A guided walk through history from Tiger Bay to Cardiff Bay
It is not often that the moment comes along in Cardiff which gives you the feeling, the certainty, that this is us, this is where I want to be, this is what I want to share, this is Wales.
One of my moments came as I was standing on the Cardiff Bay barrage on a sunny winter morning looking North to catch the outline of the mountains that mark the start of the South Wales Valleys.
Over the last 30 years the pace of change in Cardiff Docks or Tiger Bay as it was previously known has been incredible, difficult to keep up with. I had lived in Cardiff during the late 80s and to my eternal regret didn’t venture down to the docks. It was a place rumoured to be of real ill repute, prostitution, murder, drugs and endless mud flats.
I returned to Cardiff in 2002, bought a flat on Mount Stuart Square, one of the most fashionable addresses in what was now being called Cardiff Bay. I watched the construction/opening of the Oval Basin, Millennium Centre, Senedd, the creation of bars, restaurants, an attractive waterfront and hundreds of apartments.
My balcony looked out on to Canal Park, my front windows overlooked the Coal Exchange then a thriving music venue. I really had no idea what had happened.
And being fair to myself, it was and still is difficult to piece it all together, but I got there in the end. I now run walking tours around Cardiff Bay in association with Tiger Bay archive using old photographs to piece together the past and the present.
250 years ago, the Glamorgan Canal was created. An engineering masterpiece navigating a 25-mile, 50 lock journey from Merthyr Tydfil to Cardiff transporting iron to Cardiff. Its path passed my balcony; indeed, as it said on the tin, it is now Canal Park.
100 years ago, Cardiff was the biggest coal exporting dock in the world. 13 million tonnes of coal was exported in 1913. The Coal Exchange was built in 1898 to manage the amount of trade that was going on in the area and setting the international price of coal. The first £1million cheque changed hands in the Exchange; now my favourite music venue.
In 1988, the construction of the Cardiff Bay barrage was the biggest regeneration project in Europe. A 500-acre freshwater lake was created as the waters of the rivers Taff and Ely were halted at the barrage.
Much wealth was generated. Cardiff was the place. It is said the best Edwardian styled city in the UK. Edward V11 and his wife Alexandria were often there.
But to look North, as I did in my moment, we catch a glimpse of the South Wales Valleys, where some 300,000 men, women and children worked the coal mines. They lived another life also with many tales to tell of hardship, community and politics. The scale of innovation, ambition and history in Welsh history can sometimes be overlooked.
Please contact
Lucy O’Donnell – Blue Badge Guide
www.walestours.wales
lucy@walestours.wales. 07525 624285