This is the first of a series of articles which will appear each month, highlighting the Society’s activities and describing some of the photographs and other items in its possession.

The Society was formed in 1990 by a small number of local residents with an interest in the history of Llanishen. It is now a flourishing society with eighty members.

We meet on Wednesday evenings in Coed Glas School, Ty Glas Avenue, to hear a variety of speakers on a wide range of topics.  Meetings begin at 7.30pm. Annual membership of the Society is £7.00. Visitors are welcome on payment of £1.50.

In 2002 we produced the Llanishen Village Trail, which takes the visitor on a walk from the Oval Park, (where the first church in Llanishen was established in 535AD) through the village, pointing out features of interest, to the present church of St. Isan. It is illustrated with attractive line drawings, four of which are available as a series of notelets.

To celebrate Cardiff’s centenary we made a DVD, The Village – Llanishen 2005 which gives a picture of the village and surrounding areas today. 

They are all currently for sale in Llanishen post office on Station Road.

One particularly interesting item in our collection is a copy of this Christmas card which would have been sent to her friends by a Llanishen resident one hundred years ago. It shows a sketch of St. Isan’s Church, by Lillie  Stacpoole Haycraft, framed by the words ‘Greetings from the Cottage Llanishen’. The Cottage was not a pub but a house located on the corner of Fidlas Road and Station Road. In the Cardiff Directory for 1905 the occupier is listed as Prof. Haycroft.

This was almost certainly John Berry Haycraft who was Professor of Physiology at the University.  His wife’s name was Charlotte so we can assume that Lillie, the talented artist who drew the card, was his daughter. She had a brother, also called John Berry Haycraft (!) who was a prominent medical man in Cardiff in the first half of the last century.

The Cottage stood there certainly until 1937 but had been demolished by the beginning of the war. An older resident of Llanishen remembers passing a military pillbox on that corner during the war.  She says it was camouflaged and had lookouts but doesn’t know any more about it.   If any readers’ can shed any further light on this we would be pleased to hear from them.

Next month we will be trying to find the location of the Round Park, Llanishen.