Wenvoe

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Wenvoe - careful now.

Wenvoe

Wenvoe (Welsh: Gwenfô) is a Welsh village between Barry and Cardiff in the Vale of Glamorgan, South Wales. Nearby is the Wenvoe Transmitter at the old HTV national headquarters in Culverhouse Cross in the suburbs of Cardiff.

Maintaining a thriving farming community for centuries, Wenvoe, while still a farming village to an extent, has doubled in population in the last hundred years due to the vast amount of high-end property created by both the government and private developers. The village originally developed around the parish church of St. Mary, which can be traced back to the 12th century with the adjacent locality now being a conservation area. Some medieval or earlier fortification is known to have existed in wooded hillside at Wrinstone. The village has a well-stocked village shop with a post office, a parish church, primary school, a Travelodge, a part-time library and three village halls.

It is home to three pubs (two that have been in the village for hundreds of years - The Wenvoe Arms and The Horse & Jockey, both of which are protected buildings - and the more recent Walston Castle) and many acres of forestry and fields. There is also a public house in the adjoining hamlet of Twyn-yr-Odyn, and another church at St Lythans.

The Wenvoe Arms

Wenvoe has a very healthy community spirit which supports a number of local community groups. Amongst these are Wenvoe Scout Group, the Village Quaffers, Ladies Choir, Youth Club and of course the Church. An example of the community working together is the annual submission by the village Community Council for the village as a contender for the Best Kept Village in the Vale of Glamorgan. This requires significant effort and commitment by residents to smarten up the village so it can compete with smaller, more quaint Vale villages. This energy and dedication was rewarded in 2005 and again in 2007 when the village won the event in the face of stiff opposition. It is served by its own monthly newspaper titled the Wenvoe What's On.

Wenvoe is a popular village as it is convenient for the city of Cardiff. Despite being a commuter village unfortunately it no longer has a railway line which was the victim of the "Beeching Axe" of the 1960s.