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Ian Layzell is a retired architect who now lives in an Edwardian neighbourhood of Cardiff whose houses, and their residents, were the inspiration for his book 'A Pretty Tree-Lined Street In Cardiff'

A PRETTY TREE-LINED STREET IN CARDIFF390 pages, ISBN: 9781806347414, RRP £20.00The history of an Edwardian neighbourhood...
11/10/2026

A PRETTY TREE-LINED STREET IN CARDIFF
390 pages, ISBN: 9781806347414, RRP £20.00
The history of an Edwardian neighbourhood beginning in the pre-Roman period. It explores the people who inhabited and ruled over the land it was built on, up to the Edwardian age. It explains how the neighbourhood was developed and how the houses came to be built. It paints a picture of the life and times of the first Edwardian residents of all 371 houses.
Printed book available now from:
Troubador Publishing: https://troubador.co.uk/bookshop
Wellfield Bookshop, 16 Wellfield Road, Cardiff CF24 3PB
Tel: 029 2048 3106 Email: [email protected]
Waterstones: https://www.waterstones.com/category/non-fiction
Amazon Books: https://www.amazon.co.uk/amz-books/store
E-book available now from:
Amazon Books, Apple Books, Google Play, Kobo and others

A PRETTY TREE-LINED STREET IN CARDIFFMy book is about an Edwardian neighbourhood in the parish of Roath in Cardiff. 275 ...
08/10/2026

A PRETTY TREE-LINED STREET IN CARDIFF
My book is about an Edwardian neighbourhood in the parish of Roath in Cardiff. 275 years ago in October 1751, Samuel Johnson wrote in a letter to the ‘Rambler’: ‘Yet we see no man can be at rest in the enjoyment of a new purchase till he has learned the history of his grounds from the ancient inhabitants of the parish...’ This prompted Chapter 2 of the book which takes us through the history of the parish’s inhabitants before the streets were laid out. It begins in 850,000 BC and romps through the centuries. In 1607 the good folk of the parish suffered the ‘Great Flood’ when “many hundreds of people both men women, and children were then quite devoured, by these outragious waters…” To compound their sorrows, the next year they were visited by the ‘Great Ague’, common in temperate regions in late summer and autumn, transmitted by mosquitos breeding in brackish water along river estuaries. The anaerobic bacterial flora in salt marshes produce a sulphurous smell which was thought to be the cause of the ague, explaining the Italian phrase ‘mala aria’, or bad air. A verse of the time recorded the event:

05/10/2026

Interesting

A PRETTY TREE-LINED STREET IN CARDIFFMy book is about the history of an Edwardian neighbourhood in Cardiff. Chapter 4 ‘B...
05/10/2026

A PRETTY TREE-LINED STREET IN CARDIFF
My book is about the history of an Edwardian neighbourhood in Cardiff. Chapter 4 ‘Building the Houses’ looks at, among other things, the plan layouts of the houses. Like most new dwellings in towns and cities across Britain in the 1900s, they were ‘through terrace houses’; the suburban sprawl of semi-Ds was in its infancy. Terraces minimised the area of land required per house, were a cost-effective way of building a large number of houses and were very profitable for the landowners leasing the building plots. We think of them as not very energy efficient but terraces minimised the number of ‘flank’ walls and therefore the area of external wall. A fun fact is that a terrace of ten houses has only two ‘flank’ walls, one at each end of the terrace. Ten semi-detached houses have ten flank walls, and ten detached houses have twenty. A lot more external wall. And then there’s the story of the ‘back additions’….

A PRETTY TREE-LINED STREET IN CARDIFFReading the latest RIBA Journal and an article about the wonderful work of Liverpoo...
04/10/2026

A PRETTY TREE-LINED STREET IN CARDIFF
Reading the latest RIBA Journal and an article about the wonderful work of Liverpool architects shedkm. Check it out. But a quote of one of their directors, Mark Sidebotham, caught my eye. Although it was about their regeneration work, I thought it applied equally to the neighbourhood I write about in my book: “…if they’re going to make a place, they’ve got build on the history that exists – and that doesn’t mean just Victorian history, but all history.” It’s a theme of my book that, whatever exists now, something existed before it and has helped to make it.
Coming soon:
390 pages, ISBN: 9781806347414, RRP £20.00, available for pre-order:
Wellfield Bookshop, 16 Wellfield Road, Cardiff CF24 3PB
Tel: 029 2048 3106 Email: [email protected]
Troubador Publishing: https://troubador.co.uk/bookshop
Waterstones: https://www.waterstones.com/category/non-fiction
Amazon Books: https://www.amazon.co.uk/amz-books/store

A PRETTY TREE-LINED STREET IN CARDIFFMy book is about an Edwardian neighbourhood in Cardiff, newly built and first occup...
28/09/2026

A PRETTY TREE-LINED STREET IN CARDIFF
My book is about an Edwardian neighbourhood in Cardiff, newly built and first occupied between 1905 and 1911. One chapter looks at Edwardian life and times. A popular and inexpensive transport for all was the bicycle. The ‘safety’ bicycle frame as we know it today with two equal sized wheels and a chain driven rear wheel was made from the late 1880s. It was an inexpensive means of getting around in town and for the first residents, with the open countryside on their doorstep, it provided an opportunity for young men and women to meet away from home. It was also a time of many magazines, guides and manuals offering advice on every aspect of domestic life. The ‘Home Encyclopaedia’ advised that ‘it is always convenient to have some place where the cycle may be put out of harm’s way’. One resident went to the trouble of building a fine brick ‘Cycles House’ in their back yard, but the ‘Home Encyclopaedia’ gave instructions for an ‘easy to make’ timber bicycle shed, pictured here. ‘Easy to make’ clearly meant something different then…
A Pretty Tree-Lined Street In Cardiff
390 pages, ISBN: 9781806347414, RRP £20.00, available for pre-order:
Wellfield Bookshop, 16 Wellfield Road, Cardiff CF24 3PB
Tel: 029 2048 3106 Email: [email protected]
Troubador Publishing: https://troubador.co.uk/bookshop
Waterstones: https://www.waterstones.com/category/non-fiction
Amazon Books: https://www.amazon.co.uk/amz-books/store

A PRETTY TREE-LINED STREET IN CARDIFFMy book is a story of an Edwardian neighbourhood in Roath, Cardiff, up to 1911 when...
27/09/2026

A PRETTY TREE-LINED STREET IN CARDIFF
My book is a story of an Edwardian neighbourhood in Roath, Cardiff, up to 1911 when the houses were newly built and first occupied. Today is Sunday which, in those days, really was a day of rest; and a day of worship. It was the time of the great religious ‘Revival’ when churches and chapels were well attended. In Chapter 6 you will read that until 1915, the nearest Anglican church for residents of Kimberley Road was the ‘new’ St Margaret of Antioch on Waterloo Road, designed in the Gothic style by architect John Prichard for the 3rd Marquis of Bute. It replaced an earlier Norman church but another chapter of the book explains how a church existed well before 560 AD during the ‘Age of the Saints’.

A PRETTY TREE-LINED STREET IN CARDIFFMy book is a story of the land on which this Edwardian neighbourhood was built, fro...
25/09/2026

A PRETTY TREE-LINED STREET IN CARDIFF
My book is a story of the land on which this Edwardian neighbourhood was built, from the earliest times up to 1911 when the houses were newly built and first occupied. It looks at the history of the nearby settlements of Roath village and Cardiff, with which the land has been inextricably linked over thousands of years. It tells how the houses came to be built, who were the landowners, architects and builders, and who were the first Edwardian residents. Diolch yn fawr i'r cyhoeddwr Y Lolfa for letting me include the 1931 poem ‘Cofio’ (Remembering) by Waldo Williams, one of the leading Welsh-language poets of the 20th century. I like to think that my book responds to his call ‘i gofio am y pethau anghofiedig’, ‘to remember forgotten things’. Here he is pictured in 1925 at Aberystwyth University.
A Pretty Tree-Lined Street In Cardiff; 390 pages, ISBN: 9781806347414, RRP £20.00, available for pre-order:
Wellfield Bookshop, 16 Wellfield Road, Cardiff CF24 3PB
Tel: 029 2048 3106 Email: [email protected]
Troubador Publishing: https://troubador.co.uk/bookshop
Waterstones: https://www.waterstones.com/category/non-fiction
Amazon Books: https://www.amazon.co.uk/amz-books/store

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Kimberley Road
Auchterarder
CF23

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