Radyr (; ) is an outer suburb of Cardiff, about northwest of Cardiff city centre. Radyr is part of Radyr and Morganstown Community, for which the 2011 Census recorded a population of 6,417.
Morganstown is north of Radyr, on the other side of the M4 Motorway. Neighbouring communities are Whitchurch to the east on the opposite bank of the River Taff, Pentyrch to the west with St Fagans and Llandaff to the south.
History Stone Age until the Norman Conquest Evidence of Stone Age occupation of the Lesser Garth Cave near Morganstown was discovered in 1912 and included worked flints. In 1916 excavation of a mound of in Radyr Woods revealed charcoal and Iron Age pottery. Radyr developed after the Norman invasion of Wales at the start of the 12th century and formed part of the Welsh Lordship or cantref of Miskin under the Lordship of Glamorgan created by the Norman King, William Rufus, in 1093.
Origin of the name Hints about the derivation of the name Radyr can be found in Lifris's writings Life of St Cadog, written between 1081 and 1104 but relating to the earlier period around AD 530, which mentions a croft or tref on the site called Aradur Hen. Lifris also tells the story of Tylyway, a hermit who was held to have lived on the banks of the Taff. Tylyway's cell is the most likely origin of the name Radyr; from the Welsh yr adur, meaning "the chantry", although Arudur Hen is also possible.
Norman occupation and Middle Ages
The Norman motte in the "mound field" is a flat-topped mound in diameter at the base and high, surrounded by a ditch wide. An adjoining bailey to east of the motte could indicate the boundary between Norman and Welsh land. The motte was surrounded by a timber palisade around a wooden keep and formed part of a defensive line with similar mottes at Thornhill and Whitchurch. The early settlement that became Radyr developed around the Norman church and manor house in what is now Danescourt. Surveys in 1307 describe an agricultural hamlet surrounded by arable fields. The 14th century Welsh Lord of Radyr, Cynwrig ap Hywel, followed by his descendants, farmed the area until it was devastated by the Black Death and by battles between the Marcher Lords in 14th and 15th centuries when the whole area was laid waste.
Mathew family
In 1469 Thomas Mathew (died 1469), the third or fourth son of Sir David Mathew (died 1484) of Llandaf, inherited the land by marriage to Catherine, heiress of Radyr, and built Radyr Court, a manor house on the site of what is now the Radyr Court Inn in Danescourt. The house was used as a court. Although it was destroyed by a fire in the 19th century, the three large dungeons survived and can still be seen at the Inn. On Thomas' death, his lands passed to his eldest son David and then to his younger son William Mathew (died 1528), who was knighted by King Henry VII at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. Sir William accompanied Henry VIII to the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. His successor was his eldest son Sir George Mathew, who became MP for Glamorganshire and in 1545 Sheriff of Glamorgan.
Sir George created a deer park that ranged far north of Radyr. Tenant farmers there were evicted, and the loss of rental income contributed to the decline in the family's fortunes. He had 24 children, eight of whom were illegitimate. Many were daughters, and Sir George needed large sums of money for their dowries. On his death Sir George's lands passed to his eldest son William, who also became an MP and invested in the Pentyrch ironworks. This was an astute move as feudalism was giving way to early industrialisation. William's descendants inherited a diminishing fortune. Captain George Mathew, the last of the family to live in Radyr, married Elizabeth Poyntz, and the couple left Radyr to live on her estates at Thurles in County Tipperary, Ireland in 1625.
Stuart period Radyr's new owner was a wealthy landowner, Sir Edward Lewis, who was knighted by James I. Sir Edward owned St Fagans Castle and its surrounding lands, scene of the Battle of St Fagans in the English Civil War. The Lewis fortune passed to Elizabeth Lewis, who married Other Windsor, 3rd Earl of Plymouth, the principal landowner in Cardiff, Penarth and Barry.
A survey in 1766 shows that the Plymouth family owned the freeholds of most of Radyr. It continues to do so today. Plymouth Estates sold of residential land in Radyr in 2007.
Development from the 18th century Many residents of Radyr worked in the Melingriffith Tin Plate Works, on the other side of the River Taff in Whitchurch. The works opened in 1749 and closed in 1957.
Samuel Lewis' 1849 Topographical Dictionary of Wales says of Radyr:
"A parish, in the poorlaw union of Cardiff, hundred of Kibbor, county of Glamorgan, in South Wales, 3½ miles (N. W. by W.) from Cardiff; containing 279 inhabitants. This parish probably derives its name, signifying "a cataract," from the rushing waters of the river Tâf, by which it is bounded on the north-east. It was formerly comprehended within the hundred of Miskin, but has been recently separated therefrom. It comprises about eleven hundred acres of arable and pasture land, inclosed and in a profitable state of cultivation: the surface is in some parts elevated, and in others flat, but nowhere subject to inundation; the soil is a strong brown earth, favourable to the production of good crops of grain of all kinds, potatoes, and hay. The substratum is partly a hard brown stone, and partly limestone of very good quality. Radyr Court, formerly the seat of the family of Matthew, ancestors of the late Lord Llandaf, has been partially taken down, and the remainder has been modernised, and converted into a farmhouse. The turnpike-road leading from Cardiff to Llantrissent passes a little to the south of the parish; and the Tâf-Vale railway runs through it, nearly parallel with the river, which is crossed by the line in this vicinity. Some of the inhabitants are employed at the iron-works in the parish of Pentyrch.
The living is a vicarage, endowed with £200 royal bounty; patron and impropriator, the representative of the late Earl of Plymouth, who is lord of the manor: the tithes have been commuted for £113. 9s. 0d, of which a sum of £38. 9s. 0d is payable to the impropriator, and a sum of £75 to the vicar. The church, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, is a neat plain edifice, with a curious turret at the west end. There is a place of worship for Calvinistic Methodists; a Sunday school for gratuitous instruction is held in it, and another at Radyr Court. In the parish is a spring of very cold water, called Y Pistyll Goleu, "the bright water-spout," issuing from the side of a hill, under a considerable depth of earth over a limestone rock: it has by some writers been termed mineral, but it is not known to possess any other properties than that of its extreme coldness, which renders it efficacious in curing sprains and weakness of the sinews."
Until the mid 19th century Radyr was a collection of small farms, crofts and cottages, but after Radyr railway station opened in 1863, the population rose from 400 to more than 600 in 20 years. The Taff Vale Railway and its successor, the Great Western Railway, brought significant employment to Radyr. Junction Terrace (the first street in Radyr) was built to house the railway workers. It was the start of strong demand for housing in Radyr that transformed the hamlet. The Barry Railway's Walnut Tree Viaduct, built in 1901, dominated the village for some 70 years.
Wartime
In the First World War the community raised funds for a "Radyr bed" at the nearby Welsh Metropolitan Military Hospital in Whitchurch and established a "Citizen Guard" made up of those too old or too young to enlist. Losses suffered by the village are recorded on the War Memorial in Heol Isaf.
In the Second World War thousands of children were evacuated from metropolitan areas such as London, Birmingham and Liverpool. One evacuee from Woolwich, Patricia Armstrong aged nine, was knocked down by a passenger train and killed on a Saturday afternoon in May 1943 while using the Gelynis foot crossing at Morganstown. She was lodged with a family in Morganstown. As air raids on Cardiff increased, even younger children from Radyr were evacuated to boarding schools at Rhoose and Bridgend.
Post-war history An extensive housebuilding programme started in the 1960s, and Radyr's population grew rapidly — particularly children. In 1964 Radyr Primary School had 135 pupils on its roll. This number more than trebled in the next decade. A new development, the Danescourt estate, was built on land surrounding Radyr Court and St John the Baptist parish church, and the land was officially incorporated as a suburb of Cardiff in 1974. Danybryn Woods, near the development, was retained as the entire forest is protected by a tree preservation order and is home to many species of plants and wildlife. Radyr railway station was renovated in 1998 and the tracks through the station were renewed, reducing journey times to Cardiff city centre.
In 2017 construction started on the first phase of a new Cardiff suburb of 7,000 houses, named Plasdwr, on countryside along the Llantrisant Road between Radyr and St Fagans.
Governance
UK Parliament and Senedd Radyr is in the Cardiff West parliamentary constituency and the Cardiff West Senedd constituency.
Cardiff Council Radyr electoral ward (often known as Radyr and Morganstown) has one seat on Cardiff Council and had an electorate of 4,368 (1 May 2008). The ward elected a Conservative, Roderick McKerlich, in the election of May 2008 and he was re-elected in 2012 and 2017. Cllr McKerlich is a member of the Council's Environmental Scrutiny Committee.
Community Council Radyr and Morganstown Community Council is funded by an addition to the Council Tax bill paid by local residents. The Community Council is run by 11 elected councillors from three wards in the parish – Radyr North (4 seats), Radyr South (3 seats) and Morganstown (4 seats) - subsequently increased to 12 councillors (4:4:4).
Geography Geological structure The surrounding soils are mostly a strong, brown, dry earth, well adapted for arable farming and the growing of grains of all kinds that contributed to the area being a mostly farming community until the modern era. Soils were further enriched over the millennia by alluvial deposits from the River Taff. The bedrock under the whole area is predominantly sandstone, dating from both the Devonian period (Old Red Sandstone) and the Triassic (New Red Sandstone) laid down in arid conditions.British Geological Survey 1977 geological map sheet (England and Wales) no 263 Cardiff These may subsequently have been ground down by the Taff valley glacier during the last ice age around 18,000 years ago. Radyr Stone is a Triassic breccia used widely for decorative work in the Cardiff area, including Llandaff Cathedral, Cardiff Docks and in the bridges of the Taff Vale Railway.
Radyr Weir
The River Taff at this point runs roughly south through Taff's Well, past Radyr and through Llandaff.
Radyr Weir was built in 1774 to divert water into a leat to the Melingriffith Tin Plate Works. The weir is the third obstacle to migratory salmon and sea trout — the others being Llandaff Weir and Blackweir, both of which also have fish passes. Since the early 1980s, the salmon and sea trout stocks in the Taff have been recovering from nearly 200 years of industrial pollution and exploitation. In 1993 the National Rivers Authority monitored over 500 salmon and 700 sea trout returning to the river to spawn.
From 1749, iron from Pentyrch was initially transported to the works using pack-horses, then tub boats were used on the Taff passing onto the feeder via a lock at Radyr Weir. Parts of this lock can still be seen beside the feeder sluice. In 1815 the tub boats were discontinued and a tramway built along the Taff. There is a public picnic site by the Radyr weir.