Wenvoe

Wenvoe Welsh: Gwenfô
Glamorgan
Welcome To Wenvoe
Location
Location:	51°27’0"N, 3°16’12"W
Data
Population:	1,854  (2011)
Post town:	Cardiff
Postcode:	CF5
Dialling code:	029
Local Government
Council:	Vale of Glamorgan
Parliamentary constituency:	Vale of Glamorgan

Wenvoe is village and parish in Glamorgan situated between Barry and Cardiff. Nearby is the Wenvoe Transmitter near Twyn-yr-Odyn and the Television Centre at Culverhouse Cross in the suburbs of Cardiff. It is home to the Wenvoe Quarry and Wenvoe Castle Golf Club.

History

Maintaining a thriving farming community for centuries, Wenvoe, while still a farming village to an extent, has doubled in population in the last hundred years due to the vast amount of high-end property created by both the government and private developers.

The village originally developed around the parish church of St Mary, which can be traced back to the twelfth century with the adjacent locality now being a conservation area. Wenvoe is recorded as having belonged to the De Sully, le Fleming and Malefaunt famililies in the later mediæval periods. After being escheated to the crown the castle of Wenvoe belonged successively to the Thomas, Birt and Jenner families. Major development occurred in the 1770s but much of this was obliterated by a fire in 1910. Some mediæval or earlier fortification is also known to have existed in the wooded hillside at Wrinstone.

Amenities

The village has a village shop with a post office, a parish church, primary school, hotel, a part-time library, barber and three village halls.

It is home to three pubs (two that have been in the village for hundreds of years - The Wenvoe Arms and The Horse & Jockey at nearby Twyn-yr-Odyn, both of which are protected buildings - and the more recent Walston Castle) and many acres of forestry and fields. There is also another church at St Lythans.

Wenvoe village

Wenvoe has a very healthy community spirit which supports a number of local community groups. Amongst these are Wenvoe Scout Group, the Village Quaffers, Ladies Choir, Youth Club and of course the Church. Wenvoe won 'Best Kept Village in the Vale of Glamorgan' in 2005 and again in 2007. It is served by its own monthly newspaper titled the Wenvoe What's On. A new venture is the annual Village Show convened every September at the Community Centre hosted by the village Scout Group. This is an opportunity for any resident to participate by submitting their art, craft, cookery or gardening successes for impartial judging. The Wenvoe Arms is also home to Wenvoe Pétanque Club - believed to be the oldest Pétanque club in Wales, it can trace its history back to the early 1970s.

Wenvoe is a popular village as it is convenient for the city of Cardiff. Despite being a commuter village unfortunately it no longer has a railway line, which was the victim of the "Beeching Axe" of the 1960s. The route of the old line remains but is now heavily overgrown, grazed by farm animals and to a great extent inaccessible. The old railway station is now a family dwelling.

Local attractions

St Lythans Burial Chamber

Tinkinswood Burial Chamber

The St Lythans Burial Chamber is only 1¼ miles west of Wenvoe, past the village of St Lythans. The St Lythans Burial Chamber is a single-stone Megalithic dolmen, built around 6,000 years ago as part of a Chambered long barrow, during the Neolithic period.

The Tinkinswood Burial Chamber is about 2½ miles north-west of Wenvoe, near the village of St Nicholas, or about 3¾ miles by road towards Bonvilston. Tinkinswood is a more extensive cromlech than St Lythans, which it may have once resembled, and was constructed during the same period.

Between the St Lythans and the Tinkinswood Burial Chambers lies Dyffryn Gardens, the estate to which both burial chambers once belonged. Dyffryn Gardens is a collection of botanical gardens located near the village of St Nicholas. They were selected by the British Tourism Association as one of the Top 100 gardens in the UK.

Notable people

• Robert Francis Jenner (1802-1860), High Sheriff of Glamorgan in 1827
• Colonel Charles Nassau Thomas (died April 1820), vice chamberlain to the Prince of Wales (later King George IV)
• Edmund Thomas (1633 - 1677), politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1654 and 1656 and sat in Cromwell's Upper House
• Sir Edmund Thomas (died 1723)
• Sir John Godfrey Thomas, sixth baronet of Wenvoe (died 1841)
• Sir Godfrey-Vignolles Thomas, 9th Baronet (1856-1919)
• Hugh Jenner, founder of Wenvoe Castle Golf Club
• Simon Cox, PGA European Tour golfer.

Further reading

• Evans, C. J. O. (1943) [1938]. Glamorgan: Its History and Topography (2nd ed.). Cardiff: W. Lewis. 

Outside links

• www.geography.co.uk : photos of Wenvoe and surrounding area
• : Wenvoe Online
• Wenvoe Pétanque Club