We Are Cardiff contributor Jeremy Rees is recording his days in and around Cardiff with 100 photographs of local points of interest. We’ll be publishing some of them here on We Are Cardiff – and make sure you tune in to Jeremy as he presents the Saturday Soulful Breakfast on Radio Cardiff!
St John’s Church
“Today’s picture is of a detail from the arched entrance to the 12th Century St Johns Church in Cardiff. I love this building and as I walk past it most days I imagine this won’t be the last you’ll see of it if you are following these random posts. There is something about this particular carving that makes it so real sometimes I think it’s about to speak…”
We Are Cardiff contributor Jeremy Rees is recording his days in and around Cardiff with 100 photographs of local points of interest. We’ll be publishing some of them here on We Are Cardiff – and make sure you tune in to Jeremy as he presents the Saturday Soulful Breakfast on Radio Cardiff!
The hidden chapel of menswear
“I give you the curiosity of the Chapel in the middle of the House of Fraser (ex Howells) department store. Evidently when the shop wanted to expand sometime after the war, it simply built around the structure standing next to it – which happened to be the Bethany Chapel. There it remains – and if you stand in the shirts section and look up you can clearly see the whole front facade, still intact.”
We Are Cardiff contributor Jeremy Rees is recording his days in and around Cardiff with 100 photographs of local points of interest. We’ll be publishing some of them here on We Are Cardiff – and make sure you tune in to Jeremy as he presents the Saturday Soulful Breakfast on Radio Cardiff!
My Butetown street
“I’ve always had an interest in the history of where I’ve lived and I much prefer living in places that have a sense of connection with the past than a new development. The street I now live in was built as homes for seafarers and people who worked in the Docks, my house dates from 1896 and has survived two World Wars and the rampaging bulldozers of Cardiff Corporation in the 60s. But things are fast changing, a chapel dating from 1902 was demolished just a few months ago to make room for new flats at one end, and this week planning permission was granted for yet another one at the other end at the former seaman’s hospital. I know things do have to change, the population is fast growing and people need places to live, but I can’t help thinking we are losing more than just the buildings when the wrecking balls move in, we risk losing part of our identity too.”
We Are Cardiff contributor Jeremy Rees is recording his days in and around Cardiff with 100 photographs of local points of interest. We’ll be publishing some of them here on We Are Cardiff – and make sure you tune in to Jeremy as he presents the Saturday Soulful Breakfast on Radio Cardiff!
The multi-cultural buildings of Wood Street
“If you look closely you can see that these buildings in Wood Street Cardiff are unusual in that the stones used in their construction are a mix of various colours & textures. There are several examples of this in the city, but these are probably the most obvious, I love the story as to why this is. In the heyday of the coal industry millions of tons of the stuff was exported from Cardiff Docks to places all over the world. The ships that carried it needed to be weighed down to make the journey back, and so the same tonnage of stones from the country receiving the coal was dispatched back to the docks – where local builders could buy it very cheaply – hence so many of the old buildings in the City are constructed from a mix of stones from the four corners of the world.”
We Are Cardiff contributor Jeremy Rees is recording his days in and around Cardiff with 100 photographs of local points of interest. We’ll be publishing some of them here on We Are Cardiff – and make sure you tune in to Jeremy as he presents the Saturday Soulful Breakfast on Radio Cardiff!
The Stone Fox
“The Stone Fox of Bute Park. At the heart of Cardiff is the castle – part medieval, part Gothic Victorian kitch. The park that surrounds it is beautiful, and peering over its wall is a wonderful collection of stone animals. This is my favourite – the crafty fox…”
We Are Cardiff contributor Jeremy Rees is recording his days in and around Cardiff with 100 photographs of local points of interest. We’ll be publishing some of them here on We Are Cardiff – and make sure you tune in to Jeremy as he presents the Saturday Soulful Breakfast on Radio Cardiff!
The Queen Street clock
“Today I give you a clock in Queen Street, Cardiff. It commemorates the centenary of the local paper ‘The South Wales Echo’ in 1984. It got me to thinking about how much reading a newspaper used to be part of my life every day, but now I get my news online and buying a paper is a rarity. So much has changed since that clock was installed 30 years ago – I wonder how long it will be before that newspaper is consigned to history – and who will then pay the bill to have the clock mended when it brakes down or needs to be put forward….”
We Are Cardiff contributor Jeremy Rees is recording his days in and around Cardiff with 100 photographs of local points of interest. We’ll be publishing some of them here on We Are Cardiff – and make sure you tune in to Jeremy as he presents the Saturday Soulful Breakfast on Radio Cardiff!
The Non Pareil Market
“A mystery… Nearby where I live in Cardiff Bay (The Docks as it’s still known to many) there is a arch into a small housing development. Inlayed into the brickwork is a stone from a much earlier time bearing the words ‘Nonpareil Market 1889′. I pass by this arch often and wonder what the market sold and what happened to it. Oddly though, I can find no record of it either online or in the local history books – but it is clear that I’m not the first person to try to find out. All I can glean is that Nonpareil was the name of a sugar plantation in Guyana, South America – I know that many Guyanans settled in Tiger Bay and the Docks so that may be a clue, but as to where the stone came from and why it’s there, that’s still a mystery.”
Do you know about the origins of the Non Pareil Market sign? Leave us your comments below…
We Are Cardiff contributor Jeremy Rees is recording his days in and around Cardiff with 100 photographs of local points of interest. We’ll be publishing some of them here on We Are Cardiff – and make sure you tune in to Jeremy as he presents the Saturday Soulful Breakfast on Radio Cardiff!
The Old Bank in Bute Street
“The grand sandstone building at the centre of today’s picture is The Old Bank in Bute Street, Cardiff. In the heyday of the docks and the coal industry it was a bustling financial centre where the worlds 1st million pound cheque was cashed. These days the building is home to many small organisations including too that I volunteer for myself – REF and ACE Cardiff – so I spend quite a bit of time for one thing or another. I was there today with the VCS Stall at a community event. The grand hall is magnificent – but today, boy was it cold!”
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