The Greek Church, Butetown, Cardiff

During the 19th century, Greek ships were frequent visitors to Cardiff Docks.  Typically, they would import cereals before being loaded with coal for export to the Mediterranean and South America.  With the passage of time, some Greek sailors began to settle in the area.

As early as 1873, a room was rented for Greek Orthodox worship in Patrick Street, which ran between Bute Street and Alice Street, parallel with Hannah Street.  It was dedicated to St Nicholas, the patron saint of sailors.  It is unclear how long the Patrick Street church remained in use, but it was certainly experiencing financial pressures by 1876 and probably closed shortly afterwards.  The Orthodox community later made use of the local Norwegian Church as well as a nearby ‘small shed’.  In 1903, though, they converted a shop, at 51 Bute Street, for use as a church, as a precursor to erecting their own permanent building.

In 1906, work began on the present-day church, which also serves the Russian Orthodox community in south Wales.  Designed by local architects, James and Morgan, it is located on a site provided by the 4th Marquess of Bute, to the west of Bute Street.  The modestly-sized building is of Byzantine style with a domed nave and an apse at the east end.  It retains the original dedication to St Nicholas.  The interior is very ornate, with a lot of carved woodwork.  The dome and upper walls have painted Biblical scenes in vivid colours with gold decoration.  While the original plans envisaged that side aisles would be added at a later date, these have not materialized.  However, since Mary Traynor sketched the church in 1988, a covered porch has been added at the western end.

David Webb, Glamorgan Archives Volunteer

Sources consulted:

• Mary Traynor Collection (ref.: D1093/1/5)
• Cardiff Borough Records, plans for Greek Church, North Church Street, 1906 (ref.: BC/S/1/16202)
• Hilling, John B & Traynor, Mary: Cardiff’s Temples of Faith (published by Cardiff Civic Society, 2000)
• Webb, Madeleine: ‘A Visit to Cardiff’s Greek Church’, in October 2016 Magazine of the Parish of Pentyrch and Llanilltern
• http://greekorthodoxchurchcardiff.org.uk/
• The Cardiff Times, 20 December 1873
• The Cardiff Times, 17 June 1876
• Evening Express, 8 April 1903
• Evening Express, 30 April 1910

Globe Cinema, Albany Road, Cardiff

The Penylan Cinema opened on 27 August 1914 at 109 Albany Road.  A contemporary newspaper advertisement announced that the whole proceeds for the first three days would be given to the National Relief Fund, which had been established by Edward, Prince of Wales, earlier in the same month.  This was not the Penylan Cinema’s only contribution to alleviating the impact of war since they also offered training to disabled ex-Servicemen; in 1918, it was reported that a number of their trainees had been placed in employment at good wages.

Occupying a large corner site, the building incorporated shops in its Wellfield Road frontage.  By 1930, it had been re-named the Globe and, in March that year, announced that ‘talkies’ would be screened very shortly.  Closed and demolished in the 1980s, the site was incorporated into a new shopping precinct, which preserved its name as the Globe Centre.  The redevelopment did incorporate a small cinema, the Monroe, but this appears to have functioned for a relatively short period before closure.

David Webb, Glamorgan Archives Volunteer

Sources consulted:

• Mary Traynor Collection (ref.: D1093/1/3)
• The Times, 7 August 1914
• South Wales Echo, 27 August 1914
• The Haverfordwest and Milford Haven Telegraph, 24 April 1918
• South Wales Echo, 16 January 1930
• South Wales Echo, 4 March 1930
• Various Cardiff Directories
• http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/19759

Glamorgan County Hall, Cathays Park, Cardiff (now Glamorgan Building of Cardiff University)

Glamorgan County Council was established under the Local Government Act 1888 and assumed its full responsibilities on 1 April 1889.  Initially, the council took on a limited range of administrative functions which had previously fallen to Justices of the Peace.  They also inherited the staff and office of the Justices.  The Clerk of the Peace, Thomas Mansel Franklen, became Clerk to the County Council, whose headquarters remained at County Offices, Westgate Street, Cardiff – though a number of departments were based elsewhere.  While some committee meetings could be held at County Offices, the building was not large enough for quarterly meetings of the full council and, for more than twenty years, these alternated between Gwyn Hall, Neath and Town Hall, Pontypridd.

With the passage of time, and growth in functions and staff, the council began to recognise the need for more suitable central offices, along with a permanent chamber for its own meetings.  They first set up a committee to explore options in 1896 but more than a decade was to pass before the council reached a final decision.

The resolution appointing the 1896 committee stipulated that the chosen site ‘should be within the limits of the administrative county’.  This effectively excluded Cardiff since, as a County Borough, it was outside the County Council’s jurisdiction.  Sites were considered in Ely and Llandaff (neither of which fell within Cardiff’s boundaries at that time), Bridgend, Briton Ferry, Neath, Pontypridd, and Port Talbot.  However, the County Council also received representations from Cardiff Corporation who were ‘anxious that these offices should be placed in the County Borough of Cardiff where the work of the County of Glamorgan has been carried on for many years’.  The Corporation was in the process of purchasing Cathays Park from the Marquess of Bute and offered to discuss providing a site for county offices within the Park.

The committee clearly favoured Pontypridd, where a site could be acquired from Lady Llanover’s trustees in what is now Ynysangharad Park.  However, this was resisted by a small majority of council members.  The whole matter then seems to have been consigned to the back-burner, arising just occasionally in council meetings but without being brought to a substantive conclusion.

In 1903, a fresh committee was appointed to consider the council’s accommodation needs.  The perceived suitability of Pontypridd again came to the fore when an attempt was made to restrict the committee’s consideration to sites in that town, but this was rejected.  Instead, it was resolved that the location of the county offices be deferred until the committee’s report had been received.

In the event, the committee recommended that the County Council should decide between the Llanover site in Pontypridd (if satisfactory terms could be obtained), and a one acre site in Cathays Park, which Cardiff Corporation was prepared to sell for £3,000.  The County Council considered the committee’s report on 25 April 1907 and resolved to proceed with the Cardiff site.  Not surprisingly, this displeased Pontypridd Urban District Council, who decided to arrange a conference of Glamorgan’s Urban and Rural District Councils and non-County Boroughs, for the purpose of protesting against the offices being erected outside the administrative county.  Clearly, though, that was to no avail.

A design competition attracted 190 entries and, in December 1908, it was announced that the winners were Vincent Harris and Thomas Anderson Moodie of London.  On 30 October 1909, the building contract was awarded to Turner & Sons of Cardiff.

The County Council held its first meeting in the new council chamber on 14 March 1912.  Members noted its defective acoustic properties.  They also drew attention to the absence of Welsh emblems in the building and requested that both matters be rectified.  His Majesty King George V was shortly due to visit Cardiff and the Council had hoped that he would open the building.  This, though, appears not to have been possible.  Instead, the minutes of the County Council meeting on 19 September 1912, briefly record that ‘The Chairman formally declared the Hall open and took the Chair’.

With further increases in local authority functions, more space was required and an extension, designed by Ivor Jones and Percy Thomas, was opened in 1932; this does not appear in Mary Traynor’s sketch.  Local government re-organisation in 1974 saw County Hall inherited by Mid Glamorgan County Council – continuing the anomalous location of a council’s headquarters outside its area of jurisdiction.  However, further re-structuring in 1996 left the building surplus to the new unitary authorities’ requirements.  County Hall was acquired by Cardiff University, and re-named the Glamorgan Building.

From 1939, County Hall housed the Glamorgan Record Office, which remained there – even after its acquisition by the University – until the new Glamorgan Archives building, at Leckwith, opened in 2010.

David Webb, Glamorgan Archives Volunteer

Sources consulted:

• Mary Traynor Collection (ref.: D1093/1/6)
• Glamorgan County Council, minutes of council and committees (ref.: GC/CC/1/1-23)
• Glamorgan County Council, files about consideration of sites for County Hall (ref.: GD/C/BU/3-4)
• Pontypridd Urban District Council, minutes (ref.: UDPP/C/1/18)
• Matthews, John Hobson (ed): Records of the County Borough of Cardiff, Vol V, p 236
• The Jubilee of County Councils 1889-1939 – Glamorgan (ref.: Lib/R/25)
• South Wales Daily News, 29 May 1896
• Evening Express, 14 September, 16 October, & 17 December 1896
• Weekly Mail, 6 March 1897
• Evening Express, 18 Nov 1903
• Evening Express, 19 June 1907
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glamorgan_Building