Thomas Tales

Cathays cemetery covers 110 acres and sits a few miles north of Cardiff city centre. Its gates opened in 1859, and the cemetery quickly filled with the graves of civic leaders, influential Welsh families and the humble faithful who took pride in tending the burial plots of their beloved dead.

Palm Sunday drew thousands of people clutching flowers to the cemetery, some of whom are pictured in this archive photo (right). Click here to read an account of Palm Sunday in the Western Mail from 1859, where the paper refers to the site as the New Cemetery and describes how between 15,000 and 20,000 people went there that day.

At the main entrance to the cemetery on Fairoak Road, horse-drawn funeral carriages would arrive and shelter from the Welsh rain under the gothic archways that linked the Anglican and non-conformist chapels, while mourners filed indoors to bless their lost relatives and friends depending on the dead's denomination.

These two chapels were built by RG Thomas of Newport and Thomas Waring of Cardiff in the year the cemetery opened, and cost £5,200. A bell tower stands between them, and each has its own portico to house a horse and hearse during the funeral services. A third chapel, for Catholic services, was built some time later and stood within the grounds of the cemetery until its structure became so dangerous that it had to be demolished in the 1990s.

Now, in 2009, work has begun to restore these remaining two chapels into buildings that can be used as religious sites and to display the history of Cathays cemetery.

The roofs of both buildings are in desperate need of repair - there hasn't been a service held inside the two chapels since the late 1980s, and since then they have become derelict and dangerous.

Cardiff Council has secured £200,000 to start renovating the grade-II listed buildings, although it could cost up to a million pounds to bring either building back into full working order. To mark the 150th anniversary of the chapels' opening, the Lord Mayor of Cardiff Councillor Kate Lloyd removed the first tile which signalled the beginning of the huge renovation project.

Campaigners who have been lobbying and fundraising to help get the project started gathered in icy temperatures last week to watch the work get under way. Councillors, construction workers and the press were there too, in what was the largest congregation to arrive at the two chapels in twenty years.

Watch the video below of Councillor Lloyd going up to one of the chapel roofs to remove a tile:



You can go and watch another video of Councillor Lloyd surveying the chapels from above by clicking here.

Already, the Friends of Cathays Cemetery are compiling a comprehensive record of the noble and the noteworthy who reside behind the black iron railings, and they hope one of the renovated chapels can house an exhibition recounting the cemetery's history. Famous residents include "Peerless" Jim Driscoll, the Cardiff boxer whose funeral drew 100,000 people onto the streets of Heath and Cathays; airship pioneer Ernest Willows; and William Llewellyn Rhys, reportedly one of the few survivors of the Charge of the Light Brigade whose tomb stone quotes Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Click the Play icon below to hear from John Farnhill (pictured left) from the Friends of Cathays Cemetery.




Cardiff council has a dedicated team who look after all of its cemeteries and the other business associated with them. Martin Birch (right) manages the authority's bereavement services. Click the Play icon to hear him discuss the historic chapels:




Below is a satellite map detailing the boundaries of Cathays cemetery south of the A48 (Eastern Avenue), and the location of the two chapels at the Fairoak Road entrance. Double-click on the map to zoom in, and click the tags for more ground-level images and information.


Click here to view a larger version of this map

From 1859 to 2009 Cardiff has changed immeasurably. Stepping inside the heavy gates of Cathays Cemetery transports you back to a forgotten era of flambuoyant adoration of the dead, of eerie gothic architecture, and of a country steeped in religious rites.

You cannot fail to be overwhelmed by the chapels' imposing presence on the edge of this giant space, despite their aging and scarred appearance. Now with new life and modern means they can be restored to gothic glory and ensure one of Britain's largest and most historic cemeteries can survive for generations as testament to the Victorian's extravagant respect for their dead.

Click through the photographs below to move from 1859 to the modern restoration project:

The start of the new year always brings some recurring questions to a Welshman working in the media.