Penarth

Sister cities

• Saint-Pol-de-Léon

History

The Penarth area has a history of human inhabitation dating back at least 5000 years. In 1956 several Neolithic stone axe heads were found in the town. A large hoard of Roman rings and coins were also discovered at nearby Sully. From the 12th century until 1543 the lands of Penarth were owned by the canons of St Augustine, Bristol. The Norman church of St Augustine (on the headland) dates from this period. After the dissolution of the monasteries the ownership transferred to the dean and chapter of Bristol Cathedral. It was located roughly where the car park now stands, at the rear of the NatWest Bank in Plymouth Road. In 1803, Penarth is recorded as having between of land under cultivation as several farms. In the 1801 census, there were just 72 people living in the Manor. Even as late as 1851, Penarth was still little more than a small rural farming and fishing village since medieval times, with just 24 houses and 105 residents, being one of five parishes contained within the Hundred of Dinas Powys, with a combined population of just over 300. Before the pier and dock were built, there was a tiny fleet of local sail-powered fishing vessels based on the main town beach that tied up on the seafront quayside. The Plymouth estate office retained control over the planning, building and development of the new town, offering 99-year leases and remaining the ground landlord. All householders in Penarth were tenants of the Plymouth Estates, paying an annual ground rent. The situation would not change until the Leasehold Reform Act 1967, that gave householders the choice of purchasing their freehold or negotiating 999 year extensions on their short leases. The earliest homes built in the town were streets of terraced houses with busy corner shops and public houses on…

Geography

Penarth lies southwest of Cardiff by road and has a road infrastructure that has been much improved in recent years, together with a traditional rail link. The Cardiff Bay Barrage between Penarth Head and Grangetown was completed in 1999 and came into operation shortly afterwards. The impounding of the River Taff and River Ely has created of freshwater lake in the Cardiff Bay. The promised pedestrian and cyclist short cut to Cardiff across the barrage finally opened to the public on Friday 27 June 2008, after numerous postponements. An imaginary line drawn between Lavernock Point, just southwest of Penarth and Sand Point, Somerset marks the lower limit of the Severn Estuary and the start of the Bristol Channel, hence Penarth is technically deemed to be in the Severn Estuary and not on the Bristol Channel. Because of the extreme tidal range there are very strong currents or rips close inshore, with speeds that exceed , for several hours at each tide. The rise and fall of the tides at Penarth are the second highest recorded anywhere in the world and on occasions when certain moon phases coincide with the spring and autumn equinoxes the sea level can overspill the esplanade wall and flood the roadway, particularly if in conjunction with a high wind. The general underlying sub-strata below the land and fields surrounding Penarth is of a limestone that was laid down under a prehistoric warm sea and subsequently ground down by ice age glaciers approximately 18,000 years ago. This produced the rich, brown and dry soil that provided an ideal growing medium for cereal crops during the medieval farming history of the area. The abundance of limestone was exploited for nearly a hundred years at the Cosmeston quarry that fed the Snocem cement factory in Lower Penarth until it…

Most-observed species

• Common Wood-Pigeon

  Columba palumbus Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  14,115
• Eurasian Blackbird

  Turdus merula Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  13,127
• Eurasian Magpie

  Pica pica (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  13,124
• Carrion Crow

  Corvus corone Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  13,047
• European Robin

  Erithacus rubecula (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  12,778
• Eurasian Blue Tit

  Cyanistes caeruleus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  11,157
• Mallard

  Anas platyrhynchos Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  9,961
• Lesser Black-backed Gull

  Larus fuscus Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  9,354

Most recent

• M 3.4 — 2023-02-24
  1 km ENE of Brynmawr, United Kingdom
• M 3.4 — 2019-12-05
  1 km ESE of Taunton, United Kingdom
• M 4.3 — 2018-02-17
  5 km NE of Clydach, United Kingdom
• M 4.1 — 2014-02-20
  17 km NNW of Ilfracombe, United Kingdom
• M 3.9 — 2008-10-26
  2 km N of Bromyard, United Kingdom
• M 2.7 — 2006-09-26
  4 km SSW of Dorstone, United Kingdom