What Happened to Velindre House

We’ve looked previously at the saga of the Bookers, and how the Melingriffith works failed

TWB junior (some say the villain of the piece) simply left and moved with his family to another swanky house at Southerndown

Velindre, was left empty. I wonder what happened to all of the contents? They must have been spectacular. Did TWB junior take it all with him to Southerndown, or were they just auctioned off?

After the Bookers left, the old house was only sporadically tenanted, and for the next twenty years or so, slowly deteriorated

Finally, in 1899, the house, gardens and all of Ty-Clyd farm were sold to Cardiff Corporation for their new ‘Asylum’

So, when was Velindre demolished? It would be lovely to know

We’re told that a complete set of house plans of Velindre were handed over to the council at the time, but these have been lost in the passing years! How sad

You would hope that lots of important items would have been salvaged before the house was knocked down. We’ve discovered that the magnificent clock over the stable entrance was salvaged and reused at Roath Park, on the roundabout at the bottom of Fairoak Road, where the trams terminated. Are there any photographs of this? It’s not there now, I wonder what happened to it?

Cardiff Corporation obviously felt that an old mansion wasn’t modern enough for the new hospital superintendent, so a new house was built, called The Grange. Ironically, they built it over the footprint of Velindre. From the photograph below, it was by no means a modest place. Does anyone know what rooms it contained?

The pleasure gardens and lawns of the old house which had been so beautifully maintained ended up under the main hospital building! All of the exotic plants, greenhouses and pineapple plants lost. Only a few of the specimen trees to the perimeter of the site are still there, 120 years later

Surprisingly, the stone boundary walls along Velindre Road, the main entrance way to the old house, and the entrance lodge, all still remain. The lodge building is all boarded up now, looking for a new use. Perhaps it would make a great local history base for the village! What do you think?

Sometime, during the long life of the hospital, the superintendent chose not to live in the Grange any more, and it was repurposed for a variety of hospital uses. In its last form, it was a base for the security staff on site

Finally, the Grange itself became subject to vandalism, and the building was demolished. I wonder when this was? Does anyone know?

Nothing now remains of Velindre or the Grange. Just a piece of scrubby waste ground, behind the hoardings, awaiting its fate (along with the rest of the hospital). But that’s for another time

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