08/07/2026
I met five remarkable women outside Cardiff Central this week, and I loved finding out their stories.
They're part of a new Cadw installation called Women Through the Ages, five life-sized sculptures making their way across Wales before settling into permanent homes at historic sites this August. I caught them right at the start of that journey, in Cardiff Central Square.
Santes Dwynwen is the one I already knew. Wales' patron saint of lovers, a 5th century princess whose heartbreak turned into the country's own answer to St Valentine. Legend has it an angel handed her a potion meant to ease her pain, and it accidentally turned her ex into a block of ice. She got three wishes for her trouble: to thaw him back out, to bless all future lovers, and to spend the rest of her life unmarried and at peace on the island that now bears her name. I actually made the walk out to that island earlier this trip, so seeing her in Cardiff felt like a significant little full circle.
Branwen ferch Llŷr comes from the Mabinogion, Wales' great collection of medieval legend. Married off to an Irish king to secure peace between two lands, she was mistreated in her new court and had no way to call for help, until she trained a starling to carry a message home to her brother. He came with an army. Proof that even the smallest message can set the biggest events in motion.
Gwenllian ferch Gruffudd was a warrior princess who, in 1136, rode out at the head of her own army against Norman forces while her husband was away raising support elsewhere. She didn't survive the battle, but her name became a rallying cry for Welsh soldiers for generations after. It's rare to find a story that unflinching from this period of history, and rarer still to find it belonging to a woman.
Gwladys ferch Dafydd Gam is the calmest story of the five, though no less significant. A noblewoman married twice into powerful medieval families, she helped steer the fortunes behind Raglan Castle, one of the grandest castles in Wales, still standing today.
And Margaret Thomas is the one that haunts. Just fifteen years old, she worked underground at Blaenafon Ironworks, wading through mud and pushing heavy trams through the tunnels. Her story isn't a legend or a myth. It's a plain, uncomfortable reminder of exactly how young the hands were that helped build industrial Wales.
Five very different centuries, five very different lives. And yet all five are part of the same thread, women who shaped this country in ways that rarely made it into the textbooks I grew up with.
