Qualla: Llandaff https://qualla.com/llandaff en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/j/s/llandaff-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Llandaff https://qualla.com/llandaff Llandaff: Introduction https://qualla.com/llandaff/ Photo credit John Lord, CC BY-SA 2.0. On a July afternoon in 1952, two de Havilland Vampire jets from RAF Merryfield collided at 29,000 feet over Cardiff. One pilot bailed out and landed at Cardiff Airport. The other landed in the River Rumney. One of the planes - VF265 - went straight down through a three-storey building next to the Llandaff Hotel, all the way to the basement, killing a 53-year-old woman inside. The other crashed in Pontcanna Fields. It was not the worst thing that happened to Llandaff in the twentieth century. Eleven years earlier the Luftwaffe had bombed the cathedral - making it the second-most-damaged cathedral in the UK after Coventry. Llandaff has spent fifteen centuries being damaged and rebuilt, attacked by Owain Glyndŵr, sacked by Oliver Cromwell, hit by Hitler, struck by lightning, and somehow always restored. It is, technically, not even a city.

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Image: John Lord | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/j/s/llandaff-wp/gcjs-llandaff-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Llandaff: The City That Isn't https://qualla.com/llandaff/ Photo credit mattbuck (category), CC BY-SA 3.0. Llandaff was informally called a city for centuries because it had a cathedral and a bishop, but it never received the formal charter of incorporation that would have made the title official. It was a village with a cathedral, then a parish, then a civil parish, then in 1922 abso...

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Image: mattbuck (category) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/j/s/llandaff-wp/gcjs-llandaff-the-city-that-isnt.mp3 0:06 2 full Llandaff: The Cathedral and Its Wreckers https://qualla.com/llandaff/ Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Dolica~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. The current cathedral incorporates twelfth-century Romanesque work, including the impressive Urban Arch named after Bishop Urban who oversaw its construction. Beyond that, the building is a layered record of repeated destruction and patient repair. Owain Glyndŵr's forces attacked...

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. Dolica~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims). | Public domain

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/j/s/llandaff-wp/gcjs-llandaff-the-cathedral-and-its-wreckers.mp3 0:06 3 full Llandaff: Christ in Majesty https://qualla.com/llandaff/ Photo credit John Lord, CC BY-SA 2.0. The most striking thing in the restored cathedral is suspended above the nave: a vast aluminium figure of Christ in Majesty by Jacob Epstein, executed between 1954 and 1955. Epstein - American-born, controversial throughout his career, knighted near the end of it - cast the figur...

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Image: John Lord | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/j/s/llandaff-wp/gcjs-llandaff-christ-in-majesty.mp3 0:06 4 full Llandaff: Roald Dahl's Mouse https://qualla.com/llandaff/ Photo credit Seth Whales, CC BY-SA 4.0. Roald Dahl was born in Llandaff in 1916 and attended the Cathedral School. The blue plaque outside 11 High Street commemorates not a literary triumph but a piece of childhood mischief: young Roald and his friends, infuriated by a mean-spirited sweet-shop owner named Mrs Pratchett...

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Image: Seth Whales | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/j/s/llandaff-wp/gcjs-llandaff-roald-dahls-mouse.mp3 0:06 5 full Llandaff: BBC Wales and Doctor Who https://qualla.com/llandaff/ Photo credit Seth Whales, CC BY-SA 3.0. Broadcasting House on Llantrisant Road served as the headquarters of BBC Cymru Wales from 1966 until 2020, when the broadcaster moved to a new building at Central Square in central Cardiff. From 2005 to 2012, the revived Doctor Who was produced from the Llandaff studios before mo...

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Image: Seth Whales | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/j/s/llandaff-wp/gcjs-llandaff-bbc-wales-and-doctor-who.mp3 0:06 6 full Llandaff: Sir David's Tomb https://qualla.com/llandaff/ Photo credit Bill Boaden, CC BY-SA 2.0. Inside the cathedral, in a chapel along the south aisle, lies the tomb of Sir David Mathew - Dafydd ap Mathew (1400-1484) - Standard Bearer of England to Edward IV. He fought at the Battle of Towton on Palm Sunday 1461, the bloodiest single day in English history, and is credited...

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Image: Bill Boaden | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/j/s/llandaff-wp/gcjs-llandaff-sir-davids-tomb.mp3 0:06 7 full