Notorious courts rife with deadly diseases before their demolition
A HUNDRED and 30 years ago in 1889, Landore Court – or Irish Row as it was also known – in the centre of our beloved capital city was demolished.
In time gone by there were a number of courts in Cardiff and some of these were neat and tidy.
But others like Landore Court, where a number of destitute Irish people had settled when the potato famine had driven them away from their homeland, were appalling.
This little court was situated off St Mary Street between the ancient Golate and the then Queen’s Hotel, which I’m sure many of my readers will still remember.
Some 500 people lived in this little court which had just four public privies, all in a shocking filthy state.
Little wonder that cholera and typhus were rife in the area.
Another notorious place on The Hayes was Waterloo Buildings where the inhabitants lived in squalor until 1860 when it was knocked down after being ruled “dilapidated and unsafe”.
It has been said that there was a time when 30 or 40 of the inhabitants of some of these buildings were dying every day or so of cholera.
One man who had the interests of these hapless people at heart was John Batchelor, whose John Batchelor Friend of Freedom statue stands – with right arm outstretched – on The Hayes.
He died aged 62 in 1883.
His statue was erected three years later and has been moved, if only a few yards, on a couple of occasions since.
A public spirited gentleman, he called for a deep drainage scheme and although it was deemed too expensive,
he kept up the pressure until the scheme was granted.
A staunch Liberal, there was a lot of controversy following the erection of his statue.
He had come to Cardiff from Newport 40 years or so earlier to open a shipbuilding business.
In 1852 he helped to secure the election
of fellow Liberal Walter Coffin to Parliament, much to the wrath of Lord Bute.
Four years after his demise, his statue was smeared with yellow paint and tar and a petition signed by 1,200 people demanded the statue’s removal.
Sometime afterwards, a libel case brought by some of John Batchelor’s friends resulted in the historic ruling that libel of the dead is not an offence in law unless injury is inflicted upon a person still living. But that’s another story.
■ Please send your pictures and stories to Brian Lee, Cardiff Remembered, South Wales Echo, Six Park Street, Cardiff CF10 1XR or email brianlee4@virginmedia.com – please include your telephone number as I cannot reply by letter.