Penarth (, ) is a town and
community in the
Vale of Glamorgan ( cy, Bro Morgannwg),
Wales, exactly south of
Cardiff city centre
Cardiff city centre ( cy, Canol Dinas Caerdydd) is the city centre and central business district of Cardiff, Wales. The area is tightly bound by the River Taff to the west, the Civic Centre to the north and railway lines and two railway sta ...
on the west shore of the
Severn Estuary at the southern end of
Cardiff Bay
Cardiff Bay ( cy, Bae Caerdydd; historically Tiger Bay; colloquially "The Bay") is an area and freshwater lake in Cardiff, Wales. The site of a former tidal bay and estuary, it serves as the river mouth of the River Taff and Ely. The body of w ...
.
Penarth is a wealthy
seaside resort in the
Cardiff Urban Area, and the second largest town in the Vale of Glamorgan, next only to the administrative centre of
Barry Barry may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Barry (name), including lists of people with the given name, nickname or surname, as well as fictional characters with the given name
* Dancing Barry, stage name of Barry Richards (born c. 19 ...
.
During the
Victorian era Penarth was a highly popular holiday destination, promoted nationally as "The Garden by the Sea" and was packed by visitors from the
Midlands
The Midlands (also referred to as Central England) are a part of England that broadly correspond to the Kingdom of Mercia of the Early Middle Ages, bordered by Wales, Northern England and Southern England. The Midlands were important in the Ind ...
and the
West Country as well as
day trippers
A day trip is a visit to a tourist destination or visitor attraction from a person's home, hotel, or hostel in the morning, returning to the same lodging in the evening. The day trip is a form of recreational travel and leisure to a location tha ...
from the
South Wales valleys, mostly arriving by train. Today, the town, with its traditional seafront, continues to be a regular summer holiday destination (predominantly for older visitors), but their numbers are much lower than was common from Victorian times until the 1960s, when cheap overseas
package holidays were introduced.
Although the number of holiday visitors has greatly declined, the town retains a substantial retired population, representing over 24% of residents, but Penarth is now predominantly a
dormitory town for Cardiff
commuters. The town's population was recorded as 20,396 in the
United Kingdom Census 2001. The built-up area had a population of 27,226, but this figure does not include nearby suburb
Dinas Powys
Dinas Powys (; also spelt "Dinas Powis" in English) is a small town and community (Wales), community in the Vale of Glamorgan, South Wales. Its name means "fort of the provincial place" and refers to the Dinas Powys hillfort, Iron Age hillfort wh ...
.
The town retains extensive surviving
Victorian
Victorian or Victorians may refer to:
19th century
* Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign
** Victorian architecture
** Victorian house
** Victorian decorative arts
** Victorian fashion
** Victorian literature ...
and
Edwardian architecture in many traditional parts of the town.
Toponymy
Penarth is a
Welsh placename
The place-names of Wales derive in most cases from the Welsh language, but have also been influenced by linguistic contact with the Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Anglo-Normans and modern English. Toponymy in Wales reveals significant features of ...
and could be a combination of ' meaning head and ' meaning bear, hence 'Head of the Bear' or 'Bear's Head'. This was the accepted translation for several hundred years and is still reflected in the town's crest which depicts bears. Modern scholars have suggested that the name is shortened from an original "", where ''garth'' means cliff, hence 'Head of the cliff' or 'Clifftops'. and the Welsh-English dictionary ' (The Big Dictionary: Gomer Press) reveals that penardd/penarth eb (feminine noun) means 'promontory'.
The civic town crest was drawn by the town's architect in 1875 from a detailed brief prepared by the Town Board. It features a bear's head above a shield supported by two further
bears standing. The shield contains a ' to denote that the town is in Wales and a sailing vessel recognising Penarth's long association with sea commerce.
History
Early history
The Penarth area has a history of human inhabitation dating back at least 5000 years. In 1956 several
Neolithic stone axe heads were found in the town. A large hoard of
Roman rings and coins were also discovered at nearby
Sully.
From the 12th century until 1543 the lands of Penarth were owned by the canons of St Augustine,
Bristol. The Norman church of St Augustine (on the headland) dates from this period. After the
dissolution of the monasteries the ownership transferred to the dean and chapter of
Bristol Cathedral.
The manor lands were leased to the
Earls of Plymouth
Earl of Plymouth is a title that has been created three times: twice in the Peerage of England and once in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.
History
The first creation was in 1675 for Charles FitzCharles, one of the dozens of illegitimate ...
of
St. Fagans Castle. In 1853 the family purchased the manor outright.
Because the surrounding land was owned by religious institutions from an early date, there was no need for a large family house in Penarth. The oldest building in the area is a
Tudor mansion
Tudor most commonly refers to:
* House of Tudor, English royal house of Welsh origins
** Tudor period, a historical era in England coinciding with the rule of the Tudor dynasty
Tudor may also refer to:
Architecture
* Tudor architecture, the fi ...
, owned by the Herbert family, on the hillside at Cogan Pill.
This has since been converted into a
chain
A chain is a serial assembly of connected pieces, called links, typically made of metal, with an overall character similar to that of a rope in that it is flexible and curved in compression but linear, rigid, and load-bearing in tension. A c ...
restaurant.
Piracy was prevalent on the coast near Penarth and, in the 1570s, a Special Commission being set up to investigate and suppress it. Leading family members in Penarth were believed to be implicated.
Penarth's medieval walled Sheriff's
Pound
Pound or Pounds may refer to:
Units
* Pound (currency), a unit of currency
* Pound sterling, the official currency of the United Kingdom
* Pound (mass), a unit of mass
* Pound (force), a unit of force
* Rail pound, in rail profile
Symbols
* Po ...
, an early form of multi-purpose
gaol, remained in use until the late 18th century, as a place to retain stray sheep, cattle and pigs or to imprison thieves, rustlers and vagabonds. It was located roughly where the car park now stands, at the rear of the
NatWest Bank
National Westminster Bank, commonly known as NatWest, is a major retail and commercial bank in the United Kingdom based in London, England. It was established in 1968 by the merger of National Provincial Bank and Westminster Bank. In 2000, it ...
in Plymouth Road.
In 1803, Penarth is recorded as having between 800 - of land under cultivation as several farms. In the 1801 census, there were just 72 people living in the Manor. Even as late as 1851, Penarth was still little more than a small rural farming and fishing village since medieval times, with just 24 houses and 105 residents, being one of five parishes contained within the
Hundred of
Dinas Powys
Dinas Powys (; also spelt "Dinas Powis" in English) is a small town and community (Wales), community in the Vale of Glamorgan, South Wales. Its name means "fort of the provincial place" and refers to the Dinas Powys hillfort, Iron Age hillfort wh ...
, with a combined population of just over 300. Before the
pier and dock were built, there was a tiny fleet of local sail-powered fishing vessels based on the main town beach that tied up on the seafront quayside.
The
Plymouth estate office retained control over the planning, building and development of the new town, offering 99-year leases and remaining the ground landlord. All householders in Penarth were tenants of the Plymouth Estates, paying an annual ground rent. The situation would not change until the Leasehold Reform Act 1967, that gave householders the choice of purchasing their freehold or negotiating 999 year extensions on their short leases.
The earliest homes built in the town were streets of terraced houses with busy corner shops and public houses on almost every corner, following the contours of the headland and in the rapidly expanding Cogan area near the docks. Local grey limestone, quarried from what is now Cwrt-y-vil playing fields, gave a particular character to the surviving older buildings of the town. To the south of the town centre, imposing detached villa residences along the cliff tops looked across the Channel to the Somerset coast and the islands of
Flat Holm ( cy, Ynys Echni) and
Steep Holm ( cy, Ynys Rhonech). The villas were built by wealthy shipping and dock owners from Cardiff who were moving out of the industrialised city for a more genteel and sophisticated lifestyle.
Victorian developments
By 1861, the number of people in the five parishes had increased to 1,898 and to 3,382 by 1871. In 1875, three of the constituent parishes - Penarth,
Cogan Cogan is a surname of Gaelic origin (not to be confused with the surname Kogan of Russian-Jewish origin). Notable people with the surname include:
*Alma Cogan (1932–1966), English singer
*Andrew Cogan, 17th-century agent of the English East India ...
, and
Llandough - were merged into the Penarth Local Board, giving a population of 6,228 persons by 1881. This figure had doubled by 1891 with the opening of the railway and had increased even further by 1901 to 14,228 persons. The town of Penarth thus owes its development to the massive expansion of the
South Wales coalfield in the 19th century. Its proximity to Cardiff, which was the natural outlet for the industrial valleys of
Glamorgan
, HQ = Cardiff
, Government = Glamorgan County Council (1889–1974)
, Origin=
, Code = GLA
, CodeName = Chapman code
, Replace =
* West Glamorgan
* Mid Glamorgan
* South Glamorgan
, Motto ...
, and its natural waterfront meant that Penarth was ideally situated to contribute to meeting the world's demand for Welsh coal through the construction of the docks.
The development of the town continued to be rapid and Penarth soon became self-sufficient, with its own local government, a thriving shopping centre and many new community facilities. What is now the main shopping area of Windsor Road was originally residential housing, but the owners sacrificed their front gardens to build shop extensions, although the original house architecture can still be seen above the shops. Most of the town's fine architectural features owe their origin to the landowners of the time and the results of their vision can be seen by the many grand buildings and parks which make Penarth what it is today. Thanks to the generosity of those far sighted landowners, Penarth earned its wide reputation as "The Garden by the Sea" because of its beautiful parks and open spaces. Furthermore, many of the buildings and features of the town have led to a substantial part of the town being designated as a
Conservation Area
Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the ena ...
because of its
Victorian
Victorian or Victorians may refer to:
19th century
* Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign
** Victorian architecture
** Victorian house
** Victorian decorative arts
** Victorian fashion
** Victorian literature ...
/
Edwardian architecture. Penarth's town library was opened in 1905, thanks to a donation by the
Carnegie Trust
The Carnegie United Kingdom Trust is an independent, endowed charitable trust based in Scotland that operates throughout Great Britain and Ireland. Originally established with an endowment from Andrew Carnegie in his birthplace of Dunfermline, ...
. The town's gothic style Police Station and town gaol opened in 1864, opposite the Windsor Arms brewery.
With the arrival of the railway connection to the Welsh valleys in 1878 came the regular influx of day trippers, often hundreds of them at weekends and bank holidays. The developing summer holiday trade was supported by a large number of quality hotels that provided nearly two thousand bedspaces. The biggest and grandest of the hotels were the Esplanade Hotel on the seafront built in 1887, The Marine Hotel at the mouth of the docks, The Royal Hotel at the top of Arcot Street, The Washington Hotel opposite the library and The Glendale and Lansdowne hotels on Plymouth Road. Apart from the major hotels, accommodation was also available at the smaller Dock Hotel, Penarth Hotel, Ship Hotel, Westbourne Hotel, Plymouth Hotel, Windsor Hotel, Railway Hotel and dozens of mariners' lodging houses at the top end of the town. All have now closed with the exception of the Glendale and a handful of small and more recent bed and breakfast establishments.
A
Royal Navy minesweeper was named after the town in 1918 and survived the last nine months of the First World War, but only served for twelve months when it was sunk off the Yorkshire coast in 1919 when it struck two mines. The vessel is remembered among the Royal Navy memorials at
Portsmouth.
At one time, Penarth had two grand and decorative cinemas. The first was the Windsor Kinema on Windsor Road, originally converted from a 19th-century Territorial Army drill hall and later used as Monty Smith's garage until it closed in October 2015. The even grander Washington Cinema was built opposite the library in 1936 with a classical '
Art Deco' frontage, on the site of a former hotel and its tennis courts. The Washington closed as a cinema in 1971. One of the last (possibly last) film to be shown was
On the Buses (film). After several years as a busy
Bingo Hall, it has now been converted into a coffee house and art gallery, whilst retaining its original frontage.
Penarth's other distinctive art deco structure was the new
General Post Office
The General Post Office (GPO) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Before the Acts of Union 1707, it was the postal system of the Kingdom of England, established by Charles II in 1660. ...
that was built in Albert Road in 1936. Closed in the 1980s the building is
Grade II listed
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
and now converted as an ethnic restaurant, The rear yard, once used to stable horses for the horse-drawn Penarth to Cardiff bus service, is still used by the Post Office for mail and parcel sorting.
Penarth Dock
The contract for the building of
Penarth Dock was placed in 1859 and the dock was opened six years later, constructed by a workforce of around 1,200 mostly
Irish '
navvies' under the direction of chief engineer
Harrison Hayter and implementing the design of civil engineer
John Hawkshaw. At the Welsh coal trade's zenith in 1913 ships carried 4,660,648 tons of coal in a single year out of Penarth docks. In 1886
Isambard Kingdom Brunel's , originally a passenger vessel but later converted as a coal trader departed from Penarth Dock on what would become its final voyage. A disastrous fire, during the voyage, all but destroyed the vessel and she foundered on the
Falkland Islands, where she remained until salvaged and returned to
Bristol Docks for restoration in the 1970s.
One feature of Penarth Dock was the tunnel underpass that connected Penarth dock to Ferry Road
Grangetown under the
River Ely
The River Ely ( cy, Afon Elái) is in South Wales flowing generally southeast, from Tonyrefail to Cardiff.
The river is about long. The Ely's numerous sources lie in the mountains to the south of Tonypandy, near the town of Tonyrefail, ris ...
( cy, Afon Elai). Not quite wide enough for motor vehicles it was used by commuting pedestrians and cyclists as a short cut to work in Cardiff. The circular tunnel was about half a mile long with an entrance foyer at each end. Lined with cream and green coloured ceramic tiles, the route was lit originally by
gaslight and later by electricity. Completed in 1899, from parts cast by T Gregory Engineering Works, Taffs Well, the tunnel remained in use until the autumn of 1965, when it was closed and the ends bricked up, after a series of violent muggings, repeated vandalism and the cost of maintenance becoming uneconomical. The tunnel entrance at the Penarth end was located near the lock gates, between the outer basin and the number one dock. This historic short cut route was 'almost' replicated and replaced in June 2008 with the opening of a pedestrian and cycle route across the new
Cardiff Bay Barrage.
Penarth Pier
![Penarth Pier - detail of railings](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Penarth_Pier_-_detail_of_railings.jpg)
Because of the growing popularity of Penarth beach and the need for better communications with Cardiff, in 1856 the Cardiff Steam and Navigation Company started a regular ferry service between Cardiff and Penarth. This continued until 1903. Boats were loaded and unloaded at Penarth using a landing stage on wheels which was hauled up the beach.
In the 1880s, an attempt was made to construct a permanent
pier. This was possibly because of the need to find a safer way to unload boats. However, construction ground to a halt at an early stage, when the London contractors went into
liquidation
Liquidation is the process in accounting by which a company is brought to an end in Canada, United Kingdom, United States, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, and many other countries. The assets and property of the company are redistrib ...
.
The Penarth Pier Company was formed to make a second attempt at building a permanent pier.
The foundations were laid in 1894 and the pier successfully opened in 1895, at long.
In 1907, a small wooden "Concert Party" theatre was built at the seaward end. In 1929, the pier was bought by Penarth Urban District Council, who added a new pier-head berthing pontoon, and in 1930 the current
art deco pavilion was added. In 1931, a fire started in the seaward-end theatre, which, after a sea and land-based rescue, saved all 800 people on board at that time. The pier was rebuilt, strengthened with additional concrete columns, but without the wooden theatre.
In 1947, the 7,130 ton steamship the SS ''Port Royal Park'', under the flag of the Tavistock Shipping Company, collided with the pier, causing severe damage that was not repaired for several years.
In August 1966, a 600-ton pleasure steamer,
Bristol Queen, hit the pier causing an estimated £25,000 damage.
![Penarth Pier 2013](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Penarth_Pier_2013.jpg)
In March 2011, planning permission was granted for a £3.9 million revamp of the pier to re-open the pavilion as a major tourist attraction. The new plans included a cinema and observatory. In September 2012, the restoration work began on the pavilion, with a projected cost estimated at £4 million, funded by the
lottery
A lottery is a form of gambling that involves the drawing of numbers at random for a prize. Some governments outlaw lotteries, while others endorse it to the extent of organizing a national or state lottery. It is common to find some degree of ...
, the
Welsh government, the
Vale of Glamorgan council,
Cadw
(, a Welsh verbal noun meaning "keeping/preserving") is the historic environment service of the Welsh Government and part of the Tourism and Culture group. works to protect the historic buildings and structures, the landscapes and heritage s ...
(part of the Housing, Regeneration and Heritage Department of the Welsh Government) and the Coastal Communities Fund. Work was completed and the pavilion reopened in Autumn 2013.
Wartime Penarth
Early changes
With its busy commercial docks and the proximity to
Cardiff Docks and steelworks, Penarth became a target for
Nazi German bombing raids during the
Second World War. The air raids started in 1941 and continued almost constantly for the next four years.
Penarth had its own
Home Guard detachment.
Scrap metals were needed to build tanks and aircraft, so hundreds of Penarth homes lost their traditional Victorian iron railings from the front gardens during the war years. Even All Saints' Church in Victoria Square lost its magnificently ornate gates and the railing fence that surrounded the square's green.
Strict
wartime food rationing meant that food had to be found wherever possible. The town's parks, recreation grounds, open spaces and front gardens of houses were dug up and converted to allotments planted with vegetables. The seafront and pier were packed daily with people trying to supplement the food rationing by landing fresh fish. There was a non-profit '
British Restaurant' at the top end of the Windsor Arcade, where families made homeless by the bombing, had run out of ration coupons or otherwise needed help, could buy a three-course meal for ninepence.
Military developments
Many Penarth Yacht Club members volunteered for the
Dunkirk evacuation
The Dunkirk evacuation, codenamed Operation Dynamo and also known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, or just Dunkirk, was the evacuation of more than 338,000 Allied soldiers during the Second World War from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, in the ...
and sailed their yachts and motor boats around the coast and across the
English Channel to France.
The Glamorganshire Golf Club, in Lower Penarth, was the site of an experimental rocket battery that regularly scared residents during practice firings. Lavernock Point was the location of
Lavernock Fort, with its heavy naval guns, anti-aircraft and searchlight batteries and the town's Royal Observer Corps observation post, that sounded the air raid sirens nightly in the town.
At the outbreak of the war, over 350 soldiers of the
Royal Artillery were stationed on Flat Holm, which was armed with four
4.5 inch guns and associated
searchlights to be used for anti-aircraft and close defence, together with two
Bofors gun
AB Bofors ( , , ) is a former Swedish arms manufacturer which today is part of the British arms concern BAE Systems. The name has been associated with the iron industry and artillery manufacturing for more than 350 years.
History
Located i ...
s. A GL (Gun Laying) MkII
radar station was also placed in the centre of the island. The structures formed part of the Fixed Defences, Severn Scheme and protected the Atlantic shipping convoy de-grouping zones. In 1943 there was a Battalion of American
Seabees, the US Construction Corps, living on a merchant vessel tied up in Penarth docks, while they built a large number of
Quonset huts for the rapid temporary expansions of
Llandough Hospital and
Sully Hospital
Sully Hospital ( cy, Ysbyty Sully) was a psychiatric hospital in Sully, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales. It has since been converted into luxury apartments and remains a Grade II* listed building.
History
The classical and elegant Art Deco structure was ...
.
Air raids
One night, in 1942, All Saints' Church was hit by a
stick of incendiary bombs and was totally gutted by fire, with only the outer walls left standing. The church was rebuilt after the war and reopened in 1955. Albert Road School was also hit by a stick of incendiaries and badly damaged by fire, although it was quickly patched up and in use again within the week. St Paul's Methodist Church, overlooking the docks, was totally destroyed by bombs. Dozens of ordinary homes were struck by bombs, including houses in Salop Street, Arcot Street, Albert Road and Queens Road.
Operation Overlord
In October 1943, a United States Navy Base was established at Penarth Docks (now Penarth Marina) – a base from which many of the troops which took part in the D Day invasion set out for the Normandy beaches. The base was under the command of Captain Arnold Winfield Chapin USN. Captain Chapin presented a painting of Penarth Docks in 1944 to "the people of Penarth", which now hangs in town council's Kymin House, Penarth.
In 1944, Penarth dock and the dock beach, as far as the Penarth Headland, was full of invasion barges that departed for the
"Operation Overlord" D-Day landings. Many of the
defensively equipped merchant ships
Defensively equipped merchant ship (DEMS) was an Admiralty Trade Division programme established in June 1939, to arm 5,500 British merchant ships with an adequate defence against enemy submarines and aircraft. The acronym DEMS was used to descri ...
were loaded with American
Sherman tanks and their
US Army crews that had been billeted in Penarth after training, housed in a vast village of Quonset or Nissen huts that had been built in 'Neale's Wood', now the Northcliffe Estate next to the present-day Headlands School.
British
Commando units trained on the Penarth cliffs in preparation for scaling the Normandy cliff faces. Several of the invasion barges were not used and lay rotting on the dock beach well into the 1950s used as playthings by local children.
Aftermath
Thousands of incendiary and explosive bombs were dropped on Penarth during the war and as late as the 1970s
unexploded devices were still being found in the silt and sand on the beaches between Penarth and Cardiff.
The town today
![The Stolen Earth filming, 13 March 2008](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/The_Stolen_Earth_filming%2C_13_March_2008.jpg)
The
coal trade from Penarth docks eventually petered out and the docks closed in 1936, only reopening for commercial and military use during World War II. From the 1950s, and up until 1965, the basins were utilised by the
Royal Navy to
mothball dozens of
destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, manoeuvrable, long-endurance warship intended to escort
larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers. They were originally developed in ...
s and
frigate
A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied somewhat.
The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and ...
s from the no longer needed wartime fleet of warships, until they were sold to foreign nations or broken up.
By 1967, after barely a hundred years of commercial operations, the docks area lay unused and derelict, and much of it was used for
landfill
A landfill site, also known as a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, or dumping ground, is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the waste ...
. The largest basin, No 2 dock at the Cogan end, is now completely filled in, grassed over and surrounded by roadways.
In 1987, the new
Penarth Marina village opened on the disused docks site. The No 1 dock and outer basin were re-excavated or dredged out to provide some 350 yacht berths, surrounded by extensive modern waterside homes and several marine engineering yards. The original dock office and Excise House is now in use as a popular restaurant, with only the
Grade II listed
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
Marine Hotel remaining derelict and boarded up, awaiting suitable redevelopment plans. The Penarth Marina development was one of the key catalysts to the similar later redevelopment of the Cardiff Bay area.
Penarth is one of the most affluent areas in the Vale of Glamorgan and property prices continue to remain high.
Marine Parade or '
Millionaires' row', with its grand, substantial Victorian houses or modern designer villas with views across the
Bristol Channel
The Bristol Channel ( cy, Môr Hafren, literal translation: "Severn Sea") is a major inlet in the island of Great Britain, separating South Wales from Devon and Somerset in South West England. It extends from the lower estuary of the River Seve ...
, is considered to be the finest street in Penarth, although several larger properties are now split as apartments or adapted as
residential care homes. Houses in Penarth vary from imposing three storey red brick Victorian houses found on both Plymouth and Westbourne Roads to compact stone terraces in
Cogan Cogan is a surname of Gaelic origin (not to be confused with the surname Kogan of Russian-Jewish origin). Notable people with the surname include:
*Alma Cogan (1932–1966), English singer
*Andrew Cogan, 17th-century agent of the English East India ...
and upper Penarth. Many of the Plymouth Road, Westbourne Road, Victoria Road and Archer Road houses, originally large family homes with servants' quarters on the top floors, have now been adapted for multi-occupancy as flats and apartments.
Penarth Marina in direct contrast features trendy modern
townhouses,
apartment
An apartment (American English), or flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies part of a building, generally on a single story. There are ma ...
s and designer
penthouse
Penthouse most often refers to:
*Penthouse apartment, a special apartment on the top floor of a building
*Penthouse (magazine), ''Penthouse'' (magazine), a British-founded men's magazine
*Mechanical penthouse, a floor, typically located directly u ...
s.
In 1930, the
General Post Office
The General Post Office (GPO) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Before the Acts of Union 1707, it was the postal system of the Kingdom of England, established by Charles II in 1660. ...
(GPO), later
British Telecom
BT Group plc (trade name, trading as BT and formerly British Telecom) is a British Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is th ...
(BT), built its main telephone engineers' college on the corner of Lavernock Road and Victoria Road, where engineers from all over the UK attended basic and advanced residential courses lasting up to eight weeks. The college closed in the 1980s and stood empty for many years before being demolished for a new development of residential housing.
In 1965, the combined Cardiff Universities built the multi-storey International House on Plymouth Road near the end of Cliff Parade to provide
Halls of Residence for up to 300 overseas students attending University College, Cardiff and the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology. Abandoned in the late 1990s, after just 30 years in its original use, International House is now converted as a specialist residential care home. There is now a plan to build a new boutique hotel in Penarth called the Marine Hotel, in Penarth Marina, subject to planning permission.
Penarth has been used as a film location for several BBC TV series including several episodes of ''
Doctor Who
''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the u ...
'' such as "
The Stolen Earth
"The Stolen Earth" is the twelfth episode of the fourth series and the 750th overall episode of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. It was first broadcast on BBC One on . The episode was written by show runner and head ...
". The scene where a ''
Dalek'' shoots The Doctor was filmed at the junction of Arcot Street and Queen's Road. Scenes for ''
Torchwood'', The Sarah Jane Adventures (notably 21 Clinton Road, where they filmed
Sarah Jane's house in 13 Bannerman Road), ''
Gavin & Stacey'' and Casualty have also been filmed in Penarth.
Penarth was named one of the best places to live in Wales in 2017.
Economy
In the Victorian era, Penarthians relied on the tourist trade, which prompted the construction of ''Penarth Pier'' in 1894. Today, Penarth's high street (Windsor Road) is the focal point and commercial area of the town. Most employers in Penarth are local services but the town is also home to some larger companies, some of which operate globally.
Governance
Town Council
Penarth is split into four
electoral ward
A ward is a local authority area, typically used for electoral purposes. In some countries, wards are usually named after neighbourhoods, thoroughfares, parishes, landmarks, geographical features and in some cases historical figures connected to t ...
s.
Plymouth
Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west.
Plymouth ...
,
Stanwell
Stanwell is a village close to two of the three main towns in the Borough of Spelthorne, Surrey, about west of central London. A small corner of its land is vital industrial land serving Heathrow Airport – most of the rest is residential ...
,
Cornerswell and
St Augustine's. The first three are named after the key spine roads, whilst the latter is named after the landmark church situate on Penarth Head. Plymouth ward and Stanwell ward are traditional locations for professional families staking a claim in Penarth's Stanwell School. Cornerswell ward contains both the Cogan community and the Poet's Estate where residents live on roads named after
Wordsworth,
Milton
Milton may refer to:
Names
* Milton (surname), a surname (and list of people with that surname)
** John Milton (1608–1674), English poet
* Milton (given name)
** Milton Friedman (1912–2006), Nobel laureate in Economics, author of '' Free t ...
,
Tennyson and
Chaucer.
The St Augustine's ward does not serve a natural 'community' but extends from the Marina development, over the Penarth Head area through the town centre and old Penarth as far as the junction of Stanwell and Cornerswell Roads. The wards of Cornerswell, Stanwell and St Augustine's representatives are all under the Labour Party banner, Plymouth ward is represented by the Conservative group in terms of Vale of Glamorgan County council representation. The leader of the council is Cllr Rhiannon Birch, the Deputy Leader is Cllr Mike Cuddy
The "Mother" of the Town Council, (the longest serving of the 16 councillors representing the town), is Cllr. Rhiannon Birch of the Cornerswell Ward.
The present (2022/23) mayor is Cllr Laura Rochefort who represents the Cornerswell Ward.
Vale of Glamorgan Council
Penarth's four wards elect county councillors to the
Vale of Glamorgan Council. St Augustine's ward is represented by Cllrs Elliott Penn (Labour), Neil Thomas (Labour) and Ruba Sivagnanam (Labour).Plymouth Ward is represented by Cllr Anthony Earnest and Cllr Rhys Thomas (Conservatives ). Cornerswell Ward is represented by Cllrs Rhiannon Birch (Labour) & Ian Buckley (Labour). Stanwell Ward is represented by Cllr Mark Wilson (Labour) & Cllr Lis Burnett (Labour)
Westminster
The MP for Penarth is
Stephen Doughty (Labour & Co-operative Party) who was re-elected on 10 December 2019.
Welsh Government
Vaughan Gething represents Cardiff South and Penarth in the
Senedd
The Senedd (; ), officially known as the Welsh Parliament in English and () in Welsh, is the devolved, unicameral legislature of Wales. A democratically elected body, it makes laws for Wales, agrees certain taxes and scrutinises the Welsh Gove ...
(Labour & Co-operative Party), succeeding
Lorraine Barrett
Lorraine Jayne Barrett (born 18 Mar 1950) is a former Welsh Labour & Co-operative Party, Co-operative Member of the National Assembly for Wales for Cardiff South and Penarth (Assembly constituency), Cardiff South and Penarth and an Assembly Commi ...
.
There are four Members of the Senedd also representing the area: Joel James (Conservative), Andrew RT Davies (Conservative), Heledd Fychan (Plaid Cymru), Rhys ab Owen (Plaid Cymru).
Geography
Sea shore
![Penarth from the air](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Penarth_from_the_air.jpg)
Penarth lies southwest of Cardiff by road and has a road infrastructure that has been much improved in recent years, together with a traditional rail link. The
Cardiff Bay Barrage between Penarth Head and Grangetown was completed in 1999 and came into operation shortly afterwards. The impounding of the
River Taff and
River Ely
The River Ely ( cy, Afon Elái) is in South Wales flowing generally southeast, from Tonyrefail to Cardiff.
The river is about long. The Ely's numerous sources lie in the mountains to the south of Tonypandy, near the town of Tonyrefail, ris ...
has created of freshwater lake in the Cardiff Bay. The promised pedestrian and cyclist short cut to Cardiff across the barrage finally opened to the public on Friday 27 June 2008, after numerous postponements.
An imaginary line drawn between
Lavernock Point
Lavernock ( cy, Larnog) is a hamlet in the Vale of Glamorgan in Wales, lying on the coast south of Cardiff between Penarth and Sully, and overlooking the Bristol Channel.
Marconi and the first radio messages across open sea
Following over ...
, just southwest of Penarth and
Sand Point, Somerset
Sand Point in Somerset, England, is the peninsula stretching out from Middle Hope, an biological and geological Site of Special Scientific Interest. It lies to the north of the village of Kewstoke, and the stretch of coastline called Sand Bay ...
marks the lower limit of the
Severn Estuary and the start of the Bristol Channel, hence Penarth is technically deemed to be in the Severn Estuary and not on the Bristol Channel. Because of the extreme tidal range there are very strong currents or rips close inshore, with speeds that exceed , for several hours at each tide. The rise and fall of the tides at Penarth are the second highest recorded anywhere in the world and on occasions when certain moon phases coincide with the spring and autumn
equinoxes the sea level can overspill the esplanade wall and flood the roadway, particularly if in conjunction with a high wind.
Soils
The general underlying sub-strata below the land and fields surrounding Penarth is of a
limestone that was laid down under a prehistoric warm sea and subsequently ground down by
ice age glaciers approximately 18,000 years ago. This produced the rich, brown and dry soil that provided an ideal growing medium for cereal crops during the medieval farming history of the area. The abundance of limestone was exploited for nearly a hundred years at the Cosmeston quarry that fed the Snocem
cement factory in Lower Penarth until it closed down in 1970 and the quarry was converted into Cosmeston Lake at the new country park.
Cliffs
![Strata formation - Penarth cliffs](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Strata_formation_-_Penarth_cliffs.jpg)
The town is located at the top of
cliffs that have a distinctive strata rock formation that is world known and referred to as the Penarth Group of rocks or Penarth coeval strata wherever it appears in Britain. The Penarth cliffs are made of interspersed layers of
limestone and
alabaster, both of which are dry and crumbly rocks. The Penarth cliffs contain the largest known outcrop of naturally occurring Pink Alabaster anywhere in the world but, although decorative and highly prized by local gardeners to crown their rockeries, it is considered to be much inferior to the harder and hand-carvable whiter alabasters found elsewhere.
The main problem associated with the dry and crumbly nature of the limestone and alabaster rocks, that make up the cliffs that border Penarth, is the continuing and relentless erosion by the sea. Rockfalls are frequent and walkers using the beach should not walk too close to the base of the cliffs. A rusty sign can be seen where the town beach merged into the base of the cliff, with this trilingual message:
"Caution: Beware of stones falling from the cliff. Beware of being caught by the high tides.
''Rhybudd: Gochelwch y ceryg yn syrthio or dybin uwchben ar perygl o fod ar y traeth pan y mae y llanw yn dod i mewn.''
Avis: Attention à la marée montante! Attention aux debris de roc oui (sic = "qui") se detachent des falaises
[noted in situ 1995]".
The cliff has retreated many tens of metres even in living memory, with the area around Penarth Head remaining most at threat and several structures once on the clifftop already having been smashed on the beach below. A reinforced concrete and iron staircase that once led from Penarth Head to the beach, built by the war department just before the First World War, was already destroyed by advancing erosion as long ago as the early 1950s.
Demography
The
demographic
Demography () is the statistical study of populations, especially human beings.
Demographic analysis examines and measures the dimensions and dynamics of populations; it can cover whole societies or groups defined by criteria such as edu ...
figures date from the
United Kingdom Census 2001 are as follows:
:Population: 23,245
:Male: 11,031
:Female: 12,214
:Average age: 42
:Retired: 5,904
:Immigrants: 2,814
:Degree educated 7,457
:Living in households: 22,805
:Living in communal establishments: 440
:Students away from home: 339
Regeneration of the seafront and town centre
![Penarth aerial photograph 2006](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Penarth_aerial_photograph_2006.jpg)
Despite town centre improvements, since the 1980s Penarth seafront has seen many Victorian hotels and houses demolished in favour of modern apartment blocks. The theatre and bars on the town's pier were allowed to fall into neglect and disrepair, although the pier itself remains open to the public.
In August 2008 plans for the development of the pier's derelict
pavilion were made public. The two million pound
Lottery
A lottery is a form of gambling that involves the drawing of numbers at random for a prize. Some governments outlaw lotteries, while others endorse it to the extent of organizing a national or state lottery. It is common to find some degree of ...
-funded scheme was planned to include a 98-seat cinema and theatre, a cafe and gallery, bar and a large multi-purpose area that will retain the Victorian
vaulted ceiling
In architecture, a vault (French ''voûte'', from Italian ''volta'') is a self-supporting arched form, usually of stone or brick, serving to cover a space with a ceiling or roof. As in building an arch, a temporary support is needed while ring ...
. The Vale of Glamorgan council allocated a starter contribution of £800,000 to enable the initial Lottery Fund application to proceed, an application that was declined due to shortage of available funds. In the autumn of 2008 a Penarth Town Centre Task and Finish Group was formed to look for a positive way ahead for the town. In November 2009 the National Lottery Heritage Fund granted a £99,000 interim award to permit further planning to proceed. This eventually led to full funding being made available during 2011 and work on the refurbishment project started in February 2012.
Landmarks and attractions
Cosmeston Lakes Country Park has been a popular attraction, throughout the years since it was developed in 1970. Apart from the lake and a wide range of
water fowl there are acres of pleasant walks in woodlands and on the heath.
Cosmeston Medieval Village is open daily and features historical re-enactments during the summer weekends and on
bank holiday
A bank holiday is a national public holiday in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland and the Crown Dependencies. The term refers to all public holidays in the United Kingdom, be they set out in statute, declared by royal proclamation or held ...
s. The reconstruction of the historical village has been described as the best of its kind in Britain.
Turner House Gallery is located at the top end of Plymouth Road and is the exhibition space for
Ffotogallery
Ffotogallery is the national development agency for photography in Wales. It was established in 1978 and since June 2019 has been based in Cathays, Cardiff. It also commissions touring exhibitions nationally and internationally. Its current dire ...
the national photography development agency for Wales. It features regular exhibitions of photography, video and new media art. The gallery was opened in 1888 by local resident,
James Pyke Thompson
James Pyke Thompson (1846–1897) was a British corn merchant who is best known for his philanthropic work towards the people of Cardiff and Penarth in South Wales. Born into a wealthy family in Bridgwater, Somerset, Thompson joined his father ...
, originally to house his personal art collection. There is also a small
art gallery
An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The lon ...
located at the ''Washington Buildings'', a tastefully converted 1930s
art deco cinema. Although the back of the Washington Cinema which used to be a Hyper-value store is now a Tesco Express, with Tony's Pizzeria.
Alexandra Gardens is the town's main Victorian Park, opened in 1902, with colourful flowerbeds, leafy glades, an ornamental fishpond, ornate bandstand and the town's Cenotaph memorial to the fallen of two world wars. The park leads from the town down to the seafront, almost connecting up with the Windsor Gardens park that runs above and parallel to the esplanade.
The Paget Rooms hosts dances, occasional pop concerts and plays by local dramatic societies. The 1970s singer
Tom Jones
Tom Jones may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
*Tom Jones (singer) (born 1940), Welsh singer
* Tom Jones (writer) (1928–2023), American librettist and lyricist
*''The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling'', a novel by Henry Fielding published in ...
played one of his final UK concerts at the Paget Rooms before moving to America. Welsh band
Man once recorded a live album at the Paget Rooms, using the famous
Decca mobile studio that also recorded
The Rolling Stones and today pristine copies of the limited edition vinyl pressing, named (incorrectly) , now change hands for substantial sums of money.
![Penarth boat houses](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Penarth_boat_houses.JPG)
The beach front
promenade remains a popular draw for visitors and tourists with its Victorian ''Italian Garden'' that displays many unusual
palm trees and exotic plants. The surviving element of the original Victorian pier is a summer staging point for the various pleasure steamers, that ply their trade from time to time in the Bristol Channel and the pier is used as a popular winter sea fishing venue. There is also the historic Penarth Yacht Club, built in 1883, stood next to the new
RNLI lifeboat station and its associated shop, together with a wide range of popular cafes and restaurants available on the seafront. The seafront remains uncommercialised with none of the
amusement arcade
An amusement arcade (often referred to as a video arcade, amusements or simply arcade) is a venue where people play arcade games, including arcade video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, merchandisers (such as cl ...
s that can be found at other traditional Victorian holiday resort frontages. The town's swimming pool and baths built in the late 19th century was closed in the 1980s and, after a short reincarnation as a bar and bistro, has recently been tastefully converted into luxury flats while retaining its Victorian exterior.
![Penarth Italian garden 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Penarth_Italian_garden_1.JPG)
The clifftop walks to the bays of Lavernock, St Mary's Well and
Swanbridge with their beaches and the historic hut where
Marconi first transmitted radio messages over open sea remain popular with residents and visitors alike. The old trackbed of the railway that once connected Penarth to
Cadoxton and
Barry Island and was closed by the
Beeching Axe
The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Development of the ...
is now a rural greenway and cycle track from the Archer Road rail bridge as far as the Fort Road bridge in Lavernock. The remaining main section of the
Lavernock Fort gun battery has been listed as an
Ancient Monument. The Lavernock Point Nature Reserve is managed by the Wildlife Trust of South & West Wales.
The town has mounted the two-week-long Penarth Holiday Festival each July since 1966 that features special events and celebrations all over the town. These have included pop concerts, yacht regattas and power boat races, donkey derbies, parades, fairs and fetes in the parks, tea dances, stage shows, art exhibitions and spectacular firework displays. In 1970 the festival was closed with an air display by the
Red Arrows
The Red Arrows, officially known as the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team, is the aerobatics display team of the Royal Air Force based at RAF Waddington. The team was formed in late 1964 as an all-RAF team, replacing a number of unofficial teams ...
above the clifftops and sea front.
Education
Secondary schools
St Cyres Comprehensive School
St Cyres School is an 11–18 mixed, English-medium, community secondary school and sixth form in Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales. It was established in 1958.
Until June 2012, the school was split over two sites: the larger site at Penarth, ...
, formerly Penarth County Secondary School has employed a keen focus on its Welsh Baccalaureate programme, where it has led the way in delivering this new qualification, associated to the International Baccalaureate programme. Spread over two sites with years seven to nine located in both Penarth and nearby Dinas Powys, and years ten to thirteen on just Penarth, the bigger of the two sites. Work to complete the new school completed in 2012 with the completion of the Penarth Learning Community providing enviable facilities in the £48 million development. The main feeders schools for St Cyres are Llandough Primary, Fairfield County Primary, Cogan Primary and all the primary schools in Dinas Powys. In the autumn of 2008 St Cyres became the first fairtrade secondary school in Penarth and in March 2022 became the first School of Sanctuary in the Vale.
Stanwell School
Stanwell School is a co-educational foundation status comprehensive school and Sixth form college located in Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, for children aged between eleven and eighteen. The school is in the town of Penarth, south-west fr ...
, formerly Penarth County Grammar School, is a co-educational
comprehensive school
A comprehensive school typically describes a secondary school for pupils aged approximately 11–18, that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude, in contrast to a selective school system where admission is res ...
for 11- to 18-year-olds. The school has been subject to a substantial investment of several million pounds in new buildings, facilities and equipment in the last decade. Specialist teaching accommodation has been provided for Science (featuring eleven modern laboratories), drama, music, media studies, P.E. (including sports halls), Information Technology, Art and Design Technology. The school has approximately 2,000 pupils including a thriving sixth form. The main feeder schools for Stanwell are Albert Road, Victoria, Evenlode and Sully Primary School.
Westbourne School
Westbourne School for Boys and girls is an independent school for boys and girls aged 3–16 years old. It is located in the Broomhill area of south Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England
England is a country that is part of the United ...
is a small
coeducation
Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to t ...
al
independent day school,
nursery and
prep school
Preparatory school or prep school may refer to: Schools
*Preparatory school (United Kingdom), an independent school preparing children aged 8–13 for entry into fee-charging independent schools, usually public schools
*College-preparatory school, ...
for children between the ages of 3 and 18 located on the corner of Stanwell Road and Hickman Road. There are 162 pupils on roll. The school is housed within two buildings, approximately half a mile apart. The first houses the nursery and infants, the other the prep school and senior school. With 24 permanent staff and 2 teaching assistants the class sizes remain small, varying from a maximum of 17 down to as low as 9 in some subjects. Westbourne School opened its new 6th form in the Autumn term of 2008 and major building works are still in progress. The school introduced the speciality of the
Diploma Programme of the International Baccalaureate Organisation. The academic results are consistently excellent with 100% passes at GCSEs in 2007 and Westbourne School is nationally recognised as a high achieving school. The school is now owned by the Montague Place Group of Independent Schools.
Junior and nursery provision
Primary schools include Cogan County Primary, Ysgol Pen-y-garth (Welsh medium), St Joseph's
Roman Catholic Primary and Nursery School,
Fairfield County Primary, Victoria Primary, Albert Road Primary, Evenlode Primary and Llandough Primary School.
Religious sites
Local church sites are:
![St Augustine's Church, Penarth - 1952171 - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/St_Augustine%27s_Church%2C_Penarth_-_1952171_-_geograph.org.uk.jpg)
* St Augustine's Church is just off Church Place on Penarth Headland. The Penarth
parish church of Saint Augustine stands on the headland site of a much earlier church probably dating from 1240. The original church was demolished in 1865 and the new much larger church built in 1866 at a cost of £10,000, financed by
Harriet Windsor-Clive, 13th Baroness Windsor.
It was designed by the famous Victorian architect
William Butterfield and it is described as one of his best
polychromatic churches. The interior uses a mixture of coloured bricks and stone in yellow, pink, red, black and white.
Because the distinctive tower of the old church it had appeared on navigational charts. At the request of the
Admiralty
Admiralty most often refers to:
*Admiralty, Hong Kong
* Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964
*The rank of admiral
* Admiralty law
Admiralty can also refer to:
Buildings
*Admiralty, Tr ...
a similar saddle-back tower was kept in the new design. The new tower was 90 feet high, much larger than the old church.
St Augustine's is a Grade I
listed building. The churchyard cross is medieval and dates from the original church, but is much weathered and most of the detailed decoration has vanished.
![Church of St Peter, Old Cogan (geograph 2762836)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Church_of_St_Peter%2C_Old_Cogan_%28geograph_2762836%29.jpg)
*St Peter's Church also known as Old Cogan Church
Church in Wales is located off Sully Road and may have originally been a wooden structure built as early as 800. "The present structure is one of the earliest ecclesiastical buildings surviving in the Vale of Glamorgan and the Diocese of Llandaff. There is a reference to it in 1180 so it was probably constructed just before that of thin lias limestone slabs, a local stone, in a herringbone pattern more typical of earlier Saxon times."
* All Saints Church in Wales is located in Victoria Square. Built by the Earl of Plymouth in 1892, on a greenfield site previously used as the town's cricket and rugby field and donated by wealthy Penarth butcher David Cornwall, the church is now surrounded by a square of later housing although the original grassed area has been retained and landscaped with trees. Destroyed by a German air raid in 1943, the church was rebuilt and reopened in 1955.
![SE corner of St](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/SE_corner_of_St._Joseph%27s_RC_church%2C_Penarth_-_geograph.org.uk_-_3345872.jpg)
*
St. Joseph
Joseph (; el, Ἰωσήφ, translit=Ioséph) was a 1st-century Jewish man of Nazareth who, according to the canonical Gospels, was married to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and was the legal father of Jesus. The Gospels also name some brothers ...
's
Roman Catholic Church is on Wordsworth Avenue. The church relocated from an earlier premises in the triangle opposite the old Royal Hotel, where Arcot Street meets Queen's Road. The original church and school was built by
Bishop Hedley in 1873.
* Trinity
Methodist Church is in Woodland Place. The present church, built 1901 in a Gothic style, has the only spire left in the town and was designed by Henry Budgen. The congregation had met since 1890 in a corrugated iron building on the site known as 'Playter's Church' built in the 1880s. In 1896 a schoolroom had been built alongside the iron church. Trinity was damaged several times by bombing during World War II, and its stained glass windows were removed for safekeeping to the Coed Ely Coal Pit,
Gilfach Goch
Gilfach Goch is a community, electoral ward and small former coal mining village mostly in the Borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf, south Wales, near the larger community of Tonyrefail. Some areas in the North Western part of the village lie within Br ...
. In 1970 a day centre for the elderly was established and in 1986 a radical remodelling of the original school accommodation provided meeting rooms, a thriving youth club, kitchens and toilets.
![Hebron Church Cogan Penarth](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Hebron_Church_Cogan_Penarth.JPG)
*
Eden Church Penarth
Eden may refer to:
*Garden of Eden, the "garden of God" described in the Book of Genesis
Places and jurisdictions
Canada
* Eden, Ontario
* Eden High School
Middle East
* Eden, Lebanon, a city and former bishopric
* Camp Eden, Iraq
Oc ...
meets in the Upper Hall of Trinity Methodist Church in Woodland Place and was established in 2014.
* Albert Road
Methodist Church
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related Christian denomination, denominations of Protestantism, Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John W ...
is at Albert Road and Albert Crescent.
* Tabernacle
Baptist Chapel is in Plassey Street
* Hebron Church is on Pill Street, Cogan
* The
United Reformed Church is on Elfed Avenue
* The
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The group reports a worldwide membership of approximately 8.7 million adherents involved in ...
Kingdom Hall is on Plassey Street.
Sports and recreation
Penarth has both a Men's (established 1911) and Ladies' (established 1896) Hockey Club playing at a high level. The Men's 1st XI were promoted in both the 2009/10 and 2010/11 seasons to reach what was then the best league position, but has since surpassed that with further successive promotions in 2015/16 - when they also won the Welsh Trophy cup competition - and 2016/17 to play in the Championship division of the GoCrea8 League that covers South Wales and the West of England, just two further promotions from the UK national league. The league and cup success also led to Penarth's first European venture after an invitation to play in the EuroHockey competition in the Ukraine in May/June 2017.
The club's 2nd and 3rd XIs were also promoted in recent seasons, with the former now moving into the combined Wales and West section of the GoCrea8 League for the first time. The club returned to fielding four sides in league competition in 2016/17 after a gap of 30 years. The Men's first team play in North Division 1 of The Davis Wood Hockey League (2011/12).
Both Ladies teams compete in the South Wales Premier 1 division (2011/12).
Penarth Cricket Club was founded in 1851 and is one of the oldest cricket clubs in South Wales.
It plays in the South Wales Premier League. They originally played their home matches at the site where the Masonic Hall now stands on Stanwell Road. The club have now played at their current site at The Athletic Ground on Lavernock Road since 1924
when the site was gifted to the town by the
Earl of Plymouth and shares the facilities with Penarth Rugby Club, Penarth Hockey Club, and in recent years, Penarth Lacrosse Club. Penarth Lacrosse Club have developed several players who have gone on to represent Wales at National and International level. The
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
club operates 4 regular league sides on a Saturday. The first XI plays in the South Wales Premier League. A number of current and former players have played for
Glamorgan CCC
Glamorgan County Cricket Club ( cy, Criced Morgannwg) is one of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Glamorgan ( cy, Morgannwg). Founded in 1888, ...
, and Wales MC, and there have been many players who have gained junior representative honours.
The once-renowned
Penarth Rugby Football Club is based at The Athletic Ground, Lavernock Road, Penarth, where it played Wales' and the West Country's premier clubs until the creation of the Welsh League system in the early 1990s. It has had somewhat of a renaissance in recent years, and in season 2006-07 won promotion to Division 3 South-East of the Welsh National Leagues by finishing runner-up in Division 4 South-East. Penarth RFC used to host the world-famous
Barbarians Football Club each Easter Good Friday, until 1986. This fixture was the start of the "Baa-Baas" annual South Wales tour from the team's spiritual home of Penarth, which also encompassed playing
Cardiff on the Saturday,
Swansea
Swansea (; cy, Abertawe ) is a coastal city and the second-largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Swansea ( cy, links=no, Dinas a Sir Abertawe).
The city is the twenty-fifth largest in ...
on Easter Monday and
Newport
Newport most commonly refers to:
*Newport, Wales
*Newport, Rhode Island, US
Newport or New Port may also refer to:
Places Asia
*Newport City, Metro Manila, a Philippine district in Pasay
Europe
Ireland
*Newport, County Mayo, a town on the ...
on the Tuesday. On the Thursday before Good Friday, the Barbarian rugby squad would be allowed free use of the Glamorganshire Golf Club, when they would play a match amongst themselves using only two golf clubs. On Easter Sunday, the Golf Club held its annual tournament for club members for a trophy titled the Barbarian Cup. The grand Esplanade Hotel, located on the seafront at Penarth before being destroyed by fire in May 1977, would host the gala party for the trip. Penarth has a second and more recent
rugby union club
Old Penarthians RFC
Old Penarthians Rugby Football Club is a Welsh rugby union team based in Penarth, Wales. The Old Penarthians were formed out of an association set up on 7 December 1923 by Penarth County School. The society formed was the Penarth County School Ol ...
, originally formed out of 'old boys' from
Penarth County Grammar School
Stanwell School is a co-educational foundation status comprehensive school and Sixth form college located in Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, for children aged between eleven and eighteen. The school is in the town of Penarth, south-west fr ...
, but no longer applying that restrictive membership criteria.
Demonstration Motor Cycle Dirt Track (Speedway) races were staged at The Athletic Ground, as part of a four-day festival, on 25 August 1934.
Penarth has three
football (soccer) clubs. The longest established is Cogan Coronation AFC, known locally as the 'Coro' that was founded in 1960, playing their home games at the Penarth Leisure Centre recreation fields. The senior team features in the South Wales F.A. Senior League 1st Division and their best season was 2000/2001 when they finished the year in second position. The club fielded eighteen teams at various age groups in the 2007/2008 season. Cogan Coronation players Mark Eley, Liam Beddard and goalkeeper Stewart Owadally have been selected to represent the Football Association of Wales on a number of occasions. The second longest established is Inter Penarth AFC which has been running for over 12 years with a good structure of mini's,junior's and a senior team. The club has had three name changes in its brief history. Penarth Town AFC was founded only a handful of years ago and plays in Division 2 of the Vale of Glamorgan Senior Football League.
Glamorganshire Golf Club
Glamorganshire Golf Club is located in Lower Penarth in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, 7.3 miles (11.7 kilometres) south west from the capital city of Cardiff and is one of the oldest golf clubs in Wales. The club was founded by the Earl of Plym ...
is located in Lower Penarth and is considered to be one of the finest golf courses in the Principality. The course was established in 1890 and, in 1898, the club was the testing ground of Dr Frank Stableford's revolutionary new
Stableford
Stableford is a scoring system used in the sport of golf. Rather than counting the total number of strokes taken, as in stroke play, it involves scoring points based on the number of strokes taken at each hole. Unlike traditional scoring methods, ...
golf scoring system still used all over the world today.
Penarth has two tennis clubs. Penarth Lawn Tennis Club and Windsor Lawn Tennis Club, Penarth. Both clubs compete regularly in the Tennis Wales South Doubles Leagues and have junior representation in the National Junior Club League and Vale of Glamorgan Mini Tennis Club League. Windsor Lawn Tennis Club is situated in Larkwood Avenue in a residential area. It has 7 hardcourts and a grass court area. Penarth Lawn Tennis Club, in Rectory Road, is the second oldest tennis club in Wales (established 1884) and has 6 floodlit hard courts and one of the longest continually used tennis clubhouses in the world. In recognition of the significant upgrading and refurbishment of facilities Penarth Lawn Tennis Club was recognised as Welsh Tennis Club of the Year by Tennis Wales (LTA) at its 2014 awards ceremony. This achievement was emulated by Windsor LTC two years later at the 2016 awards.
Penarth has a Men's (established 1911) and Ladies' (established 1896) Hockey Club. The Men's first team were promoted in both the 2009/10 and 2010/11 seasons to play in their highest ever league. The Men's first team play in North Division 1 of The Davis Wood Hockey League (2011/12) Both Ladies teams compete in the South Wales Premier 1 division (2011/12).
Cogan Leisure Centre is a modern
leisure centre
A leisure centre in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia (also called aquatic centres), Singapore and Canada is a purpose-built building or site, usually owned and operated by the city, borough council or municipal district council, where people ...
sports venue that provides the town with a full range of sporting facilities including a leisure pool and extensive playing fields. The new Cardiff Sports Village is just under two miles (3 km) from the town centre.
Penarth Sea Cadets are located in the town.
Cardiff Morris perform traditional dances from Wales and England and feature several members from the town. They are the prime performers of Morris dances from the
Nantgarw tradition
The Welsh dance ( cy, Dawns Gymreig), also known as the Welsh folk dance ( cy, Dawnsio gwerin), is a traditional dance in Wales, performed to Welsh traditional music and while usually wearing a traditional Welsh costume.
Today
Welsh dancin ...
. They meet and rehearse weekly throughout the year, alternating between The Anchor in Taffs Well and the Windsor Arms public house in Penarth. In recent years the group have performed in locations across the UK. Of particular interest are their renditions of genuine Welsh morris dance as collected by Margaretta Thomas in the village of Nantgarw in Taff Vale, the key dance being ' (The Snow Mare).
Penarth Amateur Boxing Club now meets in Station Road, after the closure of their club at St Pauls Church.
Penarth Bowls Club is located on Rectory Road at a bowling green built on what was once a deep limestone quarry.
South Wales Comedy Writers Society is based in Penarth.
Penarth is also home to a Waterski club, with a slipway to the east of the pier. The club has history as one of the top clubs for Waterski Racing in Europe, producing Regional, National and European champions. With once c.90 boat members, today the club has one team that is actively racing.
Transport
Penarth railway station
Penarth railway station is the railway station serving the town of Penarth in the Vale of Glamorgan, South Wales. It is the terminus of Network Rail's Penarth branch running from Cogan Junction to Penarth station, from the junction and south ...
serves the town and is the terminus of the Penarth branch of the
Vale of Glamorgan Line
The Vale of Glamorgan Line ( cy, Llinell Bro Morgannwg) is a commuter railway line in Wales, running through the Vale of Glamorgan from Barry to Bridgend, via Rhoose and Llantwit Major.
Route
The Barry branch starts at Cardiff West and ru ...
from Cardiff. It is on an extension of the line originally built by the
Taff Vale Railway in 1865 to serve the newly created docks.
Penarth Dock railway station
Penarth Dock railway station served the docks area of Penarth.
Description
The Taff Vale Railway built its line to Penarth in 1865, later extending it to Lavernock, Sully and Cadoxton. Penarth Dock and Harbour station opened in 1878. The ...
once served the docks area, but closed in 1962. All services on this line are operated by
Transport for Wales as part of the
Valley Lines portion of the
National Rail network.
Dingle Road station is also close to the town centre. The Barry branch of the Vale of Glamorgan line passes through
Cogan railway station
Cogan railway station is a railway station serving Cogan in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales. It is on the Vale of Glamorgan Line south of Cardiff Central on the way to Barry Island and Bridgend.
Passenger services are operated by Transport for ...
, near Cogan Leisure Centre.
Penarth is served by
Cardiff Bus services from
Cardiff City Centre, with some services continuing to
Barry Barry may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Barry (name), including lists of people with the given name, nickname or surname, as well as fictional characters with the given name
* Dancing Barry, stage name of Barry Richards (born c. 19 ...
. Penarth falls into the
Cardiff fare zone for
Cardiff Bus fares. Penarth is also served by
First Cymru from
Cardiff City Centre -
Llandough which continues on to Barry.
Penarth is linked to west
Somerset and North
Devon seaside resorts such as
Minehead
Minehead is a coastal town and civil parish in Somerset, England. It lies on the south bank of the Bristol Channel, north-west of the county town of Taunton, from the boundary with the county of Devon and in proximity of the Exmoor National P ...
,
Ilfracombe and
Lundy Island
Lundy is an English island in the Bristol Channel. It was a micronation from 1925–1969. It forms part of the district of Torridge in the county of Devon.
About long and wide, Lundy has had a long and turbulent history, frequently chang ...
by the
Paddle Steamer ''Waverley'' and , which have sailed from Penarth pier for over 60 years, continuing a steamer tradition that started when the pier was built. Devon's tourist trade in the late 19th century was expanded when the
paddle steamers spent weekends cruising the Bristol Channel taking the South Wales tourists on cheap excursions from Penarth to places such as
Lynmouth, Ilfracombe,
Bideford and
Clovelly. The traditional summer daily service to
Weston-super-mare ceased in 1994 when Weston's
Birnbeck Pier was damaged in a storm, declared unsafe and closed to visitors.
The
Cardiff Waterbus
The Cardiff Waterbus is a water bus service operated along the River Taff in Cardiff, the capital of Wales. Services are operated by 4 separate companies, Cardiff Cats Ltd (operating as Cardiff Waterbus), Cardiff Cruises Ltd, Cardiff Boats Lt ...
operates a passenger water taxi service daily between 10.30 am and 5.00 pm, sailing from the Penarth end of the Bay Barrage and the Mermaid Quay on Cardiff's waterfront with seven crossings at hourly intervals. The first boat leaves Penarth at 10.30 am and the last boat back departs Cardiff at 5.00 pm.
The
Pont y Werin pedestrian and cycle bridge opened in July 2010, completing a 4.2 mile circular route between Cardiff Bay and Penarth.
Overseas connections
The town shares its name with
Penarth, Delaware in the US.
Penarth is twinned with:
*
Saint-Pol-de-Léon
Saint-Pol-de-Léon (; br, Kastell-Paol) is a commune in the Finistère department in Brittany in north-western France, located on the coast.
It is noted for its 13th-century cathedral on the site of the original founded by Saint Paul Aurelian ...
Brittany, France. The fortieth anniversary of the twinning charter took place in 2010. In the 1970s and 1980s there were regular joint civic meetings and events often in conjunction with ''Penarth Holiday Fortnight'', coupled with annual student exchange weeks between the two towns of up to fifty young people. Since 2003 when the French town's long serving mayor retired and there were changes to their committee no cultural exchanges or joint civic events have taken place. In March 2010 it was announced that both towns were keen to reconnect and an appeal was made for local organisations and interested individuals to become actively involved. In Penarth marina there is an address named after the twinned town, "Plas St. Pol De Leon".
Notable people
:''See
:People from Penarth''
Those who have either been born, or lived in, or associated with Penarth have included politicians such as Plaid Cymru founder
Saunders Lewis
Saunders Lewis (born John Saunders Lewis) (15 October 1893 – 1 September 1985) was a Welsh politician, poet, dramatist, Medievalist, and literary critic. He was a prominent Welsh nationalist, supporter of Welsh independence and was a co-found ...
,
Remy Walton
Remy or Rémy may refer to:
Places
* Remy River, a tributary of rivière du Gouffre in Saint-Urbain, Quebec, Canada
* Rémy, a French commune in Pas-de-Calais
* Remy, Oise, northern France
* Remy, Oklahoma, USA
* 14683 Remy, an asteroid
* P ...
national treasure,
James Childs Gould
James Childs Gould (9 September 1882 – 2 July 1944) was a British industrialist and Conservative Party politician who served as Member of Parliament for Cardiff Central from 1918 to 1924.
Personal life
Gould was born in Penarth, the son ...
MP,
Alun Michael
Alun Edward Michael (born 22 August 1943) is a Welsh Labour politician serving as South Wales Police and Crime Commissioner since 2012. He served as Secretary of State for Wales from 1998 to 1999 and then as the first First Secretary of Wales ...
MP and
John Smith MP, three recipients of the
Victoria Cross including
Dambuster's leader
Guy Gibson, and sports stars,
Colin Jackson and
Dame "Tanni" Grey-Thompson.
Penarth is associated with a number of people in the performing arts; novelist
Eric Linklater
Eric Robert Russell Linklater CBE (8 March 1899 – 7 November 1974) was a Welsh-born Scottish poet, fiction writer, military historian, and travel writer. For ''The Wind on the Moon'', a children's fantasy novel, he won the 1944 Carnegie Meda ...
, actor
Colin McCormack
John Colin McCormack (2 December 1941 – 19 June 2004) was a Welsh actor who enjoyed success in classical stage performances and television shows including BBC TV's Dixon of Dock Green, a show he returned to twenty years later when he playe ...
, actor
Ronan Vibert,actress
Erin Richards,
musician
Sharmelly Rey, composer
Joseph Parry, the French Impressionist painter
Alfred Sisley, the singer-songwriter
Jem, chart star
Shakin' Stevens.
and drum'n'bass producer Lincoln Barrety Aka
High Contrast, singer songwriter
Martin Joseph
Martin Joseph (c. 1950 – 5 January 2015) was a Trinidad and Tobago politician. He served as a Member of Parliament in the House of Representatives for St. Ann's East from 1995 to 2002, and then was appointed as a Government Senator in the Senat ...
.
Gallery
File:Penarth town centre.JPG, The clock on the roundabout in the town centre
File:Penarth pier.jpg, Penarth Pier
File:Penarth from the sea.jpg, A view of the Penarth coast from the Bristol Channel
The Bristol Channel ( cy, Môr Hafren, literal translation: "Severn Sea") is a major inlet in the island of Great Britain, separating South Wales from Devon and Somerset in South West England. It extends from the lower estuary of the River Seve ...
File:Penarth Public Library - geograph.org.uk - 1972806.jpg, The library on the corner of Stanwell Road and Rectory Road
File:Penarth Fire Station - geograph.org.uk - 467200.jpg, The fire station
File:Alexandra Park, Penarth - geograph.org.uk - 904758.jpg, A historic photograph of Alexandra Park
File:Ffotogallery - Turner House, Penarth - geograph.org.uk - 1151910.jpg, ffotogallery on Plymouth Road
File:The bandstand, Alexandra Park, Penarth - geograph.org.uk - 1152134.jpg, The bandstand in Alexandra Park
File:View across Penarth Flats towards Cardiff, 2009 - geograph.org.uk - 1377223.jpg, View of Cardiff Bay from Upper Penarth
See also
*
Cogan Cogan is a surname of Gaelic origin (not to be confused with the surname Kogan of Russian-Jewish origin). Notable people with the surname include:
*Alma Cogan (1932–1966), English singer
*Andrew Cogan, 17th-century agent of the English East India ...
*
Lavernock
*
List of people associated with Penarth
The following is a list of prominent and notable people associated with the town of Penarth in South Wales.
Armed Forces
* Lieutenant-General Sir Robert Fry KCB CBE is a British Royal Marines general, formerly Commandant General Royal Marine ...
*
Listed buildings in Penarth
There are many listed buildings in Penarth, a seaside town in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales. Penarth was popular with holidaymakers from far afield, but also a popular place to live for the wealthy business owners of Penarth and nearby Cardiff. ...
*
Penarth Lifeboat Station
Notes
References
External links
Penarth Town Council Website''Penarth Times'', local newspaper sitePenarth, BBCVale of Glamorgan Council site including school listGeograph.co.uk: photos of Penarth an surrounding area
{{authority control
Towns in the Vale of Glamorgan
Communities in the Vale of Glamorgan
Ports and harbours of Wales
Seaside resorts in Wales
Ports and harbours of the Bristol Channel
Populated places on the River Severn
Populated coastal places in Wales