EV-0645 — Printed local-history book, “Llandough (Penarth)” section, pages 64–65: Great House Farm, the 1974 petition and the demolition of 6 December 1988

Catalogue record

Transcript

Printed local-history book (title, author and date not shown in the photographs), section "Llandough (Penarth)", pages 64–65 and the following page.

Llandough (Penarth)

The name Llandough (in Welsh Llandochau) is derived from 'Llan', area around a church and 'dough' from St Dochau.

Llandough, a village two miles distance from Penarth, was in the last century a quiet Welsh speaking rural farming and fishing village.

During the early Christian period there were three principal monastic communities existing in Glamorgan, one of which was Llandough, the others Llantwit Major and Llancarfan. At Llandough churchyard is the highly decorated Irbic Cross – the Celtic pillar cross dating from the early 9th century. A replica can be seen at the National Museum of Wales.

St Dochdwy's church dates from 1866, built at a cost of some £3,000. The previous church on this site was taken down and rebuilt at Leckwith – St James. Inside St Dochdwy's is a Father Willis organ.

Alongside the church once stood Great House Farm, the site of a Celtic monastery and a missionary centre. In 1974, 1,700 people signed a petition for the preservation of this farm where a wealth of history lay hidden. It was the home of Mr John Williams' family for generations and was opened on occasions for local people, schoolchildren and visitors to view. Work was undertaken to replace the stone floor with timber. Underneath the floor in the elegant dining room were found the remains of a soldier and his horse. This suggested there may have been a battle on the site and the soldier was buried where he lay in his armour. The remains were re-buried in the churchyard and his visor and lance given to the National Museum of Wales. Visitors to the farm saw how people lived in the past, how they made their butter, cheese and beer and dried pork, and sent their sheep's wool to the woollen mill on Leckwith Hill for spinning into yarn. They saw the cheese drying room hollowed out of a solid wall and the bedroom where in earlier centuries monks took rest on their travels. Marconi too slept here in a four poster bed whilst working with his experiments in wireless telegraphy between the Flat Holm and Lavernock Point. Great House Farm was demolished during the night of 6th December 1988 by British Petroleum Pension Funds following a 33 year dispute over its ownership. Today the site is overgrown, awaiting housing development.

In 1960 Llandough was expanding rapidly. Houses were built on fields where cattle and sheep once grazed. An action group was formed for a school, urgently needed. Numerous letters to the House of Commons resulted in Mr Anthony Crosland, the then Secretary of State for Education and Science granting permission for a school which was officially opened by the Rt Hon James Callaghan, MP for Cardiff, on 16th October 1970, quite different from the first National school which served both Llandough and Penarth, known as the Old School House and now a listed building and private house.

The Marchioness of Bute performed the opening ceremony of Llandough and Leckwith War Memorial Institute on the 11th November 1924. It was built from contributions given by families living in the two villages. Fifty years later the institute was replaced by a new hall formally opened by Sir Cennydd Traherne. Both the old and the new institute have been used for almost every village function, with the exception of the Second World War years when the building was used by the Royal Air Force. During the war an anti-aircraft battery and a balloon barrage unit were situated in the village. Often smoke screen motors came out to throw smoke screens over Cardiff.

The Llandough Scout and Guide Association used the institute until 1975 when they moved to their newly built centre at Lewis Road. Behind the institute stands the Llandough and Leckwith British Legion Club.

Her Royal Highness Mary Viscountess Lascelles laid the foundation stone for Llandough hospital in 1928. The land was purchased by the Cardiff Board of Governors in 1912, but building was postponed because of the First World War. Alderman Donovan officially opened the hospital in 1933 with 340 beds, capable of future extension to 916 beds.

In 1946 the Medical Research Council commissioned a ward for investigation into pneumoconiosis, of great concern to the mining industry. Mabon, the miners' ward, remained open until 1986. The hospital is generously supported by its League of Friends. Close by is St Mary's Day Hospital, opened in 1905 as an isolation hospital.

In 1543 King Henry VIII granted the Mansion of Llandough to Lord Clynton. In 1793 it was purchased by the Earl of Bute and Cogan Pill House was occupied in 1851 by Mr and Mrs John Stuart Corbett and their four children.

The harvest festival was always a great event, followed by a large gathering at Cogan Pill House where there was a supper with beer, whisky and cigars. On New Year's Day the local children used to visit Cogan Pill to sing carols. This custom was carried on until the late 1940s, the number decreasing from about 200 to a handful of small children. Finally no one thought it was worth singing anymore for buns or pennies. The house remained in the Corbett family until the late 1960s when it became the Elizabethan Restaurant and is known today as the Baron's Court Restaurant and public house. There are memorial windows and plaques to the Corbett family at St Dochdwy's church.

In 1979 the site of a Roman villa was uncovered in the centre of the village when a Housing Association commenced work for blocks of flats. The Glamorgan and Gwent Archaeological Trust Ltd started excavations, assisted by many interested individuals. It was to be a very exciting find when indications were that the villa stood on the site between the second half of the 2nd century AD and the middle of the 4th century AD. A skeleton, skull and bones were found. The Romano-British family, possibly farmers, must have enjoyed excellent living conditions. The buildings were built of mortar, the roofs consisted of red pottery tiles and pennant sandstone.

The walls were rendered with plaster and decorated. The floors consisted of red mortar made of crushed tiles and bricks. The main living quarters were found and also a well preserved sunken bath. A last minute bid to save this unique villa proved unsuccessful and the blocks of flats were built.

Transcription note: Transcribed in full from three photographs of the printed pages: the "Llandough (Penarth)" section from its heading on page 64, through page 65, to the end of the section on the following page. The lines above the heading on page 64 belong to the previous entry and are left out. Hyphenated line-breaks are joined. The book's title, author, publisher and date are not visible in the photographs. People named are public or historical figures, or members of the Williams family named in the book as the house's occupiers.

Destination

• Where the original is held: The printed book (title and library holdings to be identified). Photographs of the pages held by the family.
• On this site: this artifact page, listed in the Evidence Register, and cited from the 1988: Possession and Demolition page.
• Image: the photographs are not reproduced here; the transcript stands in for them (third-party copyright).

Interpretation

A local-history account that describes Great House Farm as the home of “Mr John Williams’ family for generations”, beside the church on the site of a Celtic monastery. It records a 1974 petition of 1,700 signatures for the farm’s preservation, the finding of a soldier and his horse under the dining-room floor (remains reburied in the churchyard; visor and lance given to the National Museum of Wales), and Marconi’s stay. It gives the demolition as “during the night of 6th December 1988”, which agrees with NA/GL/88/49 and not with the “Nov. 1988” line on NA/GL/89/208. It names the demolishing party as “British Petroleum Pension Funds”, where NA/GL/88/49 names “B.P. Properties Ltd.”; both wordings are shown as printed. The 1543 and 1793 lines concern the Mansion of Llandough and Cogan Pill House, not Great House Farm, and the 1979 Roman villa was at a separate site in the village centre.

Related records

• Open question: What They Don’t Say register (the two demolition dates)
• Related record: EV-0629
• Related record: EV-0631
• Related record: EV-0630