Tag: Cardiff

Some nineteenth century Cardiff archaeologists

January 13, 2023 0 Comments
Some nineteenth century Cardiff archaeologists

Nineteenth century Glamorgan saw the birth and rapid growth of an industrial working class. But also significant was the rise to prominence, and eventually to power, of an enlarged middle class.  Cardiff, though it failed at first to diversify industrially much beyond coal-exporting, found a role as the chief commercial and administrative centre of south-east […]

Continue Reading »

Francis Place, pioneer artist and potter

January 6, 2023 2 Comments
Francis Place, pioneer artist and potter

In the late seventeenth century York was a lively intellectual centre.  The York Virtuosi – modesty was not one of their features – were a group of scientists, historians and artists including the zoologist Martin Lister, the antiquarian and historian of Leeds Ralph Thoresby and the glass painter Henry Gyles.  Another member was a pioneering […]

Continue Reading »

Another day at the cricket

August 13, 2021 0 Comments
Another day at the cricket

This year there’s no county cricket at St Helen’s – dark rumours circulate that it may never return to Swansea – so C and I make the journey to Cardiff.  It’s my first time in Sophia Gardens since I lived in in the city in the 1980s.  At that time there was little more than […]

Continue Reading »

The Londonification of Cardiff

April 21, 2019 6 Comments
The Londonification of Cardiff

It’s a commonplace that the UK has the least well-balanced economy in Western Europe.  While London and its region, dominated by financial and allied services, continue to grow and thrive, the rest of the country is bogged in post-industrial depression, suffering still from the effects of George Osborne’s planned ‘austerity’ (still very much with us, […]

Continue Reading »

Up the Ely river

March 29, 2019 1 Comment
Up the Ely river

Where we start happens to be in south Cardiff, but could be anywhere in the world in 2019.  Apartments are stacked in Duplo’d piles, each block with a ‘concierge’ and a primary colour.  Sheds, with metal roofs shaped in shallow arcs, are home to companies that shelter behind opaque titles, usually including the word ‘global’.  […]

Continue Reading »

Carys Evans and her women

November 6, 2017 0 Comments
Carys Evans and her women

Just over a year since her last solo show in Swansea Carys Evans has another, in the Kooywood Gallery in Cardiff.  Again there are around forty paintings – large and small, on canvas and board, in oils, mixed media and pastel.  A dominant theme runs through many of them – the lives of women.  Not […]

Continue Reading »

Cardiff libraries: a Council dispossesses its people

January 25, 2015 25 Comments
Cardiff libraries: a Council dispossesses its people

Cardiff is a thriving place. Big new developments are announced almost monthly. Recent ones include the new BBC Cymru Wales building near the station, the electrification of the Valleys railway lines and the massive Embankment complex. But while the Council pours resources into stimulating and supporting commercial growth, it leaves some of its basic public […]

Continue Reading »

Wales Coast Path, day 4: Newport from Rumney

April 27, 2014 0 Comments
Wales Coast Path, day 4: Newport from Rumney

The Wentloog and Caldicot Levels are like no other part of Wales. They’re flat lands that lie partly below sea level, protected from the Bristol Channel by earth walls and drained by artificial watercourses – more like the Lincolnshire fens than Wales. Three of us set out, on a fine windless April day, to walk […]

Continue Reading »

Wales Coast Path, day 5: Rumney from Penarth

March 11, 2014 2 Comments
Wales Coast Path, day 5: Rumney from Penarth

At last, a dry bright morning.  C, J and I stroll down past Alexandra Park towards Penarth Pier.  Bafflingly a woman with a small dog says we look like the Three Musketeers.  She may be unaware that the only fences we tend to come across are ones that divide fields. After a coffee in the […]

Continue Reading »