Llandaff Cathedral s an Anglican cathedral and parish church in Llandaff, Cardiff. The current building was constructed in the 12th century on the site of an earlier church. Severe damage was done to the church in 1400 during the rebellion of Owain Glyndŵr, during the English Civil War when it was overrun by Parliamentarian troops, and during the Great Storm of 1703.
By 1717, the damage to the cathedral was so extensive that the church seriously considered the removal of the see. Following further storms in the early 1720s, construction of a new cathedral began in 1734, designed by John Wood, the Elder. During the Cardiff Blitz of the Second World War in January 1941, the cathedral was severely damaged when a parachute mine was dropped; blowing the roof off the nave, south aisle and chapter house. The stonework which remains from the medieval period is primarily Somerset Dundry stone, though local blue lias constitutes most of the stonework done in the post-Reformation period. The work done on the church since World War II is primarily concrete and Pennant sandstone, and the roofs, of Welsh slate and lead, were added during the post-war rebuilding.
For many years, the cathedral had the traditional Anglican choir of boys and men, and more recently a girls' choir, with the only dedicated choir school in the Church in Wales, the Cathedral School, Llandaff. The cathedral contains a number of notable tombs, including Dubricius, a 6th-century British saint who evangelised Ergyng (now Archenfield) and much of South-East Wales, Meurig ap Tewdrig, King of Gwent, Teilo, a 6th-century Welsh clergyman, church founder and saint, and many Bishops of Llandaff, from the 7th century Oudoceus to the 19th century Alfred Ollivant, who was bishop from 1849 to 1882.
References:The Broch of Gurness is an Iron Age broch village. Settlement here began sometime between 500 and 200 BC. At the centre of the settlement is a stone tower or broch, which once probably reached a height of around 10 metres. Its interior is divided into sections by upright slabs. The tower features two skins of drystone walls, with stone-floored galleries in between. These are accessed by steps. Stone ledges suggest that there was once an upper storey with a timber floor. The roof would have been thatched, surrounded by a wall walk linked by stairs to the ground floor. The broch features two hearths and a subterranean stone cistern with steps leading down into it. It is thought to have some religious significance, relating to an Iron Age cult of the underground.
The remains of the central tower are up to 3.6 metres high, and the stone walls are up to 4.1 metres thick.