On April 6, 1932, Paul Rycote de Shorediche Churchward placed an advert in The Times newspaper. It read: “Exploring and sporting expedition, under experienced guidance, leaving England June, to explore rivers central Brazil, if possible ascertain fate of Colonel Fawcett.”
Col Percy Fawcett was the lost explorer immortalised by Hollywood who, in 1925, set off in search of the Lost City of Z, a legendary jungle city said to be “covered in gold”. The 1932 expedition aimed to find what happened to him by travelling into the Amazon rainforest where “no white man has been”.
Amongst the applicants was Peter Fleming, brother of Ian, author of the James Bond novels. Another was a former farm labourer who would later flee to North Wales to escape the Nazis and buy a hill farm sitting on eight gold mines.
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This was father-of-five Arthur “Alf” Humphries, then aged 30, who was born in rural Gloucestershire and moved to Birmingham to find work after leaving school at 14. Buying a hill farm in the Wnion valley, Gwynedd, he stayed there for 21 years before moving to Wrexham county where he ran a garage and haulage business.
According to granddaughter Joyce Gibbard, Alf began thinking about a move to Wales because he feared the consequences of staying in the English Midlands. “He started purchasing negotiations earlier than 1944 because he was afraid the UK would be defeated in WW2,” she said. “He wanted to be as far away as possible should that happen – and to be self-sufficient as far as possible.”
What happened to Alf is a curious tale of endeavour, fortitude and quite a bit of wheeler-dealing. His five children were schooled in Gwynedd and some descendants remain in the region, now proudly Welsh. Last month, several braved a return trip to Alf’s farm for the first time in 59 years to rekindle memories of a place that played a key role in such a remarkable life.
“The weather hadn’t changed much!” said Joyce after arriving in a downpour. “The granite house still stood solid and settled in the landscape but it seemed so much smaller than we remembered. Because of the many outbuildings, it seemed huge to our younger selves.”
Organiser of the 1932 expedition went by the abbreviated name of Robert Churchward. A year earlier, he’d been encouraged by his mother to “go shooting and fishing” in Brazil. While travelling in the Mato Grosso, a vast region still largely unexplored, his curiosity had been aroused about the mysterious disappearance of Col Fawcett.
He was the accomplished but eccentric British explorer central to the 2017 Hollywood film, Lost City of Z, starring Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson, Sienna Miller and Tom Holland. Convinced by evidence suggesting the existence of an undiscovered jungle city “covered in gold and full of people”, in 1925 Col Fawcett set off in search of a place he called “Z”. Despite later sightings of a white man claiming to be Col Fawcett, “dressed in skins and wearing a long beard”, his party was never seen again.
Robert Churchward’s expedition hoped to shed light on what happened to the explorer, and perhaps even locate him and the city. By this time, Alf had found work as a chauffeur and gardener for Robert’s father, Brigadier General Paul Rycote Stanbury Churchward, at Ridware Hall, Staffordshire. Among the eight-strong group of toffs and adventurers assembled for the 1932 expedition, Alf stood out.
In his book, A Wilderness of Fools, Robert explained Alf was to be chief mechanic and fixer as the party travelled “1,500 miles up rivers where no white man has been”. His family believes he was taken along at Gen Churchward’s insistence only to keep Robert alive and out of trouble – and because he was the only one who could “bloody well shoot and live off the land”.
Within Mato Grosso were the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland, and the Amazon rainforest. The party, including eight native Indians, were away for five months and achieved very little: they shot all the wildlife they came across but sightings of Col Fawcett proved elusive: he was commonly believed to have been killed by the natives.
On their trip up the Tapirapi River, all suffered hunger, thirst and injury. They returned exhausted, though not without souvenirs: in his case, Alf brought back several native spears, shields and what was believed to be a shrunken head.
All were placed on the landing at the farmhouse he later bought in Gwynedd. “They always had a sinister air about them,” shuddered Joyce. The North Wales Live Whatsapp community for top stories and breaking news is live now – here’s how to sign up
After returning from Brazil, Alf bought a smallholding on Longridge Lane, not far from the Austin car plant in Birmingham, and settled down to life as a trader with wife Daisy and their five children. When WW11 arrived, he signed up for the Home Guard and soon suspected a looming invasion.
Not wanting to hang around in the line of fire, he sold his smallholding to Birmingham Corporation to fund his Welsh hideaway. By the time the sale was eventually agreed, the tide of war had changed but Alf pressed on regardless.
His first choice was an estuary farm at Farchynys near Bontddu in Eryri, but he couldn’t agree on a price. Instead, in 1944, the family moved to Caegwernog, a 300-acre farm near Llanelltyd, a few miles further up the estuary. From 1209, much of the area around here had been owned and farmed by the monks of Cymer Abbey, its distinctive field patterns stemming from the post-medieval ffridd enclosures. The farm itself, said Joyce, gave the “most perfect view of Cader Idris in the whole area”.
She added: “The plan was to have his two sons work on the farmland and stock while his wife Daisy and daughters concentrated on the dairy products – milk, eggs, butter etc for the local Salesian Dolgellau. They also planned to offer post-war ‘farmstay’ holidays and camping.
“A modicum of success was achieved but in 1947 his two daughters married and moved to smallholdings nearby. This rather reduced his staffing levels.” Sign up for the North Wales Live newsletter sent twice daily to your inbox
Life on a hill farm was tough. Sheep had to be hand-sheared and pastures cut for hay. Winter was worse: the great snowfall in 1947 was the worst of the 20th century when half of all the sheep in Wales froze or starved to death.
Neither could he rely on the mineral rights he held for the land. A few miles away, a mine would supply the gold for the Queen’s wedding ring. But Caegwernog’s eight gold mines had all been abandoned by 1905.
The only recorded output was in 1874, when 19 tons of zinc ore was produced. In 1965, Boy Scout campers from London managed to sift an ounce of gold from the farm but, despite sitting on the Clogau Shales, Alf had already been convinced gold mining was a non-starter.
He said later: “University professors and mineralogists visited the mines and everyone agrees the cost of working them would be too high. There’s plenty of Fools’ Gold, magnesium, zinc and copper there. But it would take months to get any gold.”
Instead, he hit on a venture that was to prove almost as lucrative. He began rearing turkeys, selling some locally but sending most to Birmingham, where he had butchers’ contacts via his brothers-in-law.
“It was quite a successful venture,” said Joyce, recalling days plucking turkeys with distaste. “At Christmas time, those family members living locally were drafted in to prepare and ready for market the birds for the Christmas table.”
Besides the farm’s tractor and car, most things were done by hand. Day-to-day life was rudimentary. Even by 1965, the property lacked mains electricity supply. In the early 1960s Alf bought a generator and this gave the family a window into the outside world. “It gave us the chance to have a TV,” said Joyce.
“On Saturday evenings, close-by family would descend to watch programmes. There was a limited choice of Dr Who and That Was the Week That Was. Of course, it all depended on the quality of the signal, which in that part of the world was very weather and atmospheric-dependent!”
In the winter of 1963-64, Alf fell unwell. Subsequently, he became one of the first patients to receive a heart bypass at Liverpool’s new cardiothoracic facility, now the Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital.
While recovering, he feared his consultant would force him to stop driving. Pre-empting the decision, he opted to move to a flatter environment where the walking would be easier.
Besides, at the time the Welsh clearances were underway: using powers of compulsory purchase, the Forestry Commission was buying up swathes of upland Wales and displacing families from holdings that had been farmed for generations. Equipment was simply abandoned in fields as families moved out, leaving a well of ill-feeling still felt keenly today.
In the summer of 1965, Caegwernog was sold. The Forestry Commission bought the mountain area and planted it with conifers. A local farmer acquired the land and descendants of a former owner purchased the farmhouse.
Joyce wished her grandfather had held onto the farm. His son Hubert, her uncle, was ready to take over but instead Alf, now aged 63, opted for entirely new ventures.
With wife Daisy, he bought a garage and petrol station in Overton-on-Dee, Wrexham, and launched a small haulage business. Father and son ran both ventures until Alf died in 1978. Hubert kept the garage going until he retired and sold it on.
“Alf should never have sold the farm,” said Joyce. “Hubert was an accomplished farmer and it would have been nice to have kept the farm in the family.” Get all the latest Gwynedd news by signing up to our newsletter – sent every Tuesday
By now, many of the five children and their families had dispersed around Britain to follow their careers. Joyce married a veterinary surgeon and in March they celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary. A chance discovery led them back to Caegwernog.
“I was trawling the web when I came across a reference to the farm on a website called Landscape Matters,” said Joyce. “As it was available to let, I mentioned it to my brother Norman and his wife Sally, who thought it would be nice to host an anniversary celebration there.”
The aim was to gather together Joyce’s four siblings, their mother Lily being one of Alf and Daisy’s five children. Not all could make it, and in the driving rain it was a challenge to get to the farm for those who could. They posed for a group photo at a spot behind the house where, when they lived there, all family gathering photos were traditionally taken, and remembered the man who’s fear of invasion had brought them there.
“Alf was quite a character, and his exploits were many and varied,” said Joyce. “He was inclined to be curmudgeonly but he was intrepid, to say the least!”
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