St Augustine's Church

Written records indicate there has been a church on this site since 1242. In 1183, the site was given to the Black Canons of St Augustine by Osbert de Pennard. William de Saltmarsh, who later became Bishop of Llandaff, ordered the building of the first church on the site. The original church, built in 1242, was demolished in 1865 to make way for a newer, larger church. The tower caused concern during World War II because it could have been used by the Germans as a visual guide to bomb the docks at Cardiff. The present church was commissioned by Harriet Windsor-Clive, 13th Baroness Windsor to replace a church which was no longer large enough for the growing parish.{{efn|The Baroness first…

The church was designed in the a spare Early English version of the then-popular Gothic Revival style with a prominent saddleback tower. The walls have Leckwith limestone facings, bath stone dressings and bands, and red Staffordshire tiles. The gables have parapets and are surmounted by carved crucifix finials and moulded kneelers. The buttresses are low and set back with steep set-offs. The four-storey tower has a corbelled saddle, corner buttresses, and triple arcades to the lower storey. The interior has polychrome brick patterns and bath stone dressings on red bricks. The stilted low-pitch chancel roof has stellar-pattern ribs and crenellated wall plates; the nave roof is steeper with…