Cardiff Cathays Cemetery (South part), Cardiff, South Wales, UK. A visit to explore the memorials.

One of the largest municipal cemeteries in the UK with 110 acres of memorials. Opened in 1859 and now in two parts. This walk explores the southern section.

[@markallan3842]

Great videos keep them coming I love that you stop and read the stones brings them back to life !

[@its_so_edna]

The balloon and parachute one has me curious. So many questions.

[@ceciliaflorencenapier4595]

My family is buried here in the Cathays Cemetery. The Millingtons, Carlsens, Days and Napiers. My friend and I would take a bucket and scrubbing brush to clean all the babies’ stones in this cemetery during WWII. as best we could.

[@richardstonyisland9719]

5.00. the girl in the balloon story was just sad. But back in those days people did things at Young ages . Everything was so new and unregulated

[@londoninflames]

a few notes on the video... thanks for visiting our area. 1. cathays is pronounced cat-hays or c'tays, depending on your accent, never cath-ayes, like cathay pacific. 2. the girl in the balloon was employed by the balloon's owner, she had never been in a balloon before and had received no training in how to use it or the parachute. when people moan about health and safety requirements i think of this poor girl being killed on her first day at work because her boss couldn't be arsed to protect her. 3. all the memorials with just surnames and dates are because a cardiff council of the seventies had a new plan for using motor mowers in those fields and decided that memorials that were too big had to be taken down and destroyed and were replaced with these basic stones. drawings of the original stones are, i believe, held in the council archives somewhere. i have been told two interesting things about this act of council desecration - firstly that the basic stones were supposed to be temporary and were intended to be replaced by the council with more aesthetic memorials but never happened; and secondly that the memorials were used as hardcore in a building phase of the a48 (which was built straight through the middle of cathays cemetary, splitting one cemetary into two and leaving the war memorial facing not a grand approaching boulevard but a grubby corner of the cemetary and a noisy road). whether either of these stories are true or just local gossip i cannot say. 4. cathays cemetary used to have its own 'halt', a mini station for delivering coffins. the former station-masters' house is still there and lived in, its by the main gates on fairoak road. i don't know if a council employee lives there (my uncle used to live in the gardeners cottage in a park, paying a peppercorn rent, lucky sod), or if its privately owned or rented out. i'd happily live there. 5. if i understand correctly, every gravestone is assessed every couple of years for stability. if a stone is found to be wobbly, it is shored up with a big wooden stake. the notice attached tells the reader that this gravestone is dangerous and should be repaired. if the stone is not repaired by the time the next assessment takes place the council assumes that no-one cares any more and lays the stone down so that it can't fall down. i don't see this is as council vandalism, compared to the destruction of memorials i mentioned earlier, or some of the terrible quality grounds maintenance that goes on. small children are often in the graveyard, and people walk their dogs there. i don't want a child or dog squashed by a falling gravestone, i think the living are way more important than the dead. 6. the mossford memorial is a kind of advert - the mossfords were a branch of monumental masons (who still exist and have a shop on fairoak road). in the days before electronic stone cutting a shiny sphere was the single hardest thing to create, and putting that momument on the main thoroughfare of the cemetary let every visitor know who the best masons were. there are two more such spheres in the cemetary that i know of, one of which has fallen. i am sorry this turned into an essay, thanks for visiting!

[@mushymagazineonlocation7328]

Maybe the stones with just the surnames and the year of death were people buried by the local authorities

[@shirleyn546]

Such a shame to push the stones over. H and S gone mad. I’ve visited many cemeteries, on here and in person, but not seen so many like this.

[@JohnDoe-px4ko]

Quaker graves usually just have the surname and date.

[@nigelcoles1979]

Of course this is only half of the original cemetery. It was split when the Cardiif inner by pass(Eastern Avenue) was built. Circa1970. A mate of mine had a job helping to exhume the bodies that were moved to make way for the road. A local joke was "Where is the dead centre of Cardiff ?" I'll leave the answer for you to work out.

[@susanbackus157]

Many in the US have also been destroyed by vandalism. So sad….😥

[@mikerobinson3899]

Just imagine me visiting a cemetery then I see graves been push over I would be very annoyed with the people who do it

[@GrandslamTim1]

shame you failed to show Cardiff's famous boxing son 'Peerless' Jim Driscoll

[@tylerjones2695]

I'm from America and didn't know about him... there is a lot about him online and now I do know about him...he's been dead for almost 100 yrs so he must have been good since there is a lot of info

[@JenniferQueen-s7z]

Don't put flowers at grave not allowed ect

[@JenniferQueen-s7z]

​@@tylerjones2695don't put flowers at grave not allowed ect

[@tylerjones2695]

Very nice place but that pushing the stones over could be handled a lot better I think

[@JenniferQueen-s7z]

Don't put flowers at grave not allowed ect

[@marygore2497]

I’m looking at the war graves, thinking what a waste of life’s.

[@stephengraham5099]

The plural of life is lives. An apostrophe is used as a possessive.

[@JenniferQueen-s7z]

​@@stephengraham5099don't put flowers at grave not allowed ect

[@mikerobinson3899]

Such a shame to push the graves over I think it is a stupid thing to do it get the police on to it

[@JenniferQueen-s7z]

Don't put flowers at grave not allowed ect