Llandaff

Llandaff or Llandaf , section of Cardiff, S Wales, on the Taff River. According to tradition, St. Teilo founded a church there in the late 6th or early 7th cent. The present cathedral, the oldest parts of which date from 1120, was restored in the 19th cent. and again after World War II. Llandaff has an Anglican theological college.

Llandaff. Welsh episcopal see, 2 miles north of the centre of Cardiff. The diocese used to cover most of SE Wales, but in 1921 the diocese of Monmouth was formed out of it. Its early history is told in the ‘Book of Llandaff’, which is not generally a trustworthy source. When, under the Norman kings, diocesan organization of the Church spread to Wales, the see emerged, with the head of the monastic community as its bishop. In 1107 Bp. Urban recognized the jurisdiction of Canterbury and in 1120 began to build the cathedral. Largely restored in the 19th cent., it was badly damaged by an air raid in 1941; when it was restored in 1957 an impressive figure of ‘Christ in Majesty’ by Sir Jacob Epstein was placed high at the east end of the nave.

Llandaff, diocese of Llandaff cathedral looks to the 6th‐cent. saints Teilo and Euddogwy as its founders, and the shrine of the former was a place of pilgrimage until the Reformation. Work on the building of the present cathedral, and the definition of the territorial boundaries of the see, were however the responsibility of the first Norman bishop, Urban, early in the 12th cent. The diocese, the most populous in Wales, originally encompassed most of the counties of Glamorgan and Monmouth (Gwent), though the latter became a separate bishopric in 1921.