South Glamorgan Coat of Arms

Though I’ve walked across the A4232 road bridge that crosses the River Taff where it flows in to Cardiff Bay many times – never a pleasant walk with all the traffic constantly flowing past at breakneck speed, I’d never until quite recently looked at the coat of arms that adorns either side of the bridge at both the eastern and western ends of its span.
 

I located a website, Civic Heraldry of England, Wales andNorthern Ireland, which aims ‘to collect together in one place information about the coats of arms of local authorities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland both current and obsolete.’ This is the information provided for the coat of arms of the South Glamorgan County Council, written in the obscure jargon of heraldry:

SOUTH GLAMORGAN COUNTY COUNCIL CYNGOR SIR DE MORGANNWG
*ARMS: Vert on a Pile reversed throughout Ermine between two Towers Or a Roundel per pale of the last and Gules charged with three Chevronels also per pale Gules and Argent ensigned with an ancient Crown Gold.
*CREST: Within a Mural Crown Gules a Mitre affrontée Or; Mantled Vert doubled Argent.
*SUPPORTERS: On the dexter side a Dragon and on the sinister side a winged Lion both Gules and each supporting a Trident Or.
*BADGE: Within an Annulet ensigned by a Mural Crown three Chevronels all Or.
Motto 'Y DDINAS A'R FRO' - The City and the Vale.

That website includes a coloured image of the coat of arms but I also located one on Wikimedia that shows the coat of arms more clearly and is free to use under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. It is shown below. And if you want to try to decipher the heraldry jargon, there’s a beginner’s guide on The Heraldry Society’s website. 

South Glamorgan County Council was active from 1974 to 1996, and consisted of Cardiff, which is now its own district; parts of south Glamorgan, which are now included in the Vale of Glamorgan district; and St Mellons, which is now in Monmouthshire.

El Galeón Andalucía

The Paddle steamer Waverley (see last week’s blog) is not the only historic ship to have graced local waters in recent weeks; Cardiff has also had a visit from this Spanish replica, the Galeón Andalucía. 

The galleon arrived in Cardiff Port on Tuesday 28 May and, having extended its stay for an additional week, departed on Sunday 14 June. During its stay, the galleon was moored in Roath Basin and was open to visitors every day from 10am to 8pm, at a price; the standard adult cost was £15, not an amount I was prepared to pay so this blog only has exterior photos of the ship. 

According to the information on the galleon’s website,

The Galeón Andalucía is an impressive 55-meter-long ship featuring six decks, meticulously built from iroko and pine wood. It boasts nearly 1,000 square meters of sail area spread across seven sails. Built by the Fundación Nao Victoria in Punta Umbría (Andalusia, Spain) with rigorous historical accuracy, it showcases the thousands-of-years-old maritime tradition of the Andalusian community.

Galleons like Andalucía were built in both Portugal and Spain from the early 16th century to transport cargo from the newly discovered territories in the Americas back to Europe. (Similar ships were also built in other European countries during the age of sail but these are not usually known as galleons.) 

Due to the richness of their cargo and the possibility of piracy at sea, the galleons were heavily armed, as you can see from the cannons poking out from the open portholes in the Andalucía, and, taking advantage of the weaponry they carried, the galleons were also used as warships until the mid-17th century when ships were purpose-built for the Anglo-Dutch Wars. 

Since it was built during 2009-2010, the Galeón Andalucía has sailed thousands of miles around the world, visiting more than 100 different ports in cities as diverse as Liverpool and Shanghai, New York and Singapore, Quebec and Manila. The website of the Nao Victoria Foundation, which built and operates not only this galleon but also other replica ships, explains that the Andalucía ‘travels as a floating ambassador for Andalusia as a tourist destination’. 

The Galeón Andalucía visited Cardiff as part of its 2026 European tour, during which the replica will visit ports in England, Ireland, and other European countries. I’m sure admirers of historical maritime transport in those locations will enjoy views of and visits to this very impressive ship.

Paddle steamer Waverley

I was sitting at my table/desk late one recent afternoon, working on my laptop, when I flicked my eyes from screen to window and noticed an unusual vessel chugging up the Bristol Channel (I am lucky to live in an apartment building on a clifftop overlooking the Channel). It was instantly recognisable: the paddle steamer Waverley. 

I went immediately to the Waverley Excursions website to check the Waverley’s timetable and was delighted to see that the paddle steamer would be in the local area, cruising to various locations around the Bristol Channel, viewing the local islands and sailing along the coastlines of England and Wales, for the following couple of weeks.

I checked when she would be in the local area and, the following Sunday morning, went down to Penarth Pier to watch the paddle steamer depart for her daily cruise and get these photos. You might wonder whether I booked a cruise but no; I’m a very poor sailor so the prospect of spending a couple of hours, even worse a whole day, on a boat is my worst nightmare. I do like to look, though. 

The excursions website proudly announces that, in 1970, the Waverley became ‘the world’s last seagoing paddle steamer’. Built in the world-renowned shipyards on the River Clyde in 1946, for the London & North Eastern Railway (LNER), the Waverley began her working life on 16 June 1947, cruising the waterways of south-western Scotland, from Rothesay to Loch Goil and Loch Long, into Loch Fyne and the Kyles of Bute, and later out to the Isle of Arran, and up the Clyde to Glasgow city centre. 

Since then, the paddle steamer Waverley has been registered as part of Britain’s National Historic Fleet ‘as being a vessel of pre-eminent national significance’. I first saw her over 40 years ago when I lived for a couple of years in Glasgow. At that stage, the Waverley was just beginning the next phase of her life, as the ’history’ page on the National Historic Fleet website explains:

WAVERLEY was sold [for £1, essentially a gift] on 8 August 1974 to the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society and refitted for the WAVERLEY Steam Navigation Company and her livery was returned to the LNER colour scheme of red, white and black. In 1975, she re-entered service on the Clyde, sailing at weekends from Glasgow and in mid-week from Ayr. In 1977, she spent a week on excursions from Liverpool and the success of this led to over a month being spent on the South Coast in the following year. In 1981, she was fitted with a new boiler and embarked on her first full season of Round Britain cruising, with the peak summer weeks spent back on the Clyde.

Between 1990 and 2003 the Waverley underwent a series of refits and restorations, getting new paddle wheels and a new boiler, as well as having her timber refurbished and her paint job restored to her LNER colours. All this has prepared the Waverley for her current busy schedule of cruises in various locations around the British coast. Check the excursions website if you’re a better sailor than me and fancy a unique paddle steamer experience.