Alex Ritson

The black leather boots appear to be more than a century old and no one is quite sure how they ended up there.

The BBC's Thomas Morgan went to take a look.

I mean, even though they're quite old, they're still... In very good condition.

Yeah, OK.

Last Thursday on the cobbled shores of Llantwit Major and Ogmore by the sea, these appeared.

A shawl of shoes, hundreds of them, found as a beach clean-up team were restoring the rock pools.

The overwhelming majority are men's and children's, so the question now is how did these black leather shoes from yesteryear arrive in 2025?

One of the most likely scenarios probably linked to Tusker Rock, that 500-metre stretch of land in the distance about three kilometres west of the beach here.

It's also known as a graveyard of ships, having claimed a number of vessels over the years.

Many years ago, that rock out there was a true hazard for ships.

There's definitely a shipwreck out there that these shoes have come from.

If that is the case, attention will undoubtedly turn to who actually made the mysterious footwear.

Some are suggesting online the source may be an Italian shoemaker, linked possibly to a downed ship from the 19th century.

Thomas Morgan.

In 1978, Italy passed a radical law to close state-run asylums, making it the first country in the world to do so.

The law made way for community-based treatment of people with mental disorders and learning difficulties...

rather than the social segregation that they'd faced beforehand.

More than 50 years on, a theatre company in Rome is continuing to embrace that ethos, training actors with psychiatric problems and learning disabilities to perform classic Italian plays.

The BBC's Isabella Jewell went to see one of their performances in London.

But the theatre company on stage is far from a traditional one.