AREAFEATURE Penarth Te Garden by the Sea
The History 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 and the West Country as well as day trippers 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 visi- tors has greatly declined, the town retains a substantial retired population, representing over 25% 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 town retains extensive surviving
Victorian and Edwardian architecture in many traditional parts of the town, and house prices are usually signifi- cantly higher than similar properties in nearby Cardiff. Penarth is a Welsh place name and could be a combination of the word: pen meaning head and arth mean- ing 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 achievement of arms which depicts bears. Modern scholars have sug- gested that the name is shortened from an original “Pen-y-garth”, where garth means cliff, hence ‘Head of the cliff’ or ‘Clifftops’ and the Welsh-Eng- lish dictionary Y Geiriadur Mawr (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 Welsh ‘Draig Goch’ to denote that the town is in Wales and a sailing vessel recognising Penarth’s long association with sea commerce. The Penarth area has a history of hu- man 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 monaster- ies the ownership transferred to the dean and chapter of Bristol Cathedral. Pirates were prevalent on the coast near Penarth and, in the 1570s, a Special Commission was set up to investigate and suppress it. Lead- ing family members in Penarth were believed to be implicated. Penarth’s medieval walled Sheriff’s Pound, 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 in Plymouth Road. In 1803 Penarth is recorded as having between 800 - 900 acres (3.6 km2) 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 little more than a small rural farm- ing 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, 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 earliest homes built in the town were streets of terraced houses with
DID YOU KNOW...
In August 1966 a 600-ton pleasure steamer, Bristol Queen, hit the pier causing an estimated £25,000 damage.
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www.propertymail.co.uk “ HOUSE PRICES Current
²The majority of sales in Penarth during the last year were terraced properties, selling for an average price of £287,692. Flats sold for an average of £172,310, with semi-detached properties fetching £323,256. ²Penarth, with an overall average price of £295,073, was similar in terms of sold prices to nearby Dinas Powys (£307,225), but was more expensive than Cogan (£186,097) and Llandough (£251,816). ²Overall sold prices in Penarth over the last year were 6% up on the previous year and 18% up on the 2014 level of £249,744.
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, quar- ried from what is now Cwrt-y-vil play- ing 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 and Steep Holm. 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. The development of the town con- tinued to be rapid and Penarth soon became self-sufficient with its own local government, a thriving shop- ping centre and many new commu- nity facilities. What is now the main shopping area of Windsor Road was
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