50/50 VISION of a HALF AND HALF CAPITAL

The Towns of Wales by Harold Carter, 1965, University of Wales Press
Cardiff: Half and Half a Capital by Rhodri Morgan. 1994, Gwasg Gomer

In 1965 Harold Carter made some prescient observations on the role of Cardiff as the capital of Wales in the final pages of The Towns of Wales.  It was then only ten years since Cardiff had been so designated and Carter suggested that there were two major sources from which a national capital should derive its importance;

·        Its primary practical function as the centre of government and administration and

·        Its symbolic function of creating and maintaining national unity as the focus of national sentiment

In the fifty years since Harold Carter made that observation Cardiff has consolidated its position as the largest urban and commercial centre in Wales and withstood challenges as to its legitimacy as a regional capital on both counts.

In the transition from the colonial governance of the Welsh Office to the form of devolution narrowly secured in the referendum of 1997 this was of course a close run thing. The failure to reach agreement on the use of Cardiff City Hall as home for the National Assembly re-opened the debate as to whether it should be the centre of government. The arguments for and against this were rehearsed by Carter in 1965 who concluded that the designation of a capital city in a modern state would inevitably generate conflict between the effectiveness as centre of government and as a symbol of nationhood. He noted that another problem particular to Wales was the nature of its urban culture or, more correctly, the absence of it. 

The first proposition that he put to support this was that Wales, as a nation, had not grown from a single nuclear area which was widely recognised as a capital. The desire for a ‘capital’ was then (in the 1950’s) largely a practical or administrative consideration with some recognition or concession that if Wales was a ‘nation’ it should have a capital.

Carter’s second proposition concerned what was then a lack of independent political existence and, to some extent, remains valid. The question is to what extent political power must be devolved for Wales to be considered an independent sovereign state. As matters stand, the designation of Cardiff as a ‘capital’ in the political sense appears to remain one of administrative convenience, albeit one which now has its own civil service. It is the centre of a regional tier of government within the sovereign state of Britain. Carter’s conclusion that any real claim to be the political capital was questionable can then only be contested as to the degree of autonomy currently enjoyed.

The third proposition put by Carter raises deeper rooted questions in suggesting that the indigenous culture of Wales was essentially non-urban and that towns have tended to be the centres of English speech and attitudes. There is then an inherent problem that urban centres cannot be symbolic of a non-urban culture. There is that strain of nationalist sentiment that romanticises an often imagined past and commends virtues associated with a society and way of living of which there is little left outside heritage compounds. Carter notes that this volkisch sentiment may coalesce with the residue of C19th nonconformity and be represented as ‘a Welsh way of life’ and “However real and valuable this may be, it certainly is not epitomised by modern urban society (p355)”.

On the matter of nonconformity and its influence on Welsh life a point may be noted in passing on the development of Cardiff from the mid C19th. The 2nd Marquess of Bute was an autocratic high church Tory but his tolerance of other religions was evidenced by mosques, synagogues, catholic churches and other places of worship that were built on his lands in and around Cardiff. What are very hard to find on any of the former Bute estates in Cardiff are nonconformist chapels. This probably reflected the establishment view of the 2^nd Marquess and his ilk that chapels were where radical politics were fermented and disseminated.

The relevance of this passing point is that the nonconformist chapel can be said to be one of the defining features of the Welsh cultural landscape. That is to say that chapel buildings define both the urban and rural view elsewhere but, due to Bute estate policy, did not and do not define the urban landscape of Cardiff. Those chapels that do exist appear in the main to have been built on areas of land not controlled by Bute. Over the larger area the dominant religious buildings were churches aplenty – Anglican/ Church in Wales or Methodist but most distinctly churches not chapels. In this respect Cardiff did not LOOK like other Victorian settlements in Wales.

Returning to Carter’s propositions he stated in conclusion that, in terms of national pride, the title of capital must inevitably be awarded to a settlement of some size which might reasonably fulfil the functions which it inherits. In the 1950’s the conflicting and irreconcilable desires thus gathered around the determination to give the nation a capital. Cardiff – the head of the economic hierarchy- was the obvious answer, yet it meant accepting an urban symbol of non-urban culture, an anglicised capital of the Welsh nation. It also housed several national institutions including the National Museum and the University of Wales giving it some more general cultural legitimacy. Perhaps, however, the most obvious symbol of national sentiment was Cardiff Arms Park at that time. To most people this is now a given but should be noted that in 1955 even that had not been the ‘national’ stadium.

“The year before capital status was granted, resentment of the city had grown amongst rugby supporters in the west after the Welsh Rugby Union decided to hold all future international matches in Cardiff because the facilities and profits were better there. This may not have been universally popular but it did at least give Cardiff some relevance in the wider Welsh community. In the absence of the traditional apparatus of a nation state, sport played an integral role in developing and sustaining a popular sense of Welsh national identity.”(Johnes,M.  Making of Cardiff, 2012)

This was reiterated by Rhodri Morgan in his 1994 book, Cardiff: Half-and-half a Capital (p17). 

Cardiff Arms Park’s position as the ‘national’ rugby stadium was consolidated through further works ahead of the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games which brought the overall capacity of the stadium to 60,000. The rebuilding of Cardiff Arms Park into a modern National Stadium in the 1970s coupled with the success of the national rugby team gradually made the city a more genuine focus for Wales and Welsh pride. That was a factor, albeit coupled with the economic rationale that underpinned the City Council’s support for its reconstruction as the Millennium Stadium when the Welsh Rugby Union considered building a new stadium at Island Farm in Bridgend ahead of its bid to host the 1999 Rugby World Cup.

Antipathy to the city has, however, persisted and remains an underlying factor fifty years after Carter made his observations. It informs the discussions relating to the recognition of the city region which is, again, largely a matter of political distinction. In the social, cultural and economic landscape city regions have been a given throughout history as is the centrepital force exerted by major settlements referred to in earlier blogs. What Carter highlighted in his 1965 work was that the two periods of significant urbanisation in Wales were;

·        Imposed during the Norman/ Angevin occupation and,

·        Exploitative in the course of industrialisation.

Given that Cardiff is also centred on the pre-urban nuclei of Roman fortification and the Victorian port was built by the Irish for a Scot some consideration might be given to that theory that it must inevitably be viewed as an alien settlement in Wales. It was, and remains, one of the least Welsh place in Wales.  On the other hand Carter's notion that an antipathy to urbanism is embedded in the DNA of the Welsh may be considered fanciful. It may well be in there somewhere and, indeed, have much to do with the terrain of Wales, the inherent challenges that this presented to communication historically and the concomitant parochialism of its scattered communities. In recent years the capital has been the object of envy and resentment not pride among many in its hinterland. This may have much more to do with recent political relationships and perceptions of economic disparity between the city and other parts of Wales.  

It is worth then revisiting Rhodri Morgan's 1994 piece which raised many supplementary questions almost thirty years after Carter's observations. It closes with comment on forms of political autonomy for Wales which preceded the devolution referendum by some 3 years and Rhodri's ascent to the status of First Minster of Wales by three more. The questions it raises appear to remain relevant even now, not least the question raised above as to the degree of 'indpendence' that has been achieved to date and whether that has consolidated or supplemented the status of Cardiff as a 'capital'. As Rhodri Morgan notes in the closing page;

"Perhaps it is easier to assert the right to a share of political control if you do not feel in the beggars can't be choosers position" (p82)

It might be said that Wales remains, over fifteen years after devolution, the beggar at the back door of a bankrupt kingdom. Economically it is not independent but is in fact saturated with a dependency culture. 

Furthermore the devolution process itself emphasised or even exaggerated the 'half-and-half' aspect of the country, let alone Cardiff's status as its capital;

 “…….an unfortunate fault line between the city and the National Assembly- a relationship whose dysfunctional side has been symbolic of Cardiff’s relationship with Wales itself. You can, according to taste, blame this dysfunctionality on inescapable institutional rivalry or on personalities, on Assembly Ministers or on the adversarial approach of the city’s leader, Russell Goodway, in the Assembly’s early years. That the relationship has been a little fractious should not surprise anyone as there is always tension between city governments and the tier above.” (Talfan- Davies, At Arms Length, 2008, p285)

Harold Carter’s 1965 study was a hugely important contribution to understanding the spatial structure and character of human settlement in Wales through a detailed examination of the patterns of its component parts and the process of its development. However, in revisiting his observations on Cardiff one must also consider the sources and instruments of power deployed in the subsequent re-shaping of the south of the city Cardiff and its evolution as a ‘capital’. Revisiting Carter’s work is a reminder that urban morphology must necessarily be supplemented by consideration of institutional structures and how settlements have, historically, been shaped by those who command the necessary resources. The 50th anniversary of its publication should be officially marked and more widely celebrated by the architecture  and planning professions in Wales 

????

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1973 - The year it all went to shit

Two years ago there was little coverage of the 40^th anniversary of the year when ‘The Sixties’ were finally dead and buried, 1973. Perhaps the media are waiting for the Golden Jubilee, or more appropriately, the Rust and Shit Jubilee that the year deserves. It may by then be recognised how significant 1973 was and how it marked a watershed. Many of the events of that year may have largely passed from immediate memory but have echoed since. For example, Britain was recovering from the after-effects of a boom, which had been fuelled by cheap credit and consumer confidence, followed by a banking crisis. As the UK Government announced its economic recovery policy the Opec nations, aggravated by the latest Arab-Israeli conflict, quadrupled the price of oil. Sound familiar?

Some things have of course changed dramatically but can be seen to flow from the events of that year. The response of the Miners Union to the counter-inflationary wage capping proposed by the government was a 40 per cent pay claim which triggered a State of Emergency. When asked by the Prime Minister, Edward Heath, what he wished to achieve in that dispute the Scottish miners' leader, Mick McGahey, is supposed to have replied that his aim was to effect a change of government. In the event a hasty general election was called and fought on the issue of "Who governs Britain?"  The people’s choice then was a minority Labour government. 12 years later the issue was to be decided more conclusively in favour of a Conservative government. Thirty years after that, in the wake of this week’s general election, a pair of maps have been circulating on the internet illustrating the coincidence of the remaining Labour vote and the former coalfields of the UK 

 (https://twitter.com/VaughanRoderick/status/596967966647971840?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=fb&utm_campaign=VaughanRoderick&utm_content=596967966647971840)

It can be argued that 1973 signalled the rise of middle-class dissatisfaction and that the subsequent wage and price inflation of the following five years contributed to this. That impacted on middle-class living standards, effectively eroding the differential between white-collar and blue-collar salaries during the decade and the determination of the trade unions to preserve or close wage differentials was then perceived to be a form of ‘proto-communism’. Were those who voted for Thatcher in 1979 thus drawn into a class war?

 “If the 18 years of Conservative government that followed had an animating force, then it was the resolve of the affronted British bourgeoisie to get a little of its own back, and the explanation lies here in the world of Slade singing "Merry Christmas Everybody", Edward Heath's barking voice resounding over the radio, the television set suddenly failing, and the curious sensation invoked in the breast of every civilised person by the sight of a street-full of houses at dusk where, mysteriously, no light shines.” (DJ TAYLOR Independent Sunday 29 December 2013)

The antics of the Far Left certainly assisted the paranoiac rantings of the right wing press through the 1980’s. As they could only portray the hapless Miliband as ‘slightly weird’ rather than ‘Loony Lefty’ the recent election campaign saw new bogey-men emerge to engage the attention of an Even Further Right. However, among these is the old stalwart Europe. On January 1st 1973 Britain officially joined what was then called the Common Market - the EEC. What was perhaps most depressing about last week’s election results was the apparent vote in favour of kicking Europeans out of Britain rather than Britain getting out of the EEC. The cold comfort is that the latter issue might serve to rip the guts out of the Conservative party over the next few years. The harsher truth is that within the former coalfields UKIP came in second to Labour in several constituencies.

1973 presaged an uglier and less optimistic world and the release of The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd that year was remarkable in that it anticipated rather than reflected the zeitgeist of the following decade. Roger Waters’ sixth-form doggerel does not of course match the gravitas of ‘September 1 1939’ by WH Auden (who died in 1973) whose words still reverberate from a year more widely accepted as changing the world forever.

They certainly came to my mind watching last week’s election results;

" Exiled Thucydides knew

All that a speech can say

About Democracy,

And what dictators do,

The elderly rubbish they talk

To an apathetic grave;

Analysed all in his book,

The enlightenment driven away,

The habit-forming pain,

Mismanagement and grief:

We must suffer them all again."

In short, to paraphrase Auden, we face the prospect of another lower and more dishonest decade. As suggested above, the decade of 'The Sixties' started around 1963 and was finished off in 1973. There was demarcation, depressingly so in the USA with the assassination of JFK in the USA, but in Britain The Beatles first number one, 70,000 people marching from Aldermaston  and the slide of the Conservative party during the Profumo affair gave cause for optimism. It appeared to signal a new and better era and Harold Wilson led the Labour party to victory the following year. For those of us who were fortunate to spend our childhood or teens in that decade the future appeared bright. Wilson's first Labour government introduced an era of liberalisation and social change including the relaxation of laws on censorship,homosexuality, abortion, immigration and divorce. Capital punishment was abolished. The emphasis was on social change and increasing social opportunity, particularly through improvement and expansion of the education system and developing rapid scientific progress - the 'White Heat of Technology'. It seemed possible that one day everyone would have a Ford Cortina and eat cheese fondue.

However, what Wilson's governments failed to do in that and later tenures was significantly improve the long term economic performance of Britain. Whilst not personally committed to nationalisation Wilson presided over an era which saw public ownership of badly managed major industries. These and other sections of the economy were badly hit in the global economic crisis precipitated in 1973. Those who had acquired homes in the prosperity of the 1960's were left exposed by inflationary interest charge rises following the Secondary Banking Crisis of that year. The sixties were over and the rot was in. Those who had prospered were keen to conserve what they had gained. Wilson eventually resigned in 1976 with a peerage, littering honours on his cronies in the infamous Lavender List. 

The altogether more malignant strain of Tory that emerged under Thatcher in 1979 threatened all of the aforementioned social advances of the 1960's. The consolidation of the power of their successors in last week's election will almost certainly lead to further social division.  If the Labour party is to defend what was achieved until 1973 it has to rebuild from the bedrock of support in its traditional heartlands. These, as suggested above, are the former coalfields and industrial centres of Britain. The traditional values and objectives of the Labour Party remain relevant in these areas. They are not conservative because they have fuck all to conserve. The harsh statistics presented by the poll are not the whole picture. Other measure affirm a more optimistic picture, not least the fundamental sense of decency, fair play and social commitment evidenced by levels of voluntary work and charitable giving in Wales which, per capita, shame the Conservative constituencies of middle England. 

In Wales there is therefore a very specific challenge given the measure of regional devolution and a Labour party in control of the Assembly. The fightback needs to start here with a labour party that can demonstrate to the rest of the UK that social, if not socialist, policies are in everyone's best interests. We have to deliver the best healthcare, education and an enviable environment. Those who oppose such aspirations must be viewed as enemies of this infant state.  Last week's vote suggests that the Conservative party may not be the principal object of concern. The whingeing scum who voted for UKIP in the valleys need to be told that immigration is not the problem - they are. The Labour party needs to be committed to the pursuit of excellence in Wales, to social justice and the ideals that led to the 1964 election victory. We have to be tough on UKIP - tough on the causes of UKIP.

For richer or for poorer

Some more before and after shots of Cardiff.....

Bottom of St Mary Street - Custom House

Hayes Bridge Road looking north - Homfrey Street on right

Bridge Street looking west - Mill Lane in distance

Top of Bute Street looking south from railway bridge

Railway bridge at top of Bute Street near junction with Bute Terrace

Churchill Way

Cory Hall and YMCA

Davies Street looking south

Docks post office

Drill Hall, Dumfries Place

The Mountstuart - corner of Bute St and James Street

For better or for worse......

Some before and after shots of Cardiff......

Looking south down Bute Street

Custom House Street junction with Bute Street

Canal at castle

Mill Lane

Queen Street Station and bridge over Newport Road

Wood Street and Royal Hotel

St Mary's Butetown

The Hayes looking north

Bute West Dock Basin - Oval Basin (Plas Roald Dahl)

THE FUTURE OF THE VALLEYS

The BBC Wales documentary on the future of the South Wales Valleys broadcast on 16 March 2015* may be justified as provoking debate but what is desperately needed is intelligent and rational discussion of the issues. Engineering yet another confrontational exchange may be the default setting for those making cheap television but will do little to address the deep rooted social and economic problems of this or other parts of Wales. All too often any meaningful progress has been retarded by this approach in which reasoning turns quickly to rhetoric.

The documentary did little to properly explore the issues that were raised by Jonathan Adams in his IWA paper entitled A Catalyst for Reshaping the Valley Towns. The key point is in the word ‘reshaping’ and the prevailing tone of the trailers and the programme implied some vague proposal for a latter day Highland Clearance. The suggestion originally made by Jonathan Adams was neither ‘radical’ or ‘controversial’ as claimed by the narrator of the documentary and can in fact be seen  to be a simple reiteration of observations made in the South Wales Outline Plan of 1949;

 “ One of the major tasks facing the present generation is to devise means for rejuvenating the (mining) valleys…. The environment of those who live and work in these valleys must be radically improved……. The dual objective of physical planning in these (mining) areas must be to so ameliorate present conditions that industry can function more efficiently, and that those living there and dependent on it can do so in surroundings, and as part of a social structure, comparable with the best standards of modern neighbourhood planning”(South Wales Outline Plan 1949, p19)

The 1949 plan also suggested that the clearance and ‘thinning out’ of outworn dwellings was part of this process of renovation together with better communications, schools and community centres and recreation facilities. An underlying point is that the settlements in that particular area were dysfunctional from the time they were built. The 1949 plan recognised that the impact of coal mining on forms of urban development  was the rapid unplanned construction of “dwellings anywhere and anyhow” and an “untidy sprawl of towns and villages”. In short the settlements were produced by an inherently toxic combination of economic imperative and challenging topography. The proposals by Jonathan Adams are then more optimistic than the view of the great urban geographer Harold Carter in The Towns of Wales in 1965:

“The general character of these towns is, unfortunately, only too well known, and modern planning can do but little to improve it”

It is not then a novel debate nor did the documentary make any new observations. Those settlements that were the focus of the programme were largely the product of coal mining, an industry which grew from the 1850’s in that area, peaked in 1913 and progressively declined until   1989. In short it is 25 years since it’s been gone and 40 years since Max Boyce recorded Rhondda Grey and the issues are still not being discussed rationally.

The relationship between the Valleys and Cardiff was again raised as a contentious issue although that should be recognised as being symbiotic since BEFORE the industrialisation of South Wales. Cardiff relied upon its hinterland when its principal export was butter. Industrialisation must be seen to have been entirely dependent upon transport infrastructure for only with the construction of railways and connection to docks at Cardiff would the mining industry and ports grow from the 1840’s.  Communications remain central to the overall prosperity of the region and this has, again, been a standing issue since the South Wales Outline Plan of 1947;

 “As to regional communications, drastic improvements are called for ……. Though geographical circumstances in South Wales, and particularly in the mining valleys, often cause difficulties in attaining that end” (P10)

The documentary also did a disservice to the counter arguments for the Valleys.  Clearly there has been a need to address the catastrophic decline in the mining and other industries of South Wales.  As was pointed out in the course of the programme interventions in the form of factory building to create and diversify employment have been undertaken since the 1930’s when unemployment in the Valleys was around 40%. Interestingly the first major initiative, even then, involved the establishment of the Treforest Trading Estate on 272 acres of land closer to the coastal belt. The Distribution of Industries Act 1945 granted extensive powers to the Board of Trade for;

·        Building factories in the old ‘Distressed Areas’ and providing finance for industrial estates.

·        The provision for grants or loans to be made available to industrialists willing to establish factories in in these areas and

·        Financial aid for improvement of basic services and clearance of derelict sites

From the 1970’s there were the land reclamation programmes, industrial estates and other major interventions of the Welsh Development Agency. These so-called ‘regeneration’ initiatives have undoubtedly mitigated the full impact of industrial decline but, overall, GDP figures and other statistics suggest that the Valleys are falling further behind the European average. The area remains consistently at the top of league tables for inequalities of poverty, health and education.  Since devolution over £1.2bn of European aid has been spent in the Valleys and West Wales and nearly £300m on flagship Communities First projects to reduce poverty and empower the poorest areas in Wales. As to the latter the Welsh Assembly's Public Accounts Committee suggest that such initiatives have failed and the conclusion must be that small community based projects, as worthy and well intentioned as they are, will not in themselves reverse the damaging legacy of massive industrial decline.  

A forty minute television programme is not going produce a solution to the problems of the Valleys. From the outset the people who live there had to confront adversity from the nature of the predominant form of employment itself, mining, and the nature of the people who employed them. That history of struggle might even be said to inform the tenor of the argument put on their behalf in that television programme which was one of aggressive sentimentality. It most certainly colours their response to proposals emerging from Cardiff, London or Brussels and therein lays another problem. City regions have been a given through the course of human settlement and the vocal denial of this fact by those who claim to represent valley communities has retarded initiatives which might benefit the region and there is every sign that they will continue to do so. The deep seated parochialism of the Valleys communities can be represented as local pride and independence but there will come a time when the world will decide it can move on without them. 

    

The people of Wales and many elsewhere fully recognise that there is a unique history and character in the South Wales valleys and acknowledge that it has contributed significantly to a distinct regional identity. However, it may well be the case that more negative perceptions will be formed by the repeated claims that their lifestyle choice to remain there must be perpetuated by permanent subsidy of others in wider society. That was the impression given by those opposing Jonathan Adams proposition and a much more positive and constructive approach and tone may be needed to avoid further alienation of the Valleys from other communities in Wales. My first job was in Cardiff Docks and there was a tacit understanding that I would be obliged to go there i.e. they weren't going to bring the boats around to Skewen to save me the bother. 

*http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05gndqz/how-green-is-my-valley-a-future-for-the-valleys

WOLF HWYL II - Neath Abbey

As a footnote to the preceding blog Richard Cromwell, the character played by Joss Porter in the BBC adaptation of Wolf Hall, was born by 1502 in the parish of Llanishen, Glamorganshire.  He was the great-grandfather of Oliver Cromwell, and one time owner of Neath Abbey. He was the eldest son of Morgan Williams an ‘aspiring Welsh lawyer’ who moved to Putney and set up as an innkeeper and brewer. Williams was married to Katherine, sister of Thomas Cromwell and both Morgan and Richard would benefit financially through the familial relationship with Cromwell, the younger taking his uncles surname.

Sir Richard Cromwell, a soldier of some note, was introduced to the Court of Henry VIII and was active in the dissolution of the monasteries. Among them was Neath Abbey which was surrendered to Thomas Cromwell in 1539. The site and demesnes at Neath were first leased to Richard Cromwell who then bought the site and demesnes along with a large part of the abbey’s other estates in South Wales for the sum of £731.0s.7 ½d in 1542. The same year he sold on the grange and chapel at Nash, lands in St Brides, Wick and Marcross and the vicarage of St Donats to Sir Thomas Stradling. The Grange at Sker was sold to Christopher Turberville. 

In the course of the 16^th century the site and demesnes at Neath were acquired by Sir John Herbert, second secretary of state to Elizabeth I and James I who rebuilt the former abbot’s house into a large country manor house. (See preceding blog for The Herberts). The remains of that Elizabethan house form the south elevations of the remaining 'abbey ruins'. In the absence of a male heir the estate passed to the Doddington family and then to the Hoby family. In 1699 Mrs Hoby died, and her daughter Katherine, who was married to Griffith Rice of Dinefwr, Carmarthenshire, inherited the bulk of the property. 

The estate remained in the hands of the barons Dynevor until it was sold in 1946 but during the C18th the abbey fell on very hard times. By 1731 it was being used for copper smelting and subsequently as part of the nearby Neath Abbey Ironworks. The Tennant Canal was driven through its south side in the 1820’s and Brunel ran the Vale of Neath railway on an embankment along what would have been the north side of the abbey church in the 1850’s. Various copper works were built on the adjacent river bank through the C18^th including the Mines Royal and Cheadle  It remained in a state of extreme dereliction half buried in industrial detritus which was cleared by volunteers in the 1920’s and 30’s.

Through the 1950’s and 1960’s the town rubbish tip was located across from the abbey on the canal bank. For a short time the ground on the west side of the abbey was used as a greyhound track and then a motorcycle speedway in the early 1960’s. That area is now covered with the Neath Abbey industrial estate facing the A465 dual carriageway and a large used car showroom.

Described by John Leland just before its dissolution as ‘the fairest abbey of all Wales’ it has remained behind a Ministry of Works fence. The setting of the abbey ruins remains an utter disgrace but they are occasionally put to profitable use by BBC Wales when they need a noble ruin completely untroubled by visitors. It should not be beyond the limited wit of Cadw and local planners to formulate a long term plan to incorporate the abbey ruins into a programme of work which would embrace local marshland, the adjacent River Clydach and the Tennant Canal into an attractive local amenity.

This could perhaps be done by the 500^th anniversary of its dissolution in 2039. It would be best not to wait until 2112 and the millennium of its foundation as an abbey…….

WOLF HWYL

The current preoccupation of the BBC with all things Tudor prompts the following account of Cardiff in that period. Whereas in many accounts of the modern city year Zero is 1814 and the ascendancy of the Second Marquess of Bute to the lordship of Cardiff Castle that title, and control of the related lands, may be traced back directly to the later Tudor period. That landholding originated in Royal gift in the C16th and the direct succession of title of the estates of the Lordship of Cardiff from 1547 – 1947 provided the foundation for the exponential development through the C19th which, in turn, secured for what had been a small mediaeval settlement the eventual status of city, capital and seat of government in the C20th.

This earlier history is every bit as colourful as the period of its origin. The source of the Bute family interests may be seen to originate in the grant of lands by Edward VI to William Herbert in 1547, the title passing by inheritance and marriage to the Bute family in 1766. The grant of land and titles to William Herbert between 1547 and 1549 was in reward for his services to the Crown which included the suppression of a rising in favour of the old religion in the West Country. In the course of that campaign it was estimated that some 10,000 peasantry and yeomanry were slain (Thompson 1930 p110).

Herbert ( c. 1501 - 1570 ), was the eldest son of Sir Richard Herbert (‘ Ddu ’) of Ewyas , bastard of William Herbert (d. 1469 ), earl of Pembroke of the first creation.  Described as a "mad fighting fellow," the young Herbert was noted for his intense ambition, fierce temper and hot-headed nature. He left his early employment as a gentleman servant to the earl of Worcester when he fled to France to avoid arrest for killing a city sheriff in Bristol. He joined the service of the French King Francis I, as a soldier earning royal favour for his martial skills and a recommendation to the service of Henry VIII  who much valued him, and heaped favours and honours upon him.

Herbert's first wife, Anne Parr, was sister to Catherinr Parr, sixth wife to King Henry VIII from 1543. He rose with the Parrs after his sister-in-law's marriage and from 1545 and 1546 acquiring in course the lordships of Miskin, Glynrhondda, Llantrisant, Neath Ultra and Neath Citra, the manor and Borough of Neath and the town of Briton Ferry. He was created Baron Herbert of Cardiff  and earl of Pembroke in 1551 and accumulated other lands and offices in South Wales , including the lordships of Usk , Trelleck , and Caerleon. As an executor of Henry VIII 's will, he became a governor to the young King Edward VI , one of his privy councillors and a Knight of the Garter.

After the death of Edward VI, Herbert initially supported (some would say initiated) the plot to crown lady Jane Grey of 1553 having married his eldest son and heir, Henry to her sister, Lady Catherine Grey. When it became clear that Mary Tudor would take the throne as Mary I Herbert cast his daughter-in-law out of the house and had the marriage annulled. Lady Jane and her father were subsequently executed for high treason in 1554 and, having distanced himself from the Grey family after their fall, Herbert secured the new queen's favour by crushing Thomas Wyatt's rebellion and commanding her army in France in the campaign of 1557.  

He remained in favour under Elizabeth , who made him ‘ custosrotulorum ’ of Glamorgan in 1567 and lord steward of her household in 1568 . He further increased his estates by purchasing the Llantarnam monastic lands but finally lost favour through his support of the proposed marriage of the duke of Norfolk to Mary , Queen of Scots. He died on 17 March 1570 , and was buried in S. Paul's.

It must be noted that this William, Earl of Pembroke had a brother, Sir George Herbert, who inherited the Craddock Estates in Swansea from his mother and, following the dissolution of the monasteries, acquired the Grey Friars property in Cardiff. When he purchased the friary lands he also purchased land in Llanishen, Llysfaen, and Roath. This may have been an opportunistic acquisition and not necessarily a royal gift. Sir George Herbert was, however, ‘granted’ Tewkesbury and Margam by the King and also land at Cogan, near Cardiff, where he built a house and the adjoining lands at Llandough. His son built a mansion at Cogan Pill and his grandsons were Sir William Herbert of the Friars, John who was secretary to both Elizabeth I and James I, and Nicholas who was MP for Cardiff 1584-5.

As Sir George Herbert had a son and grandson both called William and it is important to make a clear distinction between the two family lines. The Pembroke line holds Cardiff castle and the estates in Glamorgan which eventually pass to the Bute family by succession and marriage. That line has a significant role to play in the patronage of art and architecture in Britain, less so of that in Cardiff directly. To clearly differentiate reference will be made to Sir William, grandson of Sir George Herbert, as Herbert of the Friars. He inherited the Grey Friars monastery adjacent to the castle and used its materials to construct a mansion which he called ‘The Friars’ which that branch of the family occupied until circa 1730.

"By the late 16th Century, Cardiff’s finest house graced the land where once the Greyfriars stood. The grand stone Tudor mansion complete with bays and fine windows, became known variously over the years as the Friars, Whitefriars, or Herbert House. This was the home of Sir William Herbert (1548-1610). However, in contrast to the grace and beauty of his house, he appears to have been a rogue of the first order!"

Sir William Herbert of The Friars and his brother Nicholas were, by the colourful account of Herbert Thompson, of a belligerent and quarrelsome nature  (Thompson 1930 pp111-113). In 1576 he had to appear before the Council in the Marches in connexion with a brawl between his servants and those of inveterate foes William Bassett I of Beaupré and William Carnein which a constable was ‘grievously hurt’. In the same year an appeal was made to him as a piracy commissioner to rescue a foreign victim of pirates under the protection of his powerful kinsman, Sir John Perrot, but he declined to intervene. Tudor Cardiff was rife with piracy and goods plundered from the shipping routes to and from Bristol were  landed into South Wales, especially Penarth and Cardiff.

Herbert of the Friars was variously a Knight, a Justice of the Peace, and served as Sheriff of Glamorgan but far from upholding law and order, he exploited his position ruthlessly, and made significant personal gains through collaborating with pirates and shielding them from justice. One of the most notorious of them, John Callice was even a guest of Herbert’s in his mansion at the time of one investigation. The successive  investigations by the Admiralty and the Privy Council were hampered by Herbert intimidation of the local populace and he and other prominent South Wales citizens, were simply fined and bound over for their dealings. In addition to those authorities concerned with suppressing piracy Herbert of the Friars also troubled those concerned with other aspects of law and order. Actions were brought against him in the Star Chamber alleging that he had contravened crown grants by disposing of property while he was Sherriff of Glamorgan. He was again called to the Star Chamber concerning  a dispute between borough and county over the building of Cardiff bridge in 1577-87, and in 1596 when the bailiffs of the town sued on charges of rescuing his servants from Cardiff gaol, procuring by intimidation a partial coroner’s verdict on a townsman who was killed, and threatening to have the borough charter annulled. Herbert was back the following year for another Star Chamber action, accused of using ' 400 of the posse comitatus to overawe the town and to rescue a kinsman, leaving the bailiffs helpless, the town in an uproar, and peaceful citizens afraid to stir abroad. In the end, he was fined 1,000 marks, but he retained his seat on the council in the marches'.

Some will just remember the remains of The Friary which remained a Cardiff landmark until the late 1960s, when it was shamefully demolished and replaced by the Pearl Building, more latterly known as capital Tower. Others might conclude that this is perhaps a more fitting memorial to the lawless and corrupt Herbert than that in St John's Church, Cardiff.

Further references; 

 Thompson, H. M. (1930). Cardiff. Cardiff, William Lewis.

- See more on Tudor Cardiff at the excellent : http://www.thepennypost.co.uk/2011/05/08/cardiff-history-the-forgotten-rogue-of-tudor-cardiff/#sthash.C9zMFsgU.dpuf

on William Herbert at

http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/member/herbert-william-i-1539-1609

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