Content about Llandaff

LLANDAFF Cathedral will install the Venerable Janet Henderson as its first female Dean tomorrow. 

Dean Janet, 55, is currently Archdeacon of Richmond in North Yorkshire and was also a Residentiary canon of Ripon Cathedral until 2011.  

Dean Janet was ordained in the Diocese of Ely in 1988 and has spent the majority of her ministry in Nottingham in the Diocese of Southwell.

She has strong ties with Llandaff, having studied at Howell’s School in Sixth Form.

LLANDAFF residents may put in a bid for their village to have its own community council, so they can have more control over services in their area.

If successful, residents would have the power to raise money locally to spend on facilities such as bus shelters, allotments, street lighting, war memorials and public toilets.

A community council is equivalent to a parish council. It can levy a charge on each household in the area through the main billing authority (Cardiff Council).

The row over the development of a building on Llandaff Fields has intensified after documents revealed Cardiff council have expressed an interest in planning proposals.

Nerys Lloyd-Pierce, Chair of Cardiff Civic Society put in an Freedom of Information (FOI) request to receive all correspondence between Cardiff council, Clwb Rygbi and all key stakeholders relating to the proposed sports development.

The FOI revealed 246 pages of correspondence, most of which were emails sent between 2011 and 2012.

A Cardiff rower has narrowly missed an ideal opportunity to further his Olympic hopes.

Zak Lee-Green, a 21-year-old athlete from Carmarthen who learnt to row at Llandaff Rowing Club, came 7th in the recent Great Britain rowing trials.

The event, which took place at Dorney Lake, in Slough last weekend is the most recent test the athletes must overcome if they want to represent Great Britain in the Olympic Games in London this summer.

By the pricking’s of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.

Whilst this may not be the overwhelming feeling as I’m sat in the Maltsters Pub in Llandaff, it becomes more and more relevant the longer my interview goes on.

Road works are now underway in Llandaff as part of a £175,000 redevelopment to change the face of the city’s main shopping street.

The plans were first aired in September 2011 and focus on improving the High Street to provide a more attractive and accessible environment. The angle of the street will be changed to make it straighter, roads will be resurfaced, pavements will be extended and trees and benches will be added.

A Cardiff heritage group have acquired the harness, shaft and gun used on the last ever pit ponies in the UK.

The Friends of Insole Court, based in Llandaff, recently acquired the artefact from Valley's miner Clive Davies, who has written a book, The Iron Heart of Gwent, about mining in Wales.

The book contains images of the ponies completing their last ever shift at the mine, wearing the acquired harness.

Pirates, Indian temples and Protestant martyrs are all part of Cardiff's forgotten history which one historian wants to bring to life for 21st century Cardiffians.

Jim Cowan, 45, has recently started a new venture in the city centre, which incorporates a leisurely Welsh breakfast with a tour of historical Cardiff.

Mr Cowan said: "I don't want it to be an ordinary history walk about buildings and dates.  I want it to be about bringing the people to life and making it easy to imagine what historical Cardiff was like to live in."

Cardiff residents are angry the council is not doing enough to clear paths of leaves and debris.

According to some older residents in Llandaff some paths are becoming dangerous.  

The Dean's steps and the path by the rugby club are  examples of this as leaves have gathered over the winter and become slippy in wet weather.

Margaret Samuel, from Llandaff is particularly concerned the paths are becoming too dangerous for older churchgoers attending Llandaff Cathedral. 

DOROTHY L Sayers once said: "The art of change ringing is peculiar to the English, and, like most English peculiarities, unintelligible to the rest of the world."
I went along, albeit to a church in Wales, to see what this peculiar art is all about.
Llandaff  Cathedral is the only church in Cardiff - and one of only two in the whole of Wales - to have a ring of twelve bells, making the Llandaff ringers  one of the most impressive bell-ringing groups around.

Llandaff may appear to be a sleepy little suburb of Cardiff, but its history is not quite so sedate. Last week I went on a ghost walk, run by Cardiff History to find out a little bit more about its turbulent past.

The ancient hamlet, which was in existence half a millennia before the rest of Cardiff, has had its fair share of murder, suicide and mystery disappearances.  

Jim Cowan, Cardiff history expert, tells the darker story of Llandaff in his two-hour ghost walk around the fields and paths behind the cathedral.