Britheg Brown, Last Of The Species In Wales is a short film that features local singers performing the song ‘Britheg Brown’ on Old Castle Down, Vale Of Glamorgan. The song was written as a clarion call for the last of the High Brown Fritillary, a rare butterfly species with its last habitat in Wales at Old Castle Down. The lyrics are infused with the words of local volunteers, commoners and ecologists, who have worked for decades to keep this small patch of common land in optimum condition for the butterfly.

View the film here.

The music was composed by Welsh composer Emma Daman Thomas, who also played harp and sang solo, together with a choir of local adult volunteers and children from St Brides Major Primary School. The two narrators in the film are conservation volunteers.

Choir leader Jenny Moore arranged the music and offered rehearsals as a shared learning experience for adult singers. The oral history recordings on which the lyrics are based are archived online by People’s Collection Wales.

Britheg Brown, Last Of The Species In Wales is screened at a hyper-local event in 2026, and exhibited at Ty Pawb, Wrexham, in 2027.

Commissioned by Natural Resources Wales for Natur Am Byth, Wales’ green recovery programme, as part of ten artist residencies at different wildlife sites, supported by Addo Creative.

FILM CREDITS

Adult Choir: Sue Ansell, Nick Clark, Tamsin Davies, Hannah Gatehouse, Andrea Rowe. Harp and solo: Emma Daman Thomas. Children’s choir: Year 3 St Brides Major CW Primary School. Speakers: Paul Dunn, Dot Williams.

Written, directed and edited by Bettina Furnée. Music by Emma Daman Thomas. Arrangement by Jenny Moore. Adult choir led by Jenny Moore. Children’s choir led by Cathy Jenkins and Helen Morgan. Audio recording by Ty Cerdd. Cameras operated by Toby Huckett and Jackson Reardon-Smith. Sound edit and sound mix by Lottie Lou Poulet.