St Mary's Gardens, Whitchurch
The central feature of the Gardens is the outline of the remains of old St Mary’s Church which served the community from at least the 1500’s, the time of the Tudors. At that time, a chapel was built on the site, possibly replacing an older one. It gave the area its name: Eglwys Newydd (New Church in Welsh), or Whitchurch (White Church in English), because it was lime washed. Although minor alterations were made over the centuries the shape of the chapel remained basically the same. There is an anonymous nineteenth century painting, currently housed in The National Museum of Wales, that gives an idea of what the church looked like.
From the 1500’s until the Industrial revolution in the nineteenth century, Whitchurch was a scattered farming hamlet with a population too small to qualify as a parish with its own vicar. Llandaff Cathedral was its Parish Church and the local people had to go there for baptisms, weddings and funerals, and to receive mass at Christmas, Easter and other major festivals. On ordinary Sundays a priest came out from Llandaff to St Mary’s to conduct the obligatory Sunday Mass. In this way it was a Chapel of Ease, saving the local people from the long distance to Llandaff. In 1616 the parishioners were given greater ease when the Chapel was licensed for christenings, marriages and funerals and the churchyard was licensed for burials.
Yew—also called the Churchyard Tree—was
planted at St Mary’s. One yew is the oldest tree in the churchyard and,
it is believed, in North Cardiff. It looks the worse for wear following
a century of neglect but it is hoped that its health can be restored
and it can live, as yew trees can do, for many more centuries.
At
the beginning of the nineteenth century development of the
Melingriffiths Tinplate Works and other industries changed Whitchurch
from a small agricultural settlement to an industrial one. Incoming
workers and their families caused a population explosion which placed
ever-increasing demands on the church. The numerous Victorian
gravestones in the churchyard are a fascinating social record of the
time. There are memorials to the local important families such as the
Bookers, three generations of whom managed the Melingriffiths Works and
were well known local philanthropists.
There is a poignant group
of gravestones to the Lewis family, who were politicians and major
landowners in North Cardiff. The graveyard also gives a vivid picture of
the more ordinary people, recording their professions and trades and
giving glimpses into their personal lives. Only those social groups too
poor to afford a gravestone are missing.
Because of its
population growth, in 1845 Whitchurch was promoted to a parish in its
own right with its own resident vicar. St Mary’s was no longer a humble Chapel of Ease
but a fully functioning Parish Church. However these glory days lasted a
brief forty years. By now the churchyard was crowded with gravestones
and the church building was felt to be too small. The third vicar of
Whitchurch, the Reverend J.T. Clarke made it his mission to acquire a
new site for a modern church which would seat 400. In 1885 the new St
Mary’s in Penlline Road was consecrated. Suddenly after centuries at the
heart of the village the old St Mary’s had had its day and was
abandoned literally, without ceremony. It was the end of a long era
during which this site had been of central importance to Whitchurch.
The
church then became neglected and decayed. By 1904 Old St Mary’s Church
was considered dangerous so it was pulled down. Until 1967 the brambles
were cleared from the graves annually and burnt on the site, but then
even that came to an end – to the distress of those who had family
buried there. The closed churchyard had now become what seemed an
insoluble problem. There followed 70 years of wrangling between the
Church-in-Wales and local authorities as to who should take
responsibility and what should be done with the land. Then a visionary
solution presented itself which should have ensured this site remained an asset to Whitchurch forever.
In
1972 Edward Heath’s Government brought into being a scheme known
popularly as “Operation Eyesore” with the aims of giving grants to ‘improve
the appearance of neglected and unsightly land in assisted areas, to
remove local eyesores and to create additional jobs in those areas.’
Because
of the overwhelming number of applications throughout the U.K. the
Government closed the scheme almost as soon as it opened. However
Cardiff County Borough Council had acted swiftly and got their foot in
the door. In July 1972 they received a grant of £14,500 to take the
derelict churchyard off the hands of the Church-in-Wales and turn it
into a Public Open Space. A junior member of the Parks Planning
Department, Richard Coleman, was given the task. Most of what is known
about the 1972‒1974 creation of St Mary’s Gardens by Richard Coleman,
comes from Terry Davies, a distinguished horticulturist and Grand Old
Man of Cardiff Parks.
Before Richard was allowed to move a
single stone in the churchyard Whitchurch Parish Council stipulated that
the location and text of every gravestone had to be recorded. A further
important preliminary was the gathering of the remains of over 1,000
bodies and their re-internment with due rites away from the proposed
site of the Public Gardens. Now Richard could move on with his plan for
the Gardens.
All the trees from the churchyard, apart from the
seventeenth century yew and a Victorian yew, had to be removed as they
had become diseased after nearly a century of neglect. The collapsing
walls were renovated with matching stone and the gravestones, apart from
the most prominent, were moved to line the walls. Others were used to
pave Richard’s intriguing path design and the outline of the church
which he had controversially decided to retain.
With the enormous
task of getting the basic structure in place achieved, Richard moved on
to the planting ‒ and ran into trouble with his bosses over the cost of
his exacting requirements. It is believed that there has never been a
source of water in St Mary’s Gardens so perhaps that is why Richard’s
extensive planting left out bedding plants and consisted of 28 types of
heathers, shrubs and specimen trees.
The old entrance to the
churchyard had been replaced with a new opening made in Old Church Road
and Richard wanted an appropriate gateway. Terry Davies said:
‘Richard
looked at various Lych Gates. He designed one for SMG and a contractor
was engaged to build it. He was criticised for the saloon bar
swing-gates because they were immediately seized by local children as
play equipment and the hinges regularly broken despite the City
Engineer's efforts in installing stronger and stronger, hinges.’
The children’s fun was eventually curtailed by the installation of metal gates.
Finally
a full-time park-keeper/gardener was appointed with a hut in the south
west corner of the Gardens. The Park was officially opened to the public
only two years after receiving the Government Eyesore Grant. Later that year it won First Prize in a Wales in Bloom Competition. For a brief decade the Gardens remained a significant feature of Whitchurch.
In the 1980’s, under Margaret Thatcher, the Compulsory Competitive Tendering Policy
came in which prioritised economy over everything else. The first cut
made by Cardiff Parks’ Department was the St Mary’s Gardens’ Park
Keeper. Thereafter the Gardens with its shrubs and young exotic trees
remained untended. In an extraordinary repetition of history, it again
became neglected and largely forgotten, with many residents unaware they
were even allowed on to the site.
Despite difficulties, the
achievements of the St Mary’s Volunteers must be applauded. They are
regularly recorded as carrying out the most volunteer hours of any
Cardiff Parks’ volunteer group. This, along with the over £6,000
fundraised by the Friends, finally persuaded the Parks Department to
allocate one of their finest young Rangers as a regular Ranger for the
Gardens, and 2023 was therefore the most successful year to date. In
collaboration with Rhodri the Ranger the volunteers have a clear plan
for major progress in 2024 towards restoring the Gardens to a resource
of which Whitchurch can be proud. Zoe said that she had enjoyed
immeasurable fellowship and fun in the Gardens and they had never failed
to be magical for her.
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