THE TRUTH ABOUT CARDIFF MYTHS
Ever heard people talk about Cardiff’s secret tunnels and wondered why you’ve never seen them? What about the fact that the world’s first million-pound cheque was signed in the city or that it’s home to ‘Europe’s biggest housing estate’? They’re all claim
THE CITY WAS ONCE DESTROYED BY A TSUNAMI
Truth factor: Possibly true In 1607, at least 2,000 people are believed to have died when huge swathes of South Wales were flooded.
For centuries, those who survived called it an act of God, before modern scientific research began to delve into whether it was Britain’s first recorded tsunami, with a seven-metre high wave destroying towns, villages and badly damaging Cardiff, including St Mary’s Church.
Author Mike Hall investigated the clams it was a tsunami in a book published in 2013. He said evidence tell of a “bright, sunny, cloudless day” but says it is not conclusive and he believes the event was “probably” a storm surge.
ELY IS ‘EUROPE’S BIGGEST COUNCIL ESTATE’
Truth factor: False (now) Until the late 1970s, Ely and Caerau did make up Europe’s biggest council estate. Now, Becontree in Dagenham is seen as the biggest, followed by Wythenshawe in Manchester.
JIMI HENDRIX ONCE WOKE UP ON AN ISLAND IN ROATH PARK LAKE AFTER A GIG
Truth factor: Maybe Hendrix visited the Welsh capital twice in his short life, in spring and then winter of 1967. On his first visit, in April 1967, the Jimi Hendrix Experience appeared low down on the bill at the Capitol Cinema among other acts The Walker Brothers, Cat Stevens and Engelbert Humperdinck.
By the time he returned to the ’Diff on Thursday, November 23, 1967, he headlined at a sold-out Sophia Gardens Pavilion. As our columnist I Loves the ‘Diff points out, given the second visit was in winter, surely even for a rock star it would be too cold to cwtch up on Roath Park Lake island.
A SECRET TUNNEL RUNS BETWEEN CARDIFF CASTLE AND CASTELL COCH
Truth factor: Unlikely (but there are lots of tunnels) Cardiff ’s secret tunnels have long been a mystery. Many speak of them but documentary proof is lacking.
There are rumours the treasure of Ifor Bach, a former owner of a castle on the same site as Castell Coch, is reputedly hidden in a tunnel which leads to Cardiff Castle.
There are tunnels we know of – there used to be one between City Hall and the law courts. City Hall used to provide the heating to them but it was filled in during the 1980s.
Cardiff Castle has its own network of tunnels between the ground floor and battlement level – they were used as air raid shelters in WWII. There is also one in the Greyfriars Road area which artist Simon Fenoulhet explored in 2014.
A book, called Cardiff Castle, which was published in 1923, spoke of a passage “discovered on the south bank of the Dock Feeder where it passes through the Greyfriars enclosure. The opening passage is 2ft 3in wide and on entering it, a tunnel runs westward towards the castle”.
BUFFALO BILL APPEARED IN CARDIFF THREE TIMES
Truth factor: True In 1891, Buffalo Bill arrived in Cardiff for the first of three visits.
On the first day 20,000 people paid between one and four shillings at two performances, coming by special train, boat and on foot. By the end of his stay, 124,000 had watched in four days.
The show opened with Sioux and Cheyenne from the Great Plains whooping into the arena, followed by cowboys with guns blazing then Buffalo Bill on his glorious grey charger raising his famous white hat.
It was “cowboy against Indian” on horseback with Annie Oakley ready to show her uncanny shooting skills. She’d been with Bill on his first visit for Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887.
The highlight was Buffalo Bill riding at full speed across the arena shooting targets thrown into the air. Bill came back to South Wales twice during the early 1900s.
THE WORLD’S FIRST MILLION POUND CHEQUE WAS SIGNED HERE
Truth factor: Maybe It’s long been stated as fact that either the first £1m cheque or first £1m deal was done in Cardiff’s Coal Exchange building.
However, Victoria Rogers from Cardiff Story Museum says there’s no actual evidence from it at the time.
The story began in a newspaper years later with reference to a cheque, but with a lack of evidence some said it was a £1m deal. Victoria says it is “entirely plausible” that such a deal was done – coal was one of the most sought-after commodities in the world – but if you want to see a copy of the cheque, you’ll struggle to find one.
CARDIFF IS HOME TO THE UK’S LONGEST-SETTLED MUSLIM COMMUNITY
Truth factor: True Yemenis are the longest established Muslim community in Britain, and Cardiff is home to the oldest Yemeni community in the UK.
The links began in the 19th century when Cardiff was one of the world’s most famous coal ports. All around the world were “coal bunkering” ports, located in strategic sites for boats to dock, restock and set off again.
Workers were recruited in those ports to work in the engine rooms and one of the most important was in Yemen. Academics believe Yemeni workers earned just a third of their British equivalents. Most of that salary was sent back to Yemen to support family members.
SPILLERS IN CARDIFF IS THE WORLD’S OLDEST RECORD STORE
Truth factor: True Spillers was founded in 1894 by Henry Spiller when he opened a shop at Queen’s Arcade. It holds the Guinness World Records title of the world’s oldest shop selling records.
CAPTAIN SCOTT SAILED ON HIS ILL-FATED VOYAGE FROM CARDIFF
Truth factor: True(ish) It is a tale that has spawned a lighthouse, a pub and much, much more. But the Terra Nova’s journey to Antarctica didn’t actually start in Cardiff.
The ship, with Captain Robert Scott at the helm, had left London and arrived in Cardiff to collect coal.
But the generosity of both financial backers, and those providing gifts and items in kind, meant that Scott re-registered the Terra Nova with Cardiff as her home port and promised the city would be the first port of call when the ship returned. There were huge financial donations and the total of expedition funds raised in Cardiff was some £26,000, more than the rest of the country put together.
It was an epic trip but an unsuccessful one. As promised, one day short of three years after it left Cardiff, on June 14, 1913, the Terra Nova returned from Antarctica to her berth at the Roath Basin. Thousands came to visit the ship.
DEATH JUNCTION GOT ITS NAME BECAUSE OF CAR ACCIDENTS
Truth factor: False Death junction joins Albany Road, City Road, Crwys Road, Mackintosh Place and Richmond Road. It’s a tricky place to cross the road but its nick-
name of Death Junction isn’t because of that.
In 1770, the gaol, where people were housed before execution, was on St Mary Street, at the site of Cardiff Market. Once sentenced to death , prisoners would have to walk all the way to “Death Junction” from the gaol.
This 1.5-mile route would take them past the castle and down Queen Street, leaving Cardiff via the east gate before having to walk through Crockherbtown, down Newport Road and up City Road. The walk was seen as a final humiliation before death, and the sight of shackled prisoners walking through busy streets would draw crowds to the hanging ceremony.
ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST FEARED PIRATES CAME FROM THE CITY
Truth factor: True Captain Morgan was one of the world’s most feared pirates – and he was born in Llanrumney.
Sir Henry Morgan didn’t actually make rum (his image was used as a marketing ploy) but he was a big fan of it. He sailed to the Caribbean and went on to plunder wealthy Spanish cities, seizing islands, fighting battles, boarding treasure ships and earning a fortune.
His legend lived on in the 1935 Swashbuckler Captain Blood, starring Errol Flynn, loosely based on Morgan’s life. And he is one of the inspirations of the Hollywood blockbuster series Pirates of the Caribbean.
A little bit of Wales has carried on in Jamaica, where there is also a Llanrumney, an estate Capt Morgan himself named.
As well as being home to one of the world’s most famous pirates, Cardiff in fact had a bit of a reputation as a pirate port. Before the city was reconfigured, Quay Street was indeed home to a quay. It was the main entry point into the city along the southern Bristol estuary and the pirates would disembark and sell their goods in premises in and around Womanby Street.
THE STAR OF PSYCHO FOUND HIMSELF IN FRONT OF CARDIFF MAGISTRATES
Truth factor: True Oscar-nominated New Yorker Anthony Perkins shot to fame playing deeply disturbed mummy’s boy Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. But in 1989 he found himself arrested on drugs charges as a result of a mix-up bizarre enough to have been lifted straight from the pages of a Hollywood script.
The then 57-year-old star was staying at Cardiff’s Angel Hotel while in town filming a series of mystery films for HTV based on the books of crime author Patricia Highsmith.
However, before leaving the States, he decided to take a small amount of cannabis – which he’d grown in his own Los Angeles backyard – and post it to his new, temporary address in the UK.
Unfortunately for Perkins, the package arrived before he managed to check in and was mistakenly handed to a completely different Mr Perkins, staying at the hotel at the same time.
That guest opened it to find some suspicious contents sealed in baking foil and informed the hotel management who, in turn, called the police.
Appearing at Cardiff Magistrates’ Court, Perkins admitted to being “deeply embarrassed” by the offence of illegally importing 1.3g of cannabis with a street value of just £4.50 – enough to make up no more than six cigarettes’ worth – and was fined £200.
CARDIFF HAD A GIANT
Truth factor: False On October 16, 1869, workers digging a well behind the barn of a man called William Newell claimed to have found something incredible.
It was a 10-foot-tall “petrified” man which became known as the “Cardiff giant”. But not only was it made up but it didn’t come from the Welsh Cardiff but Cardiff in New York state.
It turned into one of America’s most famous hoaxes.
ROATH PARK USED TO HOST SWIMMING AND WATER SKIING COMPETITIONS
Truth factor: True Now best-known as a lovely spot to walk or hire a boat, Roath Park Lake used to have many other uses.
Swimming competitions were held at Roath Park Lake in 1895 and water polo was first allowed June 1905. A water polo pitch was provided in 1924.
The Taff Swim was held in the River Taff before moving to Roath Park Lake in 1931, where it continued to be held until 1963. Rowing and water skiing competitions were also held at the lake. In the 1960s it became the venue for the annual Welsh Open Water Ski Championships.
BILLY WAS A MALE SEAL
Truth factor: False Victoria Park’s best known inhabitant was a seal called Billy but HE wasn’t all he was first believed to be.
Council minutes from 1914 show that Councillor HM Thompson was willing to give two seals if an appropriate home for them could be found. A site was selected and £40 set aside.
Minutes of a meeting the next year showed the councillor had presented a male seal, to be housed at Victoria Park, and he was thanked for “a most interesting addition to the Collection already at Victoria Park”.
The Cardiff trawler company Neale & West began by providing the food for free but then ran out of money. In 1920 the fishmonger E Ashton was supplying fish for the seal free of charge.
Billy died in early April 1939, after which it was discovered “he” was actually female and her skeleton is preserved at the National Museum Wales in Cardiff. A sculpture remains in the park.
THERE’S A SECRET ROOM ABOVE BURGER KING
Truth factor: True From outside, it’s a Burger King like any other. And the inside of the branch, opposite Cardiff Castle, is pretty normal too. It’s only when you go upstairs, through a couple of doors and into an area marked “No Entry”, do you find the Mahogany Room
It features deep mahogany panels, intricate mosaics and stained glass windows – making the building Grade II-listed. The Mahogany Bar (as the room was once called) was first established in 1905 by wine importers Fulton Dunlop Company Limited but it’s believed a public house or inn had existed on the site since at least 1720.
The ancient hostelry was known as the Green Dragon, and a stained glass window showing the dragon which gave the pub the name is still visible today. When the bar opened in 1905 beer was just a penny a pint, and a half pint of whisky could be bought for 1s 3d. The drinkers at the Green Dragon, and later the Mahogany Room, were ship owners, stockbrokers and members of Cardiff Borough Council. Now it’s used as an office and meeting room.
WALES’ MOST POWERFUL POLITICIAN WAS ONCE MISTAKEN FOR A DOCTOR WHO EXTRA BY BBC MAKE-UP ARTISTS
Truth factor: True The late, great Rhodri Morgan was one of Wales’ most influential politicians. But in 2005 when he arrived at the BBC studios for an appearance on a politics show, he almost found himself starring in Doctor Who.
He was ushered into a room and was set to be turned into a tree-like sidekick of new monster Jabe. But as frantic staff from the politics team came looking for the First Minister, all became clear. At the time, Mr Morgan said everyone had been “very nice” about the mix-up.
CARDIFF CITY ORIGINALLY PLAYED IN YELLOW AND BROWN...
Truth factor: True There was a bit of a battle to get Cardiff City recognised as a club.
After several attempts to get a football club started, Bristol-born lithographic artist Bartley Wilson finally gathered enough support to form Riverside FC in 1899 and they started playing in the local leagues on pitches in Sophia Gardens.
In 1902 they changed their name to Riverside Albion. It was three years later that the club applied to the South Wales FA to adopt the name Cardiff City but permission was refused because the team did not play in a high enough league.
In 1908 when the club was elected to the South Wales League the club were given permission to change their name to Cardiff City AFC. Two years later, the team changed from their chocolate and amber-coloured kit.
...AND GOT THEIR BLUEBIRDS NICKNAME FROM A PLAY AT THE NEW THEATRE
Truth factor: Unclear In 1911 the New Theatre hosted a play called The Blue Bird for six nights.
The publicity around the play led to an unknown Cardiff City supporter deciding to call the team the Bluebirds. Gradually, it emerged as the favoured nickname before being adopted officially by the club. At the time Cardiff City appeared in their first FA Cup final in 1925, the club sported the coat of arms of the city as their emblem. These arms were granted on August 26, 1906.