ST MELLONS

'St Mellons' () is a district of the city of Cardiff, Wales. It is often considered to be one of the most respected villages in Cardiff, voted 2nd in the South Wales Echo top 20 towns in Wales.

Contents

History

The Area

Facilities

Education

Business

Transport

Wildlife

Coastal Defences

See also

History

St Mellons is probably named after the 6th century Saint Melaine who became Bishop of Rennes in Brittany, rather than the more legendary 4th century Mellonius, Bishop of Rouen. He is said to have been born there.
When people refer to St Mellons, they are often talking about the considerably larger and more modern estate which has been built to the south and east of the historic St Mellons, now officially called Old St Mellons. Many buildings in Old St Mellons date back to the 19th Century whereas the vast majority of buildings in St Mellons have been built since the 1990s.
St Mellons became part of the city of Cardiff district of South Glamorgan under the Local Government Act 1972 on April 1, 1974. The district lies east of the River Rhymney, which was originally the border between the historic counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire.

The Area

The population of Old St Mellons combined with Pontprennau in the 2001 census was just over 8,500, and the population of St Mellons combined with Trowbridge was approximately 7,000 although both figures are expected to rise substantially by the 2011 census due to large scale housing developments in the east of the city.
Large infill development along the mainline railway is causing the blurring of the boundary between St Mellons and Trowbridge and there are also plans to regenerate the older council-owned estates in line with the recent trend of constructing three-storey "town" houses.

Facilities

There are 2 major retail complexes in St Mellons, one features a Tesco supermarket and petrol station, public house, chemist, unisex hairdressers, Coral betting shop, dentist, fish & chip shop and a newsagent. The other complex features an Indian Restaurant, chemist, doctor's surgery and two empty supermarket units which used to belong to Kwik Save and Hyper Value until both companies went into liquidation in 2006 and 2007. Further to the east, near the A48(M) Junction, there is a garden centre and furniture showroom.
In Old St Mellons there is a Texaco Petrol Station and Car Wash, a Post Office, unisex hairdressers and a handul of newsagents. There are also four public houses situated alongside Newport Road, the old Roman Road from Cardiff to London. The Blubell Inn, The Star Inn, The White Hart and The Fox and Hounds, one of the oldest pubs in Cardiff, were all able to gain extra business by exploiting the (Wales) Sunday Closing act of 1881. The act prohibited the sale of alcohol in Welsh establishments on a Sunday, but during the 19th century St Mellons was considered a part of England.
There are a number of sports and leisure facilities dotted around the district, including floodlit outdoor basketball and football courts, numerous playing fields and children's playing parks as well as a bowls club, two community centres a job centre and a library. There is also Hendre Lake park; a park and man-made lake situated near the mainline railway popular with local fishermen.

Education

St Mellons has 4 state schools: St Bishop Childs Church in Wales, Meadowlane Primary, Oakfield Primary and Willowbrook Primary. It also has a private school known as St Johns College, often considered to be one of the best private school's in Cardiff. The building and surrounding fields were part of a convalescent house known as Ty-to-Maen, which was only closed in the 1970s. The surrounding land was sold off for housing in the late 1990s following the death of the house's former owner William Nicoll, who now has a street on the estate named after him.
There are no higher learning institutions in the suburb, however a large plot of wasteland behind the now redundant Hyper Value and Kwik Save supermarket building has long been earmarked as a location for a possible new high school. The wasteland remains vacant today, despite large scale housing estates surrounding it making it a target for a number of housebuilding companies.

Business

The St Mellons Business Park is a collection of large scale business parks located east of St Mellons on land which is considered to be Cardiff's green belt. It has a vast number of factories and offices which have been (or are still) inhabited by such companies as Gilesports, TBI, Bailey Homes and Lloyds TSB.

Transport

St Mellons is located next to Junction 29a of the A48 (M)/Eastern Avenue Junction, where the A48 continues eastbound along Newport Road through Coedkernew and the A48(M) rejoins the M4.
The entire of St Mellons is a 30mph speed limit, except for a section of Newport Road which is 40mph. There are no permanent speed cameras in the area and very few speed bumps, zebra crossings, pelican crossings or traffic lights. A number of road-related deaths in recent years has led to residents campaigning that these traffic calming measures need implemeting before more lives are lost.
There are no train stations in the area, despite the local beauty spot Hendre Lake being just a stones throw away from the Freight Terminal Port, which is situated adjacent to the main route between Cardiff and Newport. Train users will have to commute using a bus from Cardiff city centre.
Cardiff Bus serve St Mellons via services 30, 44 and 45. Services run approximately every 9mins (Monday to Friday) via each stop, and will arrive in Cardiff in around 35mins. St Mellons is in Zone 4 of the Cardiff Bus system, with single adult fares to Cardiff costing £1.60, and a return (Day Rider ticket) costing £3.50.

Wildlife

Despite the large number of new houses, a lot of wildlife can be seen especially to the eastern fringe: Foxes, Rabbits, Squirrels, Buzzards, Herons, Moorhens, Swans, Mallards, Woodpeckers and many other birds are a common sight.

Coastal Defences

Much of the newer estates of St Mellons were built on the Wentloog Levels, area's of low-lying farmland which regularly became flooded until they were reclaimed from the sea during Roman times. A system of drainage reens and sluice gates together with a sea wall which runs from the River Usk in the east to the Rhymney River in the west protect the area from the risk of coastal flooding as the land is still only a few metres above sea level.

See also

★ Cefn Mably