160 YEARS OF GRANGETOWN

GRANGE Farm is surrounded by terrace houses.

But 800 years ago, it was the only building in a sea of marshland.

It was an outpost, and legend has it monks were sent there from Margam as penance for drinking and gambling.

While there has been a building there for hundreds of years, until the mid 19th century, it was said to be the only building between Cardiff and Penarth.

The bustling Grangetown we now know is more recent – and 2017 is 160 years since the boom which eventually led to the creation of one of the city’s suburbs.

But it almost wasn’t even called Grangetown...

The land on which Grangetown was built was owned by Baroness Harriet Windsor-Clive, who also owned Grange Farm.

It had been suggested the area should be named Clivetown but the Baroness didn’t agree.

She wrote: “The subject of a name for the new Town we may now expect to see spring up on the Grange and he (son Robert Windsor-Clive) is more disposed that it should bear the name of the locality rather than that of ‘Clive’. ‘Grangetown’ would be very suitable for various reasons and is I think the best – the name of ‘Clive’ may appear for the principal street.”

How was it built?

Local historian Steve Duffy said that it was in 1857 that Grangetown got its name as that was the time that land started being leased off.

At that time, there was little in the area, what we now know as Penarth Road was a dirt track but homes and buildings did start popping up.

Cottages had to be built to house the mainly immigrant population.

Industry began to grow, including a rope works, brick yard and gas works.

Lower Grangetown came first – Clive Street, Holmesdale Street, Kent Street, Worcester St, Amherst, Bromsgrove, Knole, Sevenoaks and Hewell Street – all established by 1880.

The Grange National School opened in 1864.

In 1857 a new act of Parliament allowed Lady Windsor to mortgage farmland.

The money paid for new roads and