Llantrisant

Dr William Price and the Old Town

In the Bull Ring, the central square at the top of the old town, there is a statue of Dr William Price in a fox-fur hat, emerald-green clothing and plaited hair. He was a physician who, in January 1884, cremated the body of his infant son on Caerlan hill in white robes, was arrested for it, and successfully argued at Cardiff that English law did not actually prohibit cremation. His acquittal helped bring about the Cremation Act of 1902. When Price himself died in 1893, his own cremation on the same hillside drew around 20,000 spectators. The Bull Ring was once used for bull-baiting, banned in 1827 when the crowds got out of hand; now it holds Price, straight-faced above the cobbles.

The square sits at the top of a warren of cobbled streets that climb, at 174 metres, to the castle and church. The pubs are old-town fixtures. The Bear Inn, near the Bull Ring, is the highest-rated place to eat in town and does live music and outdoor seating. The Wheatsheaf Hotel is a free house with a real fire in one room, a traditional Sunday roast, pizza, darts and cards, and two real ales that come mostly from south Wales and the border counties; it has been in the CAMRA Good Beer Guide for three years running. The New Inn cooks homemade meals Wednesday to Sunday and keeps a Curry Night on Wednesdays and a Burger and a Pint on Thursdays. The Cross Keys, refurbished in 2023, is dog-friendly, has a beer garden, a pool table and a function room, and is where the town's circular walk begins.

The Common, Billy Wynt and Castle

That walk is waymarked with bunny-rabbit signs and climbs through Llantrisant Common, over to Billy Wynt and past the castle before returning through the cobbled streets. Billy Wynt is a stone tower on the highest point of Y Graig, ruined by the early nineteenth century and rebuilt as a folly in 1890. People go up for the sunsets. Below it, Llantrisant Common is 113 hectares of marshy grassland and pasture grazed by cattle and horses.

Church, Crafts and the Bull Ring

The parish church is the Church of the Three Saints — St Illtyd, St Gwynno and St Dyfodwg — which is what the town's name means. It has a 70-foot west tower holding six bells and a thirteenth-century effigy of Cadwgan, lord of Miskin, inside. On the Bull Ring, the Model House sells crafts and design from the building that was the town's Union Workhouse in 1884.

Coinmaking at the Royal Mint

The other thing here is coins. The Royal Mint moved from London in 1967 and is now the only place UK coins are made, striking currency for around sixty countries and employing about nine hundred people. The Royal Mint Experience runs factory tours where you can strike your own coin, four miles from Junction 34 of the M4. Pontyclun station is about three miles off, and Cardiff is twenty minutes by car.

Beating the Bounds

Every seven years the town Beats the Bounds, and the local children are bounced onto the old borough boundary stones by their elders. It last happened in June 2024, and for the first time the women took part.