Cardiff Women’s Aid — Herstory Walk.

Follow us on a virtual tour of Cardiff’s historical feminist sites.

By Ellena Jenks (volunteer at Cardiff Women’s Aid)

As 2024 is Cardiff Women’s Aid’s 50th anniversary year, it feels like an ideal moment to pause and look back over the past 50 years. This is the first in a series of blog posts that map places around Cardiff which are part of Cardiff Women’s Aid’s story, or women’s history more generally.

Our first stop…

The Old Arcade Pub, Church Street, City Centre.

This cosy, traditional pub a few steps away from Cardiff Castle witnessed the first meeting of what would later become Women’s Aid. A group of passionate women met here in 1974 to discuss the possibility of a refuge for abused women in Cardiff. Although the women’s movement of the 1960s and 70s challenged taboo, there was still little legal protection for women at the time. For example, women could only divorce their husbands without having to prove wrongdoing after 1971 and the first piece of law to protect women experiencing domestic abuse was passed in 1976. After this first meeting in the Old Arcade, a letter writing campaign began in earnest followed by meetings with the Lord Mayor to establish the first refuge.

Did you know?

The Old Arcade pub has been in Cardiff for over 100 years and used to be called The Birdcage.

Cardiff Women’s Aid was named in 1975 and the same year the first refuge opened its doors to the first women and children who moved into the home. At this time, many local refuges were run voluntarily by women to support other women. This vital work paved the way for more conversations and action on domestic abuse. In future years the refuges across Wales would join together as a network to form Welsh Women’s Aid.

Now onto our next stop…

The Women’s Centre, 50 Meteor Street, Adamsdown.

The Women’s Centre was set up in 1977 as an advice and information centre and previously located on Coburn street, moving to Moira Terrace, and then to Meteor street in Adamsdown. Over the years, many women and children have walked through CWA’s doors attending support groups, counselling, play therapy, break for change and much much more.

50 years since its conception, Cardiff Women’s Aid is now moving to a Head Office on Penarth Road in Grangetown and continuing to run its groups and activities in community spaces across the city. Activities and courses such as Children & Young Person’s groups, Own My Life, Phoenix, Safe Spaces, Craft Café, and Yoga will remain accessible to women and young people from locations covering the breadth of Cardiff. Cardiff Women’s Aid continues to run four refuges across the city to support people fleeing from domestic abuse. The crisis and community support service RISE continues it’s vital work from it’s base at the Cardiff Royal Infirmary, alongside CWA’s partnership organisation BAWSO, together ensuring that the women and children of Cardiff receive the guidance and support that they need.

Did you know?

Meteor street was bombed during the Second World War. Cardiff was targeted partly because it was the biggest coal-exporting port in the UK at the time, but damage was not restricted to industrial areas.

This post is the first in a series focusing on different feminist and historically relevant sites around Cardiff to mark Cardiff Women’s Aid’s 50th anniversary. Follow our blog to see where we visit next.