into the possession of Thomas Burgess. The Bible came to Lampeter with the rest of his books after his death in 1847. The book was rebound at the National Library of Wales in 1947. Further reading: N. R. Ker, 'Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, III Lampeter - Oxford' (Oxford, 1983), pp. 1-2.
A bible written in Normandy, 1279 [image 1 of 21]
  • This log book describes the battle off Fort St David on the Coromandel Coast, 1759. The manuscript came to Wales in 1846 when it was donated to St David's College, Lampeter, by Thomas Phillips (1760-1851). In all, Thomas Phillips donated some 22,500 books to Lampeter, which, when added to the collections given and bequeathed by Bishop Burgess and the Bowdler family, made the library of the infant college the largest and most comprehensive in Wales.
'The state and the condition of the company' from the log book of the HMS Elizabeth, 1759-1761 [image 1 of 6]
Key used by H.R.H. The Duke of Edinburgh, Chancellor of the University of Wales, to open the new Library, University of Wales, Lampeter, 7 July 1966