One street gives a fascinating glimpse into Cowbridge’s past

Cowbridge History Society news

Glamorgan Star news 27/03/2024

3 minutes read

WHILE the fascinating vintage store, ‘Happy Days’, is temporarily closed for building work, perhaps we could look at the history of this site in Church Street. It stands within the town’s medieval walls, just off the High Street.

As far back as 1562, there was an almshouse here behind the inn – charitable housing for the local poor. A deed refers to a half burgage ‘between Rood (Church) Street on the west, the churchyard on the east and the almshouse on the north’. Was this by the entrance to what is now the ‘Happy Days’ store?

**| Church Street and the Duke of Wellington in 2002.**

**| Church Street, sketched by D Jones ca 1870.**

The inn was not called the ‘Duke of Wellington’ then of course – in 1760 it was the ‘Half Moon’ with Thomas Emanuel as the landlord – and it had no rear extension as now. On this site in 1573 there was a ‘glover’, Robert ap William, in 1603 a ‘mercer’ (a dealer in fine fabrics – Cowbridge becoming fashion conscious?), and by 1813 Edward Thomas’s bakehouse, when there is mention of a four-foot wide passage with the wall enclosing it to be built ‘at the expense of the purchaser’.

It seems to be here too that in 1836 William Morris was inviting the sale of ‘a well-regulated coal yard’, plus a recently erected ‘three-stall stable with a loft over, a harness room with loft over, standing for several carriages, all under a tiled roof; the whole capable of being altered at a very “trifling” expense into several dwellings’.

In 1837, by order of the Poor Law Commissioners, there was an advertisement for the sale of a ‘range of freehold cottages or single rooms divided from each other by a wall, together with a nailer’s shop and a small piece of ground to the eastward of the cottages, and also about 80 square yards of ground lying behind the cottages, now leased to Mr John Anthony for the remainder of an unexpired term of 99 years at the yearly rent of £1.’

These cottages were purchased by the saddler Nathaniel Young. In 1842 he was leaving them in his will to his nephew Nathaniel Llewellyn. Nathaniel Llewellyn was brother to Thomas Llewellyn of the Verlands. He first became a road surveyor, and then a saddler, and was also a clerk to the Inland Revenue. His saddlery business was on the other side of Church Street, where the Duke car park now stands, and his widow Jane kept this running long after his death.

In 1859, the premises known as the Old Workhouse, was proposed as a site for the County Police Station, but not taken up. Around 1865, David Jones of Wallington, who knew Cowbridge like the back of his hand, sketched from memory the ‘old house which stood by the church-yard gate, taken down and the site thrown into the churchyard about 1862. The niche at the end supposed to be for an image of the Virgin.’ He wrote in his notes of ‘Johnny the Backers’ cottages ……John Lewis, better known though by his first name, lived in the first house on the road by the churchyard gate. Some of the other houses were empty and dilapidated and were the resort of the town dogs.’ It seems likely these small cottages were demolished in the 1860s.

In 1886, a freehold warehouse at the back of the Duke was advertised for sale, once occupied by Ballard and Co, ironmongers, and then by Henry Yorath. The landlord, Thomas Spencer, took it over and had the pub extended and the ballroom constructed (in 1928 the latter had a ‘huge log fire’). The Duke still has its entrance yard of course in Church Street, but the adjoining passageway between there and the church eventually provided invaluable access to the rear of 44, High Street. Arthur Mills, from 1907, had run his garage and motor repair business at 44 High Street, and a garage was still operating there in 1956 as the ‘Mid-Vale Motor Company’.

Aerial photographs in the History Society’s archive of the 1920s show open land behind this site and Church Street, with one outbuilding, but by the 1950s there was a large construction adjoining the rear of 44, High Street (now the site of ‘Happy Days’). This was presumably an extension to the grocery stores which subsequently occupied 44 High Street – ‘Jumbo Discount’ (1970s) and the Co-op (1980s). From my memory, it seems that when Tesco arrived in High Street, the back part of this building was divided off from the grocery store and eventually put to use as ‘Happy Days’. I may be wrong of course.

Cowbridge History Society is gradually researching the town’s buildings with a view to updating the 1999 publication of Cowbridge Buildings and People. Your comments and memories will always be gratefully received.