The signage, detailing the history of Highlight Medieval Village, in Barry, was first erected with funds from a community-backed campaign.
This campaign grabbed public attention after not being selected in a televised competition called Let’s Get a Good Thing Going!
Following the show, Barry residents grouped together in support, setting up a crowdfunding campaign which raised £500 – just enough to print and place the historical signs.
The signs were placed with support from Brynhill Golf Course.
But after being put up, the signs were vandalised.
A further donation of £200 came in, enabling the printing of several more sets of signs.
These are now displayed at the little office at Canonhill Artspace on Canon Street in Barry, ensuring that the location’s noteworthy past remains visible for all to explore.
Highlight Medieval Village, with its rich history, holds a significant place in Barry’s heritage.
The Highlight Farmhouse, constructed in the late 1700s with additional work in the 1800s, stands on Highlight Lane, north of Lakin Drive.
The farmhouse, with its Lias Limestone details and traces of Cornish Slate roofing, stands on a site that was once an extensive late Medieval Manor House.
Eminent archaeologist Howard J. Thomas suggested that the original medieval manor house on this site could have been built by Alexander St John, sometime in the mid-1400s.
This manor house, with its ‘H’ plan and central hall, was noted for its freshly quarried Lias Limestone construction and Cornish Slate roof during a survey by Howard in 1982.
The site also holds remnants of a Medieval Manor House, believed to have been partially demolished in the 1700s to accommodate farm structures.
A likely indication of what Barry once looked like, the farmhouse and its surrounding buildings serve as a precious archaeological resource, despite many medieval structures being demolished, altered or removed by a more recent survey in 2001.
While much of the medieval architecture was lost, the locally known “building north of the farmhouse” maintains a template of the medieval manor house.
Today, thanks to the community’s persistence, the story of Highlight Medieval Village is not forgotten.
For those wishing to view the history or display it, a spare set of these vibrant, informative signs remains at Canonhill Artspace.
The village’s history, hidden among present-day Barry, is kept alive through these efforts, effusing a mix of time past and present into the daily lives of people who come across them.
