Penarth Baths

Penarth is about 4 miles from Cardiff. The swimming baths have now been converted into apartments. I have fond memories of swimming there as a younster when I stayed with relatives in Penarth. The baths were unusual in that they used sea water.

Victoria Park

Back to Cardiff, enjoy the park flowers.

Chippenham [2]

I thought I'd show you some of the town's older houses and the church. When we visited we got hold of a walking tour guide to the town and wandered around all the places it mentioned. Guides this are a really good idea because its so easy to miss some real gems if you dont know about them. A town well worth a visit.

Chippenham

Chippenham, Wiltshire, is about 60 miles east of Cardiff.

Its an old town and its importance can be dated back to King Alfred AD849 - 899, who when he was king of Wessex had a palace here. Alfred at that time was trying to supress the Viking invasion. After a few battles he decided to try for peace so by paying them from his treaure chest he managed to persuade them to return to northern Britain.

Here's what it looked like in Tudor times.

The Yelde Hall is just about the oldest building in the town, over five hundred years. It served as council chamber, court room general meeting room and underneath, the town jail.

A council session in the Yelde Hall

I'll show you more later.

Barry Island [ the final posts]

This is what the island looks like today. The chapel in the previous post is in the middle of the new housing development on the Island. These houses are built on the site of the former holiday camp.

and this is what it looked like in its heyday as a holiday camp.

Barry Island - St Baroc's chapel.

This is all thats left of the Chapel.

Below is an extract from the British History site.

Barry is supposed to have derived its name from St. Baruch, a disciple of Gisalch, who was interred here in the year 700. In later times, it was in the possession of the family of Barri, one of the most distinguished members of which was Giraldus de Barri, otherwise Cambrensis, who was born at Manorbeer, in the county of Pembroke, where the remains of their castle may still be seen: some of the descendants of this family afterwards settled in Ireland, and became ennobled. Leland describes it as bearing "very good corne, grasse, and sum wood;" and says, "Ther ys no dwelling in the isle, but ther is in the midle of it a fair litle chapel of S. Barrok, wher much pilgrimage was usid."
From: 'Barry - Bettesfield', A Topographical Dictionary of Wales (1849), pp. 68-81. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=47799. Date accessed: 17 March 2008.

Watchtower Bay - Barry

Sticking with the Barry theme for a while, this is just down the hill from the castle. You can see the watchtower in the top picture. Double click and there's Barry Island in the background.

Have a good weekend.

Barry castle

Barry is 12 miles along the coast from Cardiff and is probaly best known for its funfair and as a 1950's holiday camp resort. The fair is a now shadow of its former self and the holiday camp has been replaced by executive houses. But it has a castle, and a fair bit of history, however it's out of the way and I suspect not many bother to look for it. So just for you.......here it is.

Cardiff Bay Barrage

High spring tides together with winds are forecast to cause storm surges for this week, so lets hope the barrage keeps everything behind it calm.

Bonsai

Lori's post of bonsai trees prompted me to post this.

Can you remember the film "Karate Kid" and how his mentor Mr Miagi tended his bonsai trees ? Well, Mr Miagi said that the best bonsais came from trees that were growing in rock crevices, and thats were I found this one. So it must be about 10 years old now.

I will post some more pictures when its in leaf.

Burn out

We came upon this scene when cycling on Sunday. Huge flames, exploding tyres and smoke billowing everywhere. The car was completely gutted, but no one hurt.

Cotswolds

Its ten to six on a Saturday evening, you have spent the day cycling the Cotswolds lanes with a great bunch of people, so what better way to end it than with a meal and a few beers.