Cathays Cemetery is set across 117 acres of land and is one of the largest cemeteries in England and Wales. Found near the centre of Cardiff, we went along for a guided tour of the cemetery to learn all about the rich history and the notable people buried there.
Roger Swan, a retired bereavement services worker, worked for Cardiff Council for 15 years. In his retirement he continues to take tours of the cemetery grounds as he is passionate about the history of the site. He usually has roughly 20 people attend the tours but had around 90 on the tour on Sunday, April 24.
As you walk through the magnificently maintained grounds of Cathays Cemetery, Roger provides you with a wealth of knowledge. He said that the cemetery opened in late 1859, where the first burial was Maria Dolores DePico in the July of that year. She was the 25-year-old daughter of the Spanish Ambassador to Cardiff. The cemetery hadn't officially opened at that time but she was allowed to be buried there before its official opening.
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Maria died of tuberculosis and was buried in the Catholic section of the cemetery but until recently had no memorial, therefore a wooden cross was erected to memorialise her. Since then, there have been over 224,000 burials, including many significant figures in Cardiff such as mayors, shipping magnates and lords as well as others who helped to make the city what it is today.
Back in 1859 there had been a demand for burials to take place away from residential areas because of the concerns over public health. As the smaller inner city church graveyards filled up a bigger site was needed.
During the tour, guide Roger said: "Victorians loved symbolism with death and headstones, evident in the ornate memorial of John Stuart Rogers, whose headstone has become quite the talking point on the tours. The headstone, carved from marble, features the branch of a tree with a cut in it to symbolise life cut short. The leaves on the tree continue to grow depicting life continues on, with an anchor that represents hope and stability."
In the 1890s there was on average 16 burials per day, six days a week at the cemetery with a service held in one of the three chapels on site; the non-conformist chapel, Church of England and Catholic Chapel. The chapels, lodge, bell tower and entrance arch were originally designed by architect Robert George Thomas.
Over the years the chapels had fallen to disrepair. In the 1980s the buildings were in a rather sorry state - tarpaulin covered the two chapels, while fencing protected the public from the falling masonry and the unsafe conditions of the buildings.
In 2006, the Friends of Cathays Cemetery was formed to help preserve the historical legacy of the cemetery as well as maintain the grounds for visitors. Some £400,000 was donated by bereavement services to re-roof the chapels and to repair the masonry in 2009, before shortly being fully restored to their former glory. Today the site is a sanctuary for local wildlife and an asset to the city of Cardiff for its rich historical legacy.
The tours of the grounds have become ever more popular in recent years with A48 Theatre Company hosting trails and tales at the Cemetery. They have three dates set in June.
Another notable point from the tour was that there are several limbs buried around the cemetery without their owners. One of those is the leg of Samuel Chivers, a vinegar brewer in Cardiff that also formulated jams and marmalades. Samuel Chivers had his leg amputated after an accident with a horse and cart when he was travelling home from Pontypridd. Unsure what to do with the leg, he asked for it to be buried at the site, but in death he was buried at a different area of the cemetery with his wife and child - so was not reunited with his limb.
Roger, who writes poetry in his spare time, wrote a poem about Samuel Chivers which he shared on the tour. It read: "A gentleman named Chivers was hit by horse and cart, his leg was badly injured so it had to part. He went to the new cemetery and there he had to ask to have his dear leg buried until his time had past. He meant to join it later but by some want or whim, dear Chivers ended elsewhere and not here with his limb."
From there we continued on into the Catholic section of the cemetery. The site where the former Catholic chapel stood had fallen to disrepair and was not salvageable. It was demolished in the early 1980s and some of its stonework was reused in the memorial to those who died in the Irish famine and was unveiled on St Patrick's Day in 1999.
Other notable people buried in the grounds of Cathays Cemetery include war graves to servicemen who died during the First and Second World Wars as well as politicians Robert Bird and John Emlyn-Jones, professional boxers Jim Driscoll and David (Dai) Lewis, the founder of the institute for the blind Frances Batty Shand and writer Thomas Rowland Hughes among others.
Roman Catholic Bishop John Cuthbert Hedley is buried at the site, an ordained priest, Bishop of Newport and Benedictine monk. He was an important figure for many Roman Catholics in Cardiff as he helped them to secure education at both Oxford and Cambridge universities as well as establishing convents and schools. His memorial covers over nine burial sites, one of the largest at the cemetery.
Roger said: "He was well known and well-respected during that time. I imagine he wouldn't have wanted a particularly large memorial but people wanted to show their appreciation for all he had done in his lifetime that the memorial was paid by public subscription. I don't know if he would have approved or not but his legacy certainly lives on today."
One of the most infamous people buried at Cathays Cemetery is 14-year-old Louisa Maud Evans, otherwise known as Mademoiselle Albertina or ' Balloon girl', who tragically died in a ballooning accident off the Welsh coast. During a performance of the Cardiff Industrial and Maritime Exhibition in Cathays Park in 1896 was the evening ascent by a balloon followed by a 5,000ft parachute descent. She was supposed to have landed on the outskirts of the city and been returned to the crowds via horse and carriage.
It is said up to 100,000 people gathered to watch Louisa ascend, but they never saw her land. Her body was discovered three days later near the village of Nash. The people of Cardiff were so moved by her death that they collected money for her funeral and headstone that reads: "Brave woman, yet in years a child, dark death closed here thy heavenward flight, God grant thee pure and undefiled, to reach at last the light of light."
You can find out more about the next tour of Cathays Cemetery here. To subscribe to our daily Cardiff newsletter, click here.
