This essay was first published in the programme for the National Theatre’s 2023 production of Romeo and Julie by Gary Owen.
The most memorable thing about the Cardiff district of Splott is its name. Even in Cardiff, it’s sometimes the subject of some mirth. Outside the city, it can draw derision and act as another example of the oddities of Wales. But, for those who live there, the name is part of the district’s special character.
Where it comes from is unclear. In the medieval period, the church owned the land leading to the fanciful claim that Splott is a corruption of God’s Plot. Another popular myth is that it is a corruption of ysblad, a Welsh word for land by a marsh. More likely though is that it is an old English name for a plot of land and Splott was also used as a fieldname in other parts of Wales once settled by the English. Whatever its root, the quirkiness of the name was added to by the 19th-century habit of calling the area Splottlands. This grander name was immortalised in the name of a local pub, but it never stuck and even many Victorians preferred the simpler, one-syllable Splott.
For centuries, Splott was coastal marsh and farmland but, as Cardiff grew in the middle of the 19th century with Wales’ industrial boom, streets began to be built on fields. The area was formally made part of Cardiff in 1875, when the town’s boundaries were expanded. Splott’s flat land and vicinity to the railway and docks meant the area became home to industrial plants that processed or made goods such as copper, malt, creosote, bricks and tar.
Industries needed workers and Splott evolved into a working-class suburb, physically near the centre of Cardiff but, psychologically, a place apart. The area’s development was so rapid that drainage, sewerage and stink were all noted problems. The mud could be so thick on the streets that a newspaper reported a story of a woman and child getting stuck in it. In such conditions, the threat of cholera was strong, adding to the sense that this was not a pleasant place to live. In 1890, one newspaper called South Splottlands and neighbouring Adamsdown a ‘notorious district’ in need of better policing. Amongst the noted problems were keepers of ‘disreputable houses’ relocating there from the town centre and boys rushing on to the railway to collect coal that had fallen from wagons. The council was told that at night people felt helpless to resist attacks on themselves and their property.
It was the 1891 opening of the huge East Moors works, which manufactured first iron and then steel, that really came to define Splott. The location was chosen because it was near the docks, which saved on the costs of moving materials when compared with the old ironworks near Merthyr, owned by the same company. East Moors became Cardiff’s largest employer and it attracted to Splott men from both Ireland and the Welsh mining valleys. This created a cosmopolitan society but added to prejudices in the rest of the city towards the place.
The people that lived in the shadow of the steelworks were poor. Their lives were plagued by the smoke and pollution that the steelworks belched out. In such conditions, keeping anything clean was a daily challenge. Yet these were also proud communities, with parks, churches, chapels, and football and baseball teams. There was even a university settlement where students came to live amongst and help the poor in the typical, well-meaning but patronising fashion of the time.
But whatever Splott’s reputation, it was not just home to the less well off. The bigger, solid houses, marked out proudly by their bay windows, on the eastern side of Splott testified to the presence of better-paid skilled workers. Splott Road was a bustling commercial centre and home to an array of tradesmen, shopkeepers and professionals.
But it was the steelworks that continued to define the skyline and image of Splott. It was redeveloped in the 1930s into one of the most modern plants in the world. By the 1970s, it employed 4,600 people. Jobs there now paid well but the works was outdated and struggling against increased international competition and a global economic downturn. Its closure was announced in 1972 and production was gradually wound down over the next six years. The city authorities began to consider how Cardiff’s economy could be rebuilt on post-industrial lines. This sparked the process that led to the redevelopment of the docks into Cardiff Bay. Splott’s loss became the city’s gain.
It was not just jobs that disappeared at East Moors. The nearby streets were still characterised by Victorian conditions. Many were damp and badly ventilated. In 1971, 63 per cent of homes in Splott had no inside toilet. By then, compulsory slum clearances had begun. Whole streets continued to be demolished and, by the end of the decade, more than 1,100 houses had been knocked down and around 5,300 people had to relocate.
Not everyone had wanted to move. Not everyone liked their home being labelled a slum. Some argued the heart had been ripped out of Splott. But the young often wanted to move elsewhere for their futures. Even in 1981, more than one in five homes in Splott still did not have an inside toilet.
A new revival or threat, depending on your perspective, came in the 1990s when the house price boom led people from other parts of the city to move to Splott in search of affordable housing. Yet it still does not feel very gentrified. Once grand pubs like the Moorlands Hotel are now flats rather than trendy bars. Parts of Splott are still amongst the most deprived neighbourhoods in the country according to the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation.
Yet this poverty is often forgotten and out of sight in a vibrant capital whose outward face is its city centre stadium and its redeveloped docklands, now home to a grand arts centre and the Welsh Parliament. Wales has moved on from its docks, mines and metal works and the once-industrial communities on whose backs the Welsh nation was forged can seem forgotten.
Indeed, people are often not quite sure where exactly Splott is. For the Victorians, the term had covered a wide area south of the main railway line to London. But, as the area developed, its boundaries became more defined and neighbouring districts of Tremorfa and Adamsdown developed their own distinct identities. But the areas still merge into one another, and the boundaries are particularly unclear to those who have moved in.
Splott Beach, for example, is actually in Tremorfa. But maybe that does not have quite the same ring. Wherever it is, it is a unique spot. Indeed, referring to it as a beach is surely tongue-in-cheek, since it is mostly mud, bricks and rubble. The steelworks used to dump molten slag there, which occasionally exploded when it came into contact with cold water. When the steelworks itself was demolished, parts of it were dumped there too.
It might be a peripheral place that few residents of Cardiff have visited, but, in that regard, it reflects Splott itself. Indeed, while the mud of Splott Beach might seem unappealing at first, look more carefully and you will find birds and insects. Look amidst the rubble, concrete and slag, and there are bricks emblazoned with manufacturers’ names, relics of an industrial age. Look more closely still and you will see it is a place brimming with life, character and history.
Image: Near Splott Beach by Gareth James (reproduced under Creative Commons)
Martin Johnes is Professor of Modern History at Swansea University. His books include Wales: England’s Colony? (2019) which turned into a BBC television series.
Martin Johnes 
