Sully, Vale of Glamorgan

infobox UK place
country = Wales
welsh_name=
constituency_welsh_assembly=
latitude= 51.41
longitude= -3.21
official_name= Sully
( _cy. Y Sili)
unitary_wales= Vale of Glamorgan
lieutenancy_wales= South Glamorgan
constituency_westminster=
post_town= CARDIFF
postcode_district = CF64
postcode_area= CF
dial_code= +44 29
os_grid_reference= ST155683
population=
static_

static_image_caption=Part of South Road, the main village road,
facing East towards Penarth and Cardiff

Sully ( _cy. Y Sili) is a village in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales lying on the northern coast of the Bristol Channel, midway between the towns of Penarth and Barry and 8 miles (12.8 kilometres) south west from the Welsh capital city of Cardiff.

Village History

Medieval Sully

The village could be named as an abbreviation of "south lea" or "southern pasture" but it is more commonly understood to be named after the noble Norman family of Baron Reginald de Sully, one of the 'Twelve Knights of Glamorgan' who was awarded the Manor around 1093 by the conqueror of Glamorgan Sir Robert Fitz Haymon, probably under charter by William II of England. In 1591 Sir Edward Mansel of Margam wrote his historical document recording 'The winning of Glamorgan' and recorded:

:"To Sir Reginald de Sully he "(Fitz Haymon)" gave the castle and town to be called Sully with the Manor of it, and the Manors of St Andrews and Dinas Powys for his Granary and provisions. This Sir Reginald bestowed much land in fee frankliege to his men and came to be a man of wealth and fame. He had at Sully besides his Castle a fair Manor house built after a new manner, where he did live the most of his time, which house as well as the Castle was broke down by Owain Glendowr"

De Sully also had extensive estates in Devon but he is recorded as having built a small fortified castle in Sully, the remains of which have mostly vanished, except for a short length of wall, located to the east of the Norman Parish church in the village. The site of a 13th century moated manor house can still be observed on Sully Moors.

The castle at Sully was the smallest in Glamorgan by a very long way. It covered a site of only about half an acre and stood in a location that was, until only recently, called Castle Wood. Occupation of the castle lasted less than three hundred years till around the mid 1300s, probably as a result of the extinction of the de Sully family line.The present church dates from around the same time as the castle and is dedicated to St. John the Baptist. The resident Sully clergyman has always been referred to as the Rector which indicates the tithes that produced his annual income were never appropriated by a monastery and he was therefore probably supported by the Lord of the Manor directly, although appointed by the Bishop.

There is a mostly complete late medieval lime kiln on Ashby Road, Sully. Comprising of stone and brick it is 40 feet long and 18 feet high by 13 feet wide. Buttressed with three brick on edge archways and draught holes on the South elevation. Five iron pegs are inserted into the face of the kiln. "Briarside and Middleton Cottage" on Cog Road was a yeoman's cottage built in the mid 1500s with later 1700s additions. The cottage contains a Tudor style archway and an original circular stone staircase. The remains of the village mill can be found at Hayes Farm on Hayes Road.

Changes in the Manor

The Manor of Sully reverted to Crown ownership and is recorded as being sold in its entirety to Sir Thomas Stradling in 1538. It remained in the Stradling family for exactly two hundred years after which it was administered first by Christopher Mansel and later Bussy Mansel until his death in 1780.

There followed a number of lawsuits with several landowners claiming rights to the manor until a private Act of Parliament granted the manors of both St. Donats and Sully to Sir John de la Fountaine Tyrwhit. It stayed in his family until 1811 although the family had changed their name to Drake by then. When the last of the Drake family died without heirs the estate was sold by public auction to a Mr Evan Thomas who resided in Old Sully House until he died in 1832. Thomas built Cog Farm between 1816-17. The rickstands at Cog Farm are probably contemporary. The eight circular rickstands are approximately 3 metres high, stone built and lipped at the top. In plan they form a right angle at the edge of the former rickyard. The rickstands kept unthreshed corn above the moist ground and the lips provided protection against rodents. There was a six year gap while ownership was disputed until in 1838 the estate was finally taken by Sir Josiah John Guest of Dowlais and Merthyr Tydfil, whose eldest son would later became the first Lord Wimbourne of Ashby. In 1889 Lord Wimborne purchased the rights to use the Sully foreshore for the manor estate purposes.

By the early 1900s Lord Wimbourne's estate began to sell off various lands within the parish, and during 1914 the last of the Sully estate interests were sold at public auction to a number of individual private landowners, the main purchasor being Lieutenant-Commander Charles E. Evans, RNVR, who in 1917 split his overall Sully holding into a number of rented properties. These various properties then formed part of Evans' estate, which in 1956 was established as a private limited letting company (Evans' Estate (1956) Ltd), based in Newton Abbott, Devon.

Village Growth

In the 1800s Sully was almost entirely agricultural in nature and the population fluctuated between only 150 to 200 individuals. By 1920 this had still only increased to 550 despite the explosive growths of nearby Penarth and Barry. However, in just the past forty years Sully has grown steadily along the various commercial plastics factory developments and with the wider spread of private car ownership. Sully is now mainly a middle income dormitory suburb of Cardiff with a still expanding population of just over 5,000.

From 1890 until the end of the 1960s Sully was connected eastwards to Penarth and Cardiff and westwards to Barry and the South Wales Valleys by an extension of the Taff Vale Railway line. The coastal spur fell victim to the sweeping Beeching Axe in 1968. Sully station, on Cog Road opposite the Sully Inn and Swanbridge Halt were closed. The redundant rail track bed and station buildings have mostly been sold into private ownership and built on, with any unsold stretches being overgrown and impassable as far as the Fort Road bridge at Lavernock. Between Lavernock and Penarth the track bed is a rural greenway and cycle track.

In the 1960s the local plastics factory and principal employers in the immediate area, Distillers Company Limited later taken over by Dow Corning, built a new sports and social club at the east end of the village, opposite Swanbridge Halt railway station. In 1966 members of the club formed a rugby team initially known as 'Barry Plastics RFC' but now renamed as 'Sully Sports RFC'. Today the club fields three teams in the Cardiff and District Rugby Union and the sides are regular competitors in the Welsh Brewers Cup, the Mallett Cup and the Ninian Stuart Cup. Touring venues have included Holland, Spain, Germany and Belgium, as well as many within the U.K.

Pilton

The SS Pilton was a ship that ran aground on Sully Beach in 1924. Owned by WJ Tatem of Cardiff, the Pilton ran aground during gale force winds in December 1924. She was aground for three months, and provided a steady source of income for Sully caterers from the large number visitors arriving by train to view the spectacle.

A fine Art Deco hospital

Sully Hospital is described in the Glamorgan section of Pevsner’s ‘The Buildings of Wales’ as “An outstanding example of inter-war architecture, which has survived almost unaltered” and is considered to be the finest representation of Modernist sanitariums in Britain and one of the last great Modernist landmarks remaining in the whole of Wales.

The classical and elegant Art Deco structure was completed between 1932 and 1936 by the firm of William Pite, Son and Fairweathers who had won a 1931 open competition to design the new building. It was opened in 1936 by King Edward VII as a local 'cottage' general hospital.

The new hospital facility initially specialised in treatment of tuberculosis, together with heart and lung ailments but also had general surgery wards and its own maternity unit. In 1943 there was a Battalion of American Seabees, the US Construction Corps, living on a merchant vessel tied up in Penarth docks, while they built a large number of Quonset huts for a rapid temporary expansions of Sully Hospital needed for the extra wartime pressure of additional patients, both military and civilian. Many of the Quonset huts remained in use as overflow accommodation until the mid 1960s. In 1993 the hospital switched to a speciality in residential psychiatric care until its final closure as an NHS Trust facility in 2001.

While standing vacant the hospital building was briefly considered as a potential location for the temporary housing of up to 750 Eastern European asylum seekers, but those unsuitable plans were eventually shelved after a campaign and objections by local residents. In the last few years the building, which is protected by a Grade II listing, has subsequently been tastefully converted into multiple occupancy as individual luxury apartments by the investment property company Galliard Homes Ltd. The building has been renamed Hayes Point and its fine art deco external appearance was carefully retained and preserved.

Governence

* Sully is represented by a community council which is chaired by Mr Malcolm Davies.

* Sully falls within the Vale of Glamorgan parliamentary constituency and is currently represented by John Smith MP, a member of the Labour Party (UK).

* Jane Hutt, a resident of Barry, represents the Vale of Glamorgan in the National Assembly for Wales(Labour Party).

* Ward representatives to the Vale of Glamorgan Council are Anthony Ernest (Con) and Mrs S Sharpe (Con)

Education

Sully School moved to its present site in 1936. It is a primary school with a twenty six place nursery unit. There are over 400 pupils and seventeen teachers.

There are no secondary schools in the village. Most children attend Stanwell School and St Cyres Comprehensive School in nearby Penarth, or various schools in Barry. Sully school is a main feeder school for Stanwell School and other schools are selected by parental choice. Free school bus services are provided.

Nearby areas of interest

Nearby (at gbmapping|ST167674) is the hamlet of Swanbridge that includes a caravan park and holiday camp and the "Captain's Wife" public house opened in 1977 after a conversion of several quayside cottages. There is foot access at low tide from the pub car park to Sully Island but it should be noted that tides are high and fast. There is an access time of only three hours each side of low tides and extreme care is advised.

*The Bendricks, Vale of Glamorgan
*Sully Island

External links

* [http://www.francisfrith.com/search/wales/south+glamorgan/swanbridge/photos/swanbridge_photos.htm Swanbridge photos from the 1950s]
* [http://www.francisfrith.com/search/wales/south+glamorgan/sully/photos/sully_photos.htm Sully Village photos from the 1950s]
* [http://www.sullysportsrfc.co.uk/history.asp Sully Sports Club]
* [http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/walk/xhm80/sully.htm Sully - A history]
* [http://www.nlw.org.uk/cgi-bin/anw/search2?coll_id=2282&inst_id=33&term=Actions%20and%20defenses%20%7C%20Wales%20%7C%20Sully Glamorgan Records Office, Sully Manor Records]

*oscoor gbx|ST155683