Towards the top of Pen-y-lan Road, on the corner with Bronwydd Avenue, there stood until the mid-1980s, a rather grand house called Oldwell. It was built the mid-1880s for owner of the South Wales Brewery, John Biggs.  It was one of the grand houses of Pen-y-lan along with its neighbour Wellclose and other nearby houses including Bronwydd, Greenlawn and Pen-y-lan House.

I recall visiting Oldwell in the 1970s when it was a residential home for the elderly owned by the local authority.  The other owners are listed in an article by Glamorgan Archives. It was demolished in the 1980s and the land repurposed for flats.

Oldwell must have been an idyllic residence when it was first occupied by John and Emily Biggs and their six boisterous teenage boys back in the mid 1880s.  It had a snooker room to entertain them in times of wet weather and a stable at the back for them to learn horse riding skills. But the boy’s real passion was playing rugby.  All six would go on to play rugby for Cardiff and two for Wales.  There is a story associated with each of them.  One boy, John James Egerton Biggs went on to be Lord Mayor of Cardiff, Norman Biggs ended up being killed by a poison arrow and Geoffrey Biggs was captain of one of Britain’s first submarines, the A1. 

In this article we concentrate on John Biggs, the man who couldn’t stop brewing.  His name crops up in newspaper articles from the time and we are able to piece together bits of his life story but admittedly its an incomplete picture. 

John Biggs was born in St Mary Street in 1833 to John Biggs, a wine and spirits merchant, originally from Bristol, and Eliza Biggs née Jones, originally from Glamorgan. John and Eliza Biggs are worth a mention in their own right as they have a plaque in their name at St Mary the Virgin church in Bute Street, probably indicating that they were one of the benefactors who helped pay for the building of the church in 1843.  

John Biggs (our future brewer) was baptised at St John’s church in Dec 1833.  In the 1841, 1851 and 1861 census he was living in St Mary Street.  By 1861, aged 27, his parents had died and he himself was now working as a wine and spirit merchant and living with his three sisters. John Biggs (Snr) died in 1858 and was buried at St Margaret’s, Roath though virtually all the grave headstones at St Margaret’s have now been removed so I haven’t been able to identify his precise resting place.

In 1866 John Biggs (Jnr) married Emily Sophia Clark, originally from Usk.  She was daughter of a newspaper editor and publisher James Henry Clark.  Please allow me another brief aside. In 1850 Cardiff was growing rapidly and J.H.Clark came down from Usk and opened a branch of his business in Saint Mary Street. In 1853 he wrote and published ‘Cardiff and its Neighbourhood’ which was the first guide book about Cardiff to be published. After four years however he sold the business because of the inconvenience and expense of regular travelling down to Cardiff.

By the time of the 1871 census John Biggs is now describing himself as a ‘wine merchant and brewer’. He’d realized that that the workers of the burgeoning town of Cardiff are thirsty people and enjoyed a beer or two.  An advert from 1872 identifies him as the owner of Trinity Street Brewery which would have been adjacent to the present indoor market.  Trinity Brewery was later sold, probably to cater for the expansion of James Howell, the department store.

With the proceeds of that sale John Biggs built the South Wales Brewery in 1876.  The drawings for the brewery offices are still in Glamorgan Archives with his signature on. The brewery was situated on a triangle of land on Salisbury Road between the two railways. The buildings would later be used for offices of the Taff Vale Railway and today the land is occupied by university accommodation.  

In the 1870s things were going well for John Biggs.  Not only was his brewing business successful but he finds time to invest in buildings.  In the Western Mail of 22 Sept 1876 there is an article entitled ‘Street Architecture in Cardiff’ in which it congratulates John Biggs on a new building in High Street which from the description I have been informed was 6 High Street, now home of Temple Bar.  When I went to visit I looked up to the very top of the building and was surprised to see what looks like his initials, though the bottom of the J seems to have fallen away.

John and Emily Biggs had ten children together, one girl and nine boys, though four of the children, including the daughter, died in infancy. The family lived in St Andrew’s Place in 1871 and Park Place in 1881 before their house Oldwell in Penylan was built in 1885.  I’ve tried to find the family at Oldwell in the 1991 census but have never succeeded (now there’s a challenge for you all) as both Oldwell and Wellclose seem to be omitted from the census.

The South Wales Brewery was owned by John Biggs and a John Vaughan Williams.  There would also have been a number of hotels/pubs owned by the brewery.  One was the Theater Royal Hotel at the southern end of Queen Street.  I have discovered an old picture of the hotel with an advertising hording for the South Wales Brewery. 

In 1888 the John Biggs and John Williams appeared in court charged with adding saccharine to their beer thereby increasing the specific gravity. They were found guilty and ordered to pay £100. One of those hearing the case was Dr Paine who is buried virtually next to John Biggs at Cathays Cemetery.  The following year, 1889, William Hancock buys South Wales Brewery.  It appears that as part of this deal John Biggs became a Director of Hancocks Brewery.

His stay on the Hancocks Brewery board was however short lived as in 1892 John Biggs resigns and takes over the Canton Cross Brewery on Cowbridge Road. The Canton Cross Vaults pub is still there to this day but no longer a brewery.

In 1898 the Theatre Royal Hotel in Queen Street is back in the news. Police object to a licence being renewed on the grounds had been frequented by prostitutes.  John Biggs objects saying the landlord at the time has been replaced. The hotel is sold later that year. 

It appears that the love of John Biggs’s love of brewing is coming to an end. In 1900, with the children by now having left home, Oldwell is put up for sale with son Selwyn Biggs, a solicitor, handing the sale.  In the 1901 census John Biggs is living with his in-laws in Usk giving his profession as a Retired Brewer.   The Canton Cross brewery is sold to Hancocks in 1904 together with 5 pubs.

In the 1911 census John and Emily Biggs have retired to The Laurels, London Road, Bath.  Emily Biggs died in 1919 and John Biggs in 1920.  Both their funerals are held back in Cardiff and they are buried in Cathays Cemetery (plots L1211/L1235).  What surprises me is that there is no headstone on the grave and no record of there ever having been one.  Four of their children were still alive at the time of the funerals; one, Selwyn Biggs was a solicitor and one John James Egerton Biggs becomes Lord Mayor of Cardiff in 1922. There is however large tree nearby so perhaps the headstone suffered damage over the years.  It remains a bit of a mystery.