CAERDYDD, CYMRU: Y DDRAIG GOCH DDYRY CYCHWYN

Tina Picotes in Castell Caerdydd

Today, The Grandma has received news from Tina Picotes who is visiting Caerdydd, the city that was proclaimed the capital of Cymru on a day like today in 1955.

Tina has explained lots of thing to The Grandma by Skype and they have been talking about how many ancient ruins you can find in Caerdydd, hom amazing Welsh culture is and how wonderful people are there. She has sent some photos about her travel to The Grandma by Telegram and, now, The Grandma is tagging and putting them in order.

Before going to the library, The Grandma has read a new chapter of Michael Dean's A Ghost in Love and Other Plays.

More information: Numbers I & II

Caerdydd or Cardiff, in English, is the capital of Cymru, Wales in English, its largest city and the base for most national cultural institutions and Welsh media, and the seat of the National Assembly for Cymru.

Caerdydd is the county town of the historic county of Glamorgan, and later South Glamorgan. In 1905, Caerdydd was made a city and proclaimed the capital of Cymru in 1955.

Since the 1980s, Caerdydd has seen significant development. A new waterfront area at Caerdydd Bay contains the Senedd building, home to the Welsh Assembly and the Wales Millennium Centre arts complex.

More information: Croeso i Gyngor Caerdydd

Caerdydd is the Welsh name of the city and derives from the earlier Welsh form Caerdyf. The change from -dyf to -dydd shows the colloquial alteration of Welsh f [v] and dd [ð], and was perhaps also driven by folk etymology, dydd is Welsh for 'day' whereas *dyf has no obvious meaning.

This sound change had probably first occurred in the Middle Ages; both forms were current in the Tudor period. Caerdyf has its origins in post-Roman Brythonic words meaning the fort of the Taff. The fort probably refers to that established by the Romans.

Tina Picotes visits Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru

The anglicised form Cardiff is derived from Caerdyf, with the Welsh f [v] borrowed as ff /f/, as also happens in Taff, from Welsh Taf, and Llandaff, from Welsh Llandaf. As English does not have the vowel [ɨ] the final vowel has been borrowed as /ɪ/.

Archaeological evidence from sites in and around Caerdydd: the St Lythans burial chamber near Wenvoe, approximately 6.4 km to the west of Caerdydd city centre; the Tinkinswood burial chamber, near St Nicholas, the Cae'rarfau Chambered Tomb, Creigiau and the Gwern y Cleppa Long Barrow, near Coedkernew, Newport, all show that people had settled in the area by at least around 6000 BC, during the early Neolithic; about 1,500 years before either Stonehenge or the Great Pyramid of Giza was completed.

A group of five Bronze Age tumuli is at the summit of the Garth, in Welsh Mynydd y Garth, within the county's northern boundary. Four Iron Age hill fort and enclosure sites have been identified within Caerdydd's present-day county boundaries, including Caerau Hillfort, an enclosed area of 5.1 hectares.

Until the Roman conquest of Britain, Caerdydd was part of the territory of the Silures -a Celtic British tribe that flourished in the Iron Age- whose territory included the areas that would become known as Breconshire, Monmouthshire and Glamorgan. 

More information: Visit Cardiff

In 1081 William I, King of England, began work on the castle keep within the walls of the old Roman fort. Caerdydd Castle has been at the heart of the city ever since. The castle was substantially altered and extended during the Victorian period by John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute, and the architect William Burges. Original Roman work can, however, still be distinguished in the wall facings.

A town grew up in the shadow of the castle, made up primarily of settlers from England. Caerdydd had a population of between 1,500 and 2,000 in the Middle Ages; a relatively normal size for a Welsh town in this period.

In 1536, the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542 between England and Wales led to the creation of the shire of Glamorgan, and Caerdydd was made the county town. It also became part of Kibbor hundred. Around this same time the Herbert family became the most powerful family in the area. 

Tina Picotes in Caerdydd

In 1538, Henry VIII closed the Dominican and Franciscan friaries in Caerdydd, the remains of which were used as building materials. A writer around this period described Caerdydd: The River Taff runs under the walls of his honours castle and from the north part of the town to the south part where there is a fair quay and a safe harbour for shipping.

In 1793, John Crichton-Stuart, 2nd Marquess of Bute was born. He would spend his life building the Caerdydd docks and would later be called the creator of modern Caerdydd.  A twice-weekly boat service between Caerdydd and Bristol was established in 1815, and in 1821, the Caerdydd Gas Works was established.

After the Napoleonic Wars, Caerdydd entered a period of social and industrial unrest, starting with the trial and hanging of Dic Penderyn in 1831.

More information: Castell Caerdydd

King Edward VII granted Caerdydd city status on 28 October 1905, and the city acquired a Roman Catholic Cathedral in 1916. In subsequent years an increasing number of national institutions were located in the city, including the National Museum of Wales, Welsh National War Memorial, and the University of Wales Registry Building, however, it was denied the National Library of Wales, partly because the library's founder, Sir John Williams, considered Caerdydd to have a non-Welsh population.

The city was recognised as the capital city of Wales on 20 December 1955, by a written reply by the Home Secretary Gwilym Lloyd George.

Following the establishment of the city's first Welsh School, Ysgol Gymraeg Bryntaf, in the 1950s, Welsh has regained ground. Aided by Welsh-medium education and migration from other parts of Wales, there has been a significant increase in the number and percentage of Welsh speakers, with numbers doubling in the 20 years between the 1991 and 2011 censuses.

More information: Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Caerdydd

It was in Cardiff, and the cast was 60 per cent Welsh-speaking. 

It's the first time I've walked into a rehearsal room speaking my mother tongue, which in itself was a breath of fresh clean air from the Welsh mountains. Singing Hans Sachs is always a milestone, 

but I was happy to be part of such an achievement, 

not personally but as a company.

Bryn Terfel