Sam Bennett and Manor Way

Between the two world wars, Whitchurch was expanding rapidly with new houses being built from the northern edges of the village to the south.

There were quite a few builders active in the area, and prominent of those was Sam Bennett. He was born in Cornwall in 1875 and moved to south Wales at the turn of the century to find his fortune. We first find him living in Treforest in 1901, with his wife Frances, brother James, 4 children (and a servant).

We’ve not been able to find out much about him for the next two decades, but he was then living at number 11 Penlline Road (is this where Lloyds Bank is now?) and was building houses in Pantbach Road.

About the same time, Sam started the Camborne Estate off Kelston Road (Sam was born in Camborne Cornwall), and built the houses on Kelston Place and Camborne Avenue, backing onto the high school.

In 1928/29 Sam started building at the southern end of the village. Along Philog Road (later renamed Birchgrove Road) Sam built a detached house, three houses in a block and then three pairs of semi-detached houses. Across what would later become Manor Way, he built a further detached house and three pairs of semi-detached houses down to the (then) city boundary, which was a stream crossing the road.

At that time, the Merthyr Road carried all the traffic from Cardiff up to Whitchurch. The grainy photograph below (thanks to Stewart Williams and his book Cardiff Yesterday no 34) shows the Bennetts building the town end of Manor Way. This rare photograph taken from the middle of the Merthyr Road shows the (now) Manor Way quite separate, with a field between. If you tried to take the same photograph today you wouldn’t last long with the traffic!

Sam died in 1932, and left the business to his two sons Arthur and Donald. They obviously carried on and built many more houses. They built a detached house for their mother Frances (Sam’s widow) at the junction of Manor Way and the Merthyr Road, and called it Manor House. They also built a small hairdresser’s shop with a flat over for their sister (also called Frances). Is this the strange shaped building on the right as you leave the A470?

Does anyone know more about the Bennetts, or do you live in a Bennett-built house?

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