A COLLECTION of Welsh-language Bibles will be saved for future generations thanks to a multi-million-pound investment in a new archive.

It was feared that the William Morgan Bibles collection, which is currently kept in Ruthin, could deteriorate to the point of destruction if urgent action wasn’t taken to keep the precious texts safe from damage.

Plaid Cymru councillor Emrys Wynne, cabinet member for the Welsh language, culture and heritage on Denbighshire County Council, hailed the investment as “hugely important to our cultural heritage in Wales”.

The William Morgan Bibles collection is currently stored at Ruthin Gaol, on Clwyd Street, but the system used to maintain the delicate air quality that is necessary to safeguard the material is old and will cease to function in a few years.

The texts are also at risk from the Gaol flooding again.

But thanks to a £7.3million grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, which is subject to a successful development stage review, contributions of £2m from Denbighshire County Council and £3m from Flintshire County Council their future has been secured.

The investment will be used to establish a new facility for the North East Wales Archives (NEWA).

Archives currently spread across Ruthin and Hawarden, will be moved to a single, purpose-built, net carbon-zero facility in Mold.

Moving the archives will enable Ruthin Gaol to be further developed as a popular attraction.

An archive room will continue to exist on the site, and there will be a consultation with users on what it will look like.

The first person to translate the New Testament was William Salesbury, a lawyer from Denbigh, but his version in 1567 was very formal and stiff.

Enter William Morgan, the Bishop of St Asaph, the son of a farmer who was born at Tŷ Mawr Wybrnant in Penmachno, in the Conwy Valley, and educated at Cambridge University.

He revised and improved Salesbury’s text and also translated the Old Testament to create the classic Welsh Bible that appeared in 1588.

He then began work on a revision of the 1588 Bible.

Work was continued by Richard Parry, from Ruthin, who was the Bishop of St Asaph, and the leading Renaissance scholar John Davies, who was from the village of Llanferres.

This revised version was published in 1620.

Decades later when another pioneer, Griffith Jones, began his Circulating Schools, which were a series of schools that would rotate or circulate around the rural parishes of Wales, more than 250,000 people were taught to read and write using Morgan's Bible.

It’s still used today and has been described as “a work of great beauty that appealed to the gentry and the ordinary man or woman”.

Cllr Wynne said: “We know there are serious problems with the current archive facility that we have at the Ruthin Gaol Museum which isn’t fit for purpose in the long term.

“The storage space we have there is full to bursting and the systems that we rely on to maintain the delicate air quality that is necessary to safeguard the material that has been stored will cease to function.

“It is clear that the present arrangement is not sustainable and therefore it is necessary for us to find another long-term solution.

“The material that is stored in the archives is priceless and it is equally fragile, and delicate, so it is vital that it is kept in a particular way.”