Summer 2022

Cardiff, Wales, September 2022

We had a very enjoyable and interesting few days staying with our very good friends, Nick and Olwen, in Cardiff. Nick took us to the Cardiff Barrage again which on a good day, as it was, is nice walk where we had coffee in the Norwegian church and admired the memorial to Captain Robert Falcon Scott CVO RN who set out on his Antarctic expedition from Cardiff on the 15th June 1910 and eventually arrived at the South Pole on the 17th January 1912, 4 weeks after Roald Amundsen's Norwegian expedition.

The Cardiff Barrage has been designed for people to spend time outside with exercise areas, an Aqua Park, safe running areas, a swift tower to encourage migrating swifts to stay there and lots more. We had a great day there with our friends.

The following day we went to Saint Fagans (Sain Ffagan to use its Welsh spelling) which is a village in the west of Cardiff and which is the home to the National History Museum. St Fagans was established to preserve historical features of Welsh past and is one of the most interesting places I have visited - and what a great idea. It shows how the Welsh lived, worked and spent their leisure time in past times. The re-erected buildings include farmhouses, a row of ironworkers’ cottages, a medieval church, a Victorian school, a chapel and a Workmen’s Institute, all of which have been taken from other areas of Wales and reconstructed in the grounds of the Castle. The following link is the best to describe what's at St Fagans and I would thoroughly recommmend everyone to go there.

The exhibits, some of them from centuries ago and others more recent, have been assembled from all areas of Wales. The latest historical building being erected from the original bricks was a typical Welsh pub, originally built in Newtown, Cardiff during the 19th century. The Vulcan closed in 2012 and was brought to St. Fagans, after being dismantled brick by brick, in 2022. I know of no other place, certainely in the UK, that has devoted so much effort to preserving its history.

We left after a short but very informative and enjoyable stay at Nick and Olwen.

Videos

The videos below show us having fun at the barrage & St Fagans as well as a working mill.

Wales Slides

She thought this crocodile was harmless

Yummy, very tasty this lady, thanks Nick

Lock gates on Cardiff Bay barrage

The Aqua Park Obstacle Course, run by Heritage Healthcare

A local idiot

Outdoor fitness center at Cardiff Bay

Come on Nick, put some effort into it!!

Commemorating the start of the Cardiff Bay Barrage (May 1991)

Boats waiting in the lock to enter Cardiff Bay

Captain Scott Memorial Statue next to the Norwegian Church

Plan of St Fagans

Olwen & Jane in a pigsty

The pigsty was built circa 1800 at Hendre’r Prosser Farm near Pontypridd, relocated to Fagans in 1977

Pigs love to dig in corners so a circular sty makes it difficult for them to burrow their way out.

Kennixton Farm Buildings, built circa 1850, re-erected 2012; painted red to ward off evil spirits and protect the inhabitants against witchcraft

Inside the barn

Simple roof made of tree trunks, branches and straw; very effective and warm

The Farmhouse Kitchen

Four-poster bed and cot that would have been the master bedroom

Second bedroom

Dining room

Melin Bompren Corn Mill, built 1852, re-erected 1977, served the villagers for over 100 years

The waterwheel drove a pair of Welsh stones used to mill oats, barley or animal feed

Llys Llywelyn - Medieval Court of the Princes of Gwynedd during the 13th century

Llys Llywelyn

St Teilo's church is believed to have been built during the late 12th or 13th century on the site of an earlier Celtic church

The roof timbers are of typical early fifteenth century design (arch-braced collar-beams)

The Chancel is the oldest part of the current church

Bryn Eryr - Iron Age Roundhouses, come from a farmstead in Llansadwrn, Anglesey

This could be the outside loo

Gwalia Stores was a typical Welsh valleys store originally located in Ogmore Vale, near Bridgend

Inside the Gwalia Store

Siop Losin (sweet shop)

The Oakdale Workmens Institute was originally built in Oakdale, a mining village north of Caerphilly in 1916

The Vulcan Hotel, originally built in Newtown, Cardiff during the 19th century, currently under construction

The Vulcan Hotel, as it was in its original location in Newtown

Pysg Odyn otherwise known as the fish and chip shop

This Tannery, from Rhayader, originally built late 18C, was the last traditional tannery in Wales producing heavy leather for boots & horses

A working wheelbarrow from the tannery

Workers at the tannery in the 19C (with the wheelbarrow)

The tailor's shop was taken over by David Thomas in the early 1920s. It was originally built as an animal feed store in 1896

The Cockpit, scene of cockfighting up until prohibition in 1849

The fighting stage, and amphitheatre-style tiered seating, are reconstructions

Crowds flocked to witness the gory encounters where birds fought each other to death

Blaenwaun is probably the smallest village post office in Wales. Built in 1936 near Whitland

Inside the Post Office

Derwen Bakehouse built by Evan Jenkins, a local farmer ,in 1900 as a business for his two daughters

The Tollhouse was the workplace of a toll collector who collected money from travellers who were mostly farmers, to use the roads

The tollhouse was originally in Penparcau, Aberystwyth and it was built in 1771. It remained open until 1889

Tollhouses were unpopular with travellers (poor farmers mostly) and resulted in the Rebecca Riots of 1839-1843

Llanfadyn cottage & barn

Abernodwydd Farmhouse a timber-framed thatched farmhouse, built in 1678

The open-hearth fireplace (open to the roof) inside the cottage

Bedroom in the cottage

Pen-rhiw Unitarian Chapel built in 1777 originally in Dre-fach Felindre, Carmarthenshire

Inside the church - the pulpit

Inside the church - the pews

The inverted table is there to support the circulation fan!

More pews

The Newbridge War Memorial from Caetwmpyn Park in Caerphilly commemorates local soldiers who died in WW1 (79) and WW2 (37)

Mile marker showing distance from St Fagans to London