The Church in Wales                                                               Yr Eglwys yng Nghymru

 

The Parish of Caerau with Ely

 

 

 

The Story of St. David’s Church: the first seventy five years

 

by Harry Old

 

With the celebration of the 75th anniversary of St. David's church, Ely, it may interest parishioners to have a short account of the history of the church and of the changes which have taken place since the church was built.   In writing the story told in these pages the fullest use has been made of church documents, but it has been necessary to a large extent to depend on  information gathered in conversation with  “older inhabitants”  and also to draw on personal recollections dating back from  1902. 

 

Valued help has been given by  Mr. John H James, an old Ely resident now living in Llandaff, who was the architect of St. David’s church room, and some of the facts of old-time Ely are based on information supplied by the late Sir Illtyd Thomas (resident for many years on Ely farm) for the purpose of a note on the St. David’s church room written in 1937.

 

In the picture on the left (circa 1928) electricity had only just been introduced to the church, and the Vestry  was not added to the original building until 1920.

 

It was in 1920, with the addition of the Vestry, that the boiler house was built, and central heating provided.

Ely until 1869 was a hamlet within the ecclesiastical parish of Llandaff  Cathedral  (which had recently undergone much restoration under Bishop Ollivant)  as their parish church, but every Thursday a service was held by the Reverend C B Bevan, one of the canons of the Cathedral, in the kitchen of a thatched cottage in Mill Road, Ely, situate where Grovers Terrace was subsequently built and on which now stand the dwelling-houses nos.70 to 80 (even numbers) in Mill Road

 

By an Order in Council, which appears to have been made in the year 1869, Ely was transferred from the ecclesiastical parish of  Llandaff and attached to the living of St. Mary’s Caerau.   The baptismal register shows the first baptism with a vicar  (the Reverend E. John) as the officiating minister to have taken place in November, 1869;  the entries for earlier baptisms, which numbered only a few each year, were made by an officiating minister styling himself  curate in charge of Caerau, and the births are all of children in the Caerau district.  Thereafter  births in Ely, quite a number in Mill Road, occur with frequency, and baptisms are entered against the signature of  E, John, vicar.