8th October Crockherbtown station, now Cardiff Queen Street railway station was opened on 8th October 1840. It was Cardiffs first railway station and also the headquarters of the Taff Vale Railway. Cardiff Central station was not opened until 1850 as the area it is situated on was prone to flooding. It was Isambard Kingdom Brunels solution to divert the River Taff to the west to create a larger and safer site for its construction. Crockherbtown was one of the five areas that surrounded and were later to become absobed by the walled town of Cardiff. The others were Butetown, Grangetown, Newtown and Temperance Town. The name is thought to be of Saxon origin and literally means “the town of the crock herbs”. An order of Franciscan monks known as the Grey Friars settled in the area in the late 13th century. It is believed that these monks would cultivate the crock herbs in the friary gardens and sell them to travellers entering or leaving Cardiff via the east gate. In the 14th century it housed a leper colony run by the nuns of St Mary Magdalene that was closed in the Reformation. Crockherbtown later became a refuge from the muddy, violent and shabby areas of Cardiff for Aldermen and wealthier merchants and by the 18th century fine Georgian town-houses were appearing among the thatched cottages. Then the opening of the Taff Vale Railway from Merthyr to Cardiff in 1841 gave the town its first public railway station. With boomtown Cardiff’s population now going off the graph, it became a priority to clear away the pre-industrial town and in 1863 Crockherbtown was widened and renamed Queen Street in 1886. The name does still live on in the area, in some small part anyway. Pub chain JD Wetherspoons local ‘Lloyds no.1 Bar’ is called ‘The Crockerton and there is a narrow route running behind it called Crockherbtown Lane which runs parallel with the section of Queen Street which would have once been known as Crockherbtown.
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 23:10:00 +0000
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