Category: Miscellaneous

Various items that do not fit any particular category

The Church Tower At Wenvoe

THE CHURCH TOWER AT WENVOE

In 1699, the church tower was moved from the north side of the church to its pre-sent position at the west end of the church. In the absence of any documentary evidence for this re-building of the church tower in the late 17th century, we have to look at the national and local situation that the village of Wenvoe found itself in.

In 1688 King James II had fled the country. While in exile he was still king and the succession was confused because his son Charles (Bonnie Prince Charlie) was in France. Meanwhile, William of Orange had been invited to the throne of England with Mary, the eldest daughter of James to “ Protect the Protestant Religion and the Glorious Revolution and the liberties of the people”. They were crowned in 1689 as William III and Mary II. Mary died in 1694, and William died in 1702 upon which Queen Anne succeeded. How much these events affected life in Wenvoe is a matter of supposition. Were these momentous events in the national life announced from the steps of the Church Cross in the churchyard or did the fact that the prayers in church for the Royal Family bring home the changes in national life?

The earlier generations of the Thomas family at Wenvoe Castle, had supported Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth, at the end of the 17th century. The 1st baronet Sir John Thomas had strong royalist feelings having been advanced to the dignity of a Baronet, by William and Mary on 24th December 1694. The family held the advowson* of the living of Wenvoe Church and made the appointments of a priest to the church. At the time we are concerned with, the Rector of Wenvoe was Philip Hawkins who had been appointed in 1681 on the death of Samuel Hughes. The Rector and two churchwardens appointed at the vestry meeting, held each year, looked after the fabric of the buildings by use of the Church Rate. This was money raised from every house and portion of land within the parish boundary, for keeping the fabric of the church in good order. The amount they wished to raise was decided by them and the people meeting together each year.

The church rate was not a popular means of taxation, and non-payment saw the parishioner hauled up before the Justices of the Peace. In later years with the growth of Non-conformity, this payment to the established church was a source of discontent as the church received payment from the Government of the day towards their running costs, while the non-conformists had to pay their own way in building their meeting houses and chapels.

At the end of the 17th century, Wenvoe Church was in need of repair. The church tower on the north side of the church must have been in a dilapidated condition, and the radical decision to move and rebuild at the west end was taken. At this time, the church building consisted of a nave and chancel, separated within by a low archway. The roof was much lower than to-day’s roof and burials were taking place within the church itself, for the local gentry and other persons of note. The Rector, with the encouragement of the Thomas family and his churchwardens, must have used the Church Rate to fund the demolition and re-building of the tower, and perhaps with some financial support from the Castle.

The poor and dangerous state of the tower could be attributed to the after effects of the Battle of St Fagans in 1648. When the village war memorial was being built in the 1920s a cannon ball was found, indicating that the effects of the war had spread far and wide in the villages surrounding St Fagans. Church towers were often places where the local muskets, rifles and pikes etc. were stored for use by the local militia, when called upon in defence of the realm, and were places of defence and so targets to be attacked during the fighting.

During the construction phase, the church building must have been out of use for some time, and from the parish registers, the following has been extracted over three years 1698, 1699 and 1700.

In 1698 there were 8 Baptisms between June to Dec.

In 1699 there were 6 Baptisms between May and Jan.

In 1700 there were 11 Baptisms between June and March

In 1698 there was 1 marriage in Sept.

In 1699 there were 3 marriages between Dec. and Feb..

During this time the year ran from on March 25th to March 24th.

Baptisms and Marriage services would have needed the use of the church to perform these, but there are lengthy gaps in time between these events.

The only firm evidence we have is the plaque on the west face of the tower recording the rebuilding. This plaque is a replacement for the original, and was placed there, gratis, in 1935, by Mr Sid Llewellyn.

The original plaque sets out the account of removal and rebuilding

“THE TOWER OF THIS CHURCH WAS REMOVED FROM THE FARTHEST PART OF THE NORTH SIDE OF THE BODY OF THE CHURCH TO THE EAST AND WAS REBUILT IN THIS PLACE IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1699. Wil Morgan, Wil Wade Churchwardens.

However, in 1890 Mr Frank Bright wrote an account in a publication called St Peter’s Chair (a copy of which is in the G.R.O. in Cardiff) of a visit he made to Wenvoe Church and recorded that there was a Latin inscription as follows, which was not inscribed on the replacement tablet. “Procol O Procol este Profani” a translation is “Keep away, O Keep away you profane ones”.

Why this was not included could be down to the fact that the lettering was by this time deeply eroded and could not be read.

The purpose of writing this account marks the present on-going work to repoint all four faces of the tower due to frost damage loosening the mortar infill around the masonry. Not only is this a danger to the general public, but the work will restore the tower, making it fit for purpose for future generations.

Parry Edwards, May 2021

(* Advowson or patronage is the right in English law of a patron to present to the diocesan bishop a nominee for appointment to a vacant ecclesiastical benefice or church living, a process known as presentation.)

 

 

Wenvoe Forum – Considering Today And Tomorrow

A WENVOE FORUM – CONSIDERING TODAY AND TOMORROW

More and different!

Recently the Primary school was kind enough to include mention of our survey in its regular newsletter to parents. We were delighted as it brought in lots of new responses. Like the world leaders at the G7 summit in Cornwall the climate crisis is important to those who responded and hopefully the meeting we are holding on 1st July will be well attended and spark some further activity, details below. Maybe some of our ideas for improving the local availability of sustainable produce might be raised.

Several responses from the school parents mentioned that whilst the new playground is great and seems to be well used, there is little for young people (11-18s) in Wenvoe. If anyone in that age group has ideas for a development that they would like to see, then step forward and the Forum will do its best to help them make it a reality. We would welcome some young voices on the Forum. Others mentioned more community activities, mother and baby sessions and holiday activity for children.

The Forum has set up a private face-book group to be used as a resource for Wenvoe residents. If you want to find out what the Forum is doing or you want to make a suggestion, or let people know what you are doing, this is the place to go. There will be a few rules, as we do not want the page to be an advertising or political site.

To join ‘friend up’ with Gwen Fo who has her own face-book page and you will be invited to join this private group.

If you are reading this and it’s still June we hope to see you at the event

 

More opinions needed please.
If you haven’t completed the survey please, please do, it only takes 2 minutes. You will find it at this address
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/7Y2G95H or on our Facebook page

We particularly want to hear from younger resi-dents, under 25s, students at school, college or university after all it’s your future we are think-ing about.

Anyone who would like to join the Forum for its on-line meetings will be very welcome, please contact us at Gwenfo.Forum@gmail.com and we can tell you more.

 

 

Parkinson’s Disease Appeal

PARKINSON’S DISEASE APPEAL

Many Wenvoe residents will remember Helen and David Blessley and their contributions to village life. They moved to live in Penarth but still maintain village connections. Helen, being a superb cook, wrote a column called ‘Helen’s Kitchen’ for the magazine for over 15 years. This appeal has been written by their son-in-law, Marc Dunmore. 

The first thing we would like to say about David (Sarah’ s Dad, my father-in-law) or as I like to call him, Mr B, is that he is funny, strong, determined and not one to complain about anything. He is 78 and was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease around 25 years ago.

Parkinson’s is the fastest growing neurological condition in the world. There are over 40 symptoms, from tremor and pain to anxiety. Some are treatable, but the drugs can have serious side effects. Mr B struggles to move, he struggles to eat, struggles to remember, he struggles to speak clearly and sleep is uncomfortable and disrupted. He has a hospital bed, walking frames, inflatable cushions and 2 wheelchairs to try and help. The alarms sound every 3 hours to remind Helen (Sarah’s Mum, my mother-in-law) to give his medication every 3 hours to deal with these symptoms but although the medication is supposed to help it can cause confusion and hallucinations. Parkinson’s Disease gets worse over time and at the moment there is no cure.

Helen is Mr B’s wife and main caregiver. She plays an integral part in his health, helping him to get the right treatments and help that he needs. As a result, he has been able to maintain the best possible lifestyle in the circumstances. However, this disease is not easy for anyone involved with the person living with it, whether family members or caregivers.

Not only do we want to help fundraise for Parkinson’s UK to help find a cure but also to provide funding for the local side of Parkinson’s. Our local Parkinson’s support group has been a lifeline for both Helen and Mr B. Not only can these groups introduce you to other families with Parkinson’s but can provide wonderful assistance for families like ours with information and events to help support everyone involved.

Mr B faces many challenges every day and we wanted to experience our own challenges. Over the course of the year Sarah will be virtually running Lands end to John O Groats (874 miles) culminating in both of us running the London Marathon and then…when one marathon isn’t enough, we will be running the Newport marathon a couple of weeks

later. The training for all this will most definitely be a challenge to fit in alongside dodging Covid, home schooling and working. However, when put into context with the challenges that Mr B and others like him face seems humble.

As you may be aware we have in the past run a few marathons between us so we wanted to make this one different and demanding. We did enquire about pushing Mr B round the London Marathon course in his wheelchair; however, this is not able to happen. So, instead Mr B will be joining us in his wheelchair, pushed by us, on some of our training runs around Cardiff. I’m sure there will be hard days for us both when the effort of running seems too much but we will take a leaf out of Mr B’s book and be strong, determined and try not to complain (not much anyway!!).

Through Virgin Money Giving, you can sponsor me, and donations will be quickly processed and passed to Parkinson’s UK. Virgin Money Giving is a not for profit organisation and will claim gift aid on a charity’s behalf where the donor is eligible for this.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Please donate to this fantastic cause! We really appreciate all your support and thank you for any donations.

Donations can be made via https:// uk.virginmoneygiving.com/marcdunmore. Once on the page you can click “donate” and then there are easy step by step instructions.

 

 

Research On Remembrance In Wales

POSTGRADUATE RESEARCH ON REMEMBRANCE IN WALES

Dear Wenvoe Community Library,

I read about your library from the https://libraries.wales/ website, and I hope you would not mind me asking for your help for my research. I know the importance of libraries in local communities, even if the current pandemic context makes your work and social sharing more difficult.

I am a French PhD student in history and psychology at Swansea University and I am involved in a project with a Welsh and a French research team to study the memory of disasters. We developed an online questionnaire to gain a better understanding of memory and oblivion processes involved when we are to remember past disasters. Our main goal is to progress in the understanding of individual and collective responses to these events. More broadly, this study aims to make an important contribution to ongoing scientific debates on the management of communities and territories affected by one or several disasters.

We are currently struggling to make our study known and we need more volunteers participating to be able to draw relevant conclusions.

I would like to ask for the help of your library in distributing our questionnaire, for instance by adding information about our study in your newsletter if you have one, or via your library network. Our objective is to gather the answers from a large public living in Wales, no matter the age or the background. Your help in sharing our questionnaire would also be a great opportunity for us to inform Welsh communities about our scientific interests.

A detailed call for volunteers was also published by Swansea University on its website (swan.ac/gas), and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/SwanseaUni/status/1354806627447181316). I also gave a short interview that you can find on my Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/lucrece.heux.1).

We wish to communicate our results to the volunteers who participated once our study will be finalised. If you are interested, we can also work with you to inform the visitors of your library about the conclusions we will be able to draw. The link to take part in the study is: https://survey.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/formSV_cMiOQgpbmi33U9f.

I remain entirely at your disposal if you have any further questions. Thank you for your attention,

Lucrèce Heux,

Doctoral Student/ Myfyriwr Doethuriaeth,

Swansea University/ Prifysgol Abertawe.

 

 

Village Hall Volunteers

A PLEA FROM THE VILLAGE HALL VOLUNTEERS

Over a period of a couple of weeks in lockdown, youngsters playing football in the carpark of the village hall caused damage to the central heating overflow pipe, guttering and two outside lights Unfortunately the broken glass, found when the playgroup arrived, had to be swept up before the children could be allowed in.

The hall was painted last summer to create a warm welcome to groups returning to use the facilities. The walls have now had to be washed because of footballs being kicked up against them. Our cleaner generously did this, without being asked.

The Covid situation means we have been unable too pen so there is no money coming in except from playgroup. The cost of the repairs and the possibility of having to install CCTV is a concern to us.

There is a sign in the carpark saying ‘No football’. The boys have been asked on a number of occasions not to play in the car park but have just ignored us. The police have been informed of the damage caused and are looking into it.

The hall is there for all in the village to enjoy and residents are very supportive of this facility. So we are asking the parents of these youngsters to help us by informing them to please not play football in the village hall carpark. Thank you.

 

 

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