It was once a place for horse racing where the Welsh Grand National was held, but it became a public park in 1933 and is today one of Cardiff's biggest recreational fields. However, until a recent archaeological dig turned up what is thought to be Cardiff's oldest house, dating back thousands of years to the Bronze Age, its historical significance for the city went virtually unrecognized.
An aerial survey of a Cardiff park, where archaeologists and volunteers discovered a dwelling more than 3,000 years old (Image: PA)
The fact that a Roman villa's ruins had been found on the racetrack in 1894 had inspired searches throughout the park. Sir Mortimer Wheeler, who was in charge of the National Museum of Wales at the time, excavated the site.
He described his findings saying: "Here, some time during the first half of the second century, some Romanised settler built a small house upon an island formed by a branching streamlet in a flat tree-lined marsh. The house was of half-H shaped plan with wings facing south and fronted by a continuous veranda. Above this the main block doubtless rose to a second storey. Close by lay a second building, oblong in plan, again with a veranda along the main front. To the southern end of this second structure was added shortly afterwards a small but complete set of baths.
"In connection with this establishment, iron-smelting was carried on. After various modifications... the second structure was demolished and the remaining buildings were surrounded, apparently within a quarter-century of AD 300, by banks and ditches and not many years afterwards the whole establishment seems to have fallen into disuse."
University of Cardiff of archaeologists and volunteers working on discovering the roundhouse at Trelai Park (Image: PA)
This information inspired modern archaeologists to conduct some geophysical testing in the park (a technique for employing imaging to determine what is beneath the surface without having to dig) in order to determine what more riches might be buried beneath the earth. They were thrilled to find the roundhouse building's outline in a park corner around 200 meters from the home.
Initial examinations revealed that it had been a wooden building with a floor that had survived for more than 3,500 years under the playing fields, dating back to 1,500 BC. It had been about 10 meters in diameter. Even the presence of a sizable porch facing the rising sun could be discerned.
We visited last week to meet the group from the Caerau and Ely Rediscovering (CAER) Heritage Project, which has been in charge of planning digs at the location. We were curious about what had been found and had no idea that we would learn about a wonderful region of the city that we were unaware even existed. The project team is housed in a former chapel that has been transformed into an essential neighborhood resource owing to lottery funding at a center at the base of the Caerau Hillfort.
Dr. Oliver Davis, a prominent archaeologist at Cardiff University and the project's co-director, is dedicated to ensuring that local residents are included. "The vibrant history of the hillfort and what we have found at the dig in Trelai Park is brought to life not just through the important archaeological finds, but also by the lived experiences of local people uncovering the heritage on their doorstep," he claims. "The modern communities living in the shadow of Caerau Hillfort face many challenges, but there is also an incredible sense of connectedness to be found here. If you stand atop the hillfort today and take in the view, you will see a very modern city which changes with every season, but you will also be standing upon the same earth as your ancient ancestors, gazing upon the same stars."
Co- Director of CAER project, Dr Oliver Davies (Image: WalesOnline/Rob Browne)
An extensive dig was started earlier this summer in the hopes of learning more about how people lived there during the late Iron Age and early Roman eras and what connections they had to the neighboring Caerau Hillfort using the knowledge about the roundhouse in Trelai Park as a starting point.
When the Hillfort was no longer in use, the archaeologists initially believed that this building might have been constructed in the late Iron Age. However, soon after the project's excavation teams got started in July 2022, a clay pot was discovered in the enclosure's ditch by volunteer archaeologist Charlie Adams, which led to a complete reevaluation of the site's timeline.
The pot was painted in a manner similar of Deverel-Rimbury Ware, which convinced the experts that it was from the middle Bronze Age, according to archaeologist Tom Hicks, who was in charge of the sub-team that made the discovery. More decorative features were found when the pot was transported to Cardiff University to be conserved.
Tom stated to CA, "We saw some decoration on it – thumbnail imprints which were quite easy to see with the naked eye – but it was only when they had a real close-up look at it that they could see corded decoration on it as well."
Retired teacher Glyn Everett (Image: WalesOnline/Rob Browne)
He added: "We’ve got lots of evidence in Wales for middle Bronze Age metalwork and burial but, to date, settlement has proved elusive. Trelai [Enclosure] wouldn’t be out of place in southern England, but enclosed settlement sites in Wales for that period are very rare. Most other middle Bronze Age sites in south Wales, such as Rumney on the Wentloog Levels and Redwick on the Gwent Levels, are open settlements of one or two roundhouses, but overall very few are known."
Dr David Wyatt, a reader in early medieval history at Cardiff University, explained the significance of the find saying: ‘We came looking for the missing link between the late Iron Age and early Roman period. What we found is something much more remarkable and much older. We believe the roundhouse could now have been constructed in the mid-to-late Bronze Age, going back to between 1500 and 1100 BC."
More than 1,000 people visited the site in June of this year to learn more about the history of the area, including 257 volunteers and 159 students from five nearby primary and secondary schools who were directly involved in the excavations. The archaeologists returned to the meticulously marked-out excavation site.
Since the end of the dig, 78 volunteers have contributed about 300 hours of their time to cleaning, sorting, and analyzing the artifacts at the CAER center in preparation for a display of the findings in December. Glyn Everett, a retired teacher who has always had a strong interest in history, is one of those volunteers who has been assisting with the project since 2017.
Sifting through the earth that was recovered from the site (Image: WalesOnline/Rob Browne)
He was sorting through the bags of earth that had been taken from the site on the day of our visit using conventional methods. The coordinates of the square where they were discovered have been written on the outside of all of the bags, which are dark.
The contents of the bags are then efficiently sieved and placed in trays to be cleaned before the archaeologists search through them for historical hints.
Glyn tells how certain items were even simpler to unearth. He claimed that retirement was driving him "insane" until he discovered the project.
"It is staggering what we have found," he said. "I was involved in the dig and one of the students who was in my trench found an intact flint arrowhead. She was actually working on a paper on arrowheads and she couldn't believe what she had found. Most people go through a lifetime not finding something as amazing as that."
Sian Davies, a volunteer from Llandaff North who has been involved for some time, joined him on the day. Her duties included cleaning and sorting through the marked-up boxes.
"Each tray tells a story," she explains. "In this one there is some charcoal which helps to give you an idea of how they cooked their food and heated their homes, there is some clay that could be from the pots they used, there are parts of bones and chippings. I have always had an interest in history and getting involved in this project and other digs in Wales has been fascinating. I love finding out more about the history of our amazing country."
Sian working through the soil that was recovered from the site (Image: WalesOnline/Rob Browne)
The group's headquarters of operations is a hillfort with a route circling Iron Age ramparts and medieval castles that have been found there. Early Ordnance Survey maps referred to the hillfort region as a "Roman camp," but little was known about the location until 2011 when CAER started conducting archaeological research. In April 2012, they asked the Time Team from Channel Four to conduct the initial dig there.
A "nationally important site" with more than 6,000 years of history, the hillfort is detailed. an enormous Iron Age hillfort with a medieval castle and church to a Neolithic causewayed enclosure. “This is the story of Wales told through a single site. It would have been an area of real importance, where leaders made some of the major decisions in the area at the time. Three thousand years ago this would have been where all the important decisions were made, a bit like the role the Senedd in Cardiff Bay plays today.”
Regarding the excavation in the neighboring Trelai Park, Oliver calls it one of the "most significant projects" he has undertaken because it involved discovering the "treasures that are locked away in the soil."
