Coedarhydyglyn - The Locations Guide to Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures

Last Alteration: Sunday 07 April 2013

Coedarhydyglyn

GPS Coordinates

51°28'06", -03°17'22" show decimal

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Coedarhydyglyn
St. Nicholas, Cardiff, Vale of Glamorgan, CF5 6SF

This is a private house on land which has been owned by the Traherne family back to Henry VII. Most notable of the family were the Reverend John Traherne, who during the 19th Century was a scholar and collector of scientific manuscripts, and Sir Cennydd Traherne, who was Lord Lieutenant of Glamorgan from 1952 to 1974.

Additional locations as the crow flies:

HTV Wales Studios: 0.75 miles.

St Fagans National History Museum (Human Nature, The Family of Blood, Doctor Who Series 5, The Woman Who Lived): 1.43 miles.

Wenvoe Quarry (The Impossible Planet, The Satan Pit, Utopia): 1.57 miles.

Western Leisure Centre (Children of Earth: Day Four, Children of Earth: Day Five): 1.75 miles.

Dyffryn House (Tooth and Claw, The Forest of the Dead, The Eternity Trap): 1.82 miles.

Maes-y-Felin Farm (The Empty Planet): 1.82 miles.

In the News:

9 May 2009: Western Mail - When he saw Cybermen smash through his grade one listed house, Rhodri Traherne's heart missed a beat. For the first time he wondered whether it had been sensible to rent his home in the Vale of Glamorgan to the makers of Doctor Who. Standing beside his wife, Annabelle, he watched as Cybermen crashed through three 12ft by 4ft windows of the house that had been in his family for 200 years. They left silver paint marks as they scuffed their way through doors meant for 19th century landed gentry and crowded cellar passageways.

For Rhodri Traherne, renting his historic family home has been a way to help pay the upkeep. The house, set in land in the Vale of Glamorgan above Culverhouse Cross, has been used for ITV's Trevor McDonald to do big interviews, S4C's Teulu, BBC Wales' Torchwood and, most dramatically, Doctor Who.

The day the Cybermen came was a long one, he recalls. Action started at 8am when a specialist firm arrived to painstakingly remove the sash windows. Later a BBC team replaced them with balsa wood and sugar glass replicas. By 10pm all was dark and ready for the Cybermen. Rhodri, his wife Annabelle and daughters Emma, 22, and Sophie, 20, watched as dark forces took over. "We saw the Cybermen come crashing through the three windows at the back of the house," Rhodri recalls. "I thought after they came through that we had made a huge mistake. It was fairly devastating. One of the problems with Cybermen is that because they are so big they inevitably hit the door frames coming through and made silver paint marks on the doors."

But he needn't have fretted. "The crew touched it all up and within a week you would never have known it had happened." Rhodri says he's not proud, and hiring the house out is a way to help finance it. "You are well paid for what you're doing and for providing a facility. Either myself or my wife are here all the time. The Doctor Who crew were very careful and very good but obviously you know your own house and its bits and pieces and it's important you're there. .It's a family house, built in 1805. I've lived here since 1997 and my family has always lived in it. I'm not proud. We have to get income from all sorts of sources. Filming is a very good source of income."

Rhodri signed up to the Screen Commission locations list several years ago and has never regretted it. "All sorts of things have been filmed here. We've just had Torchwood. We've done everything from non-disruptive stuff to the very disruptive. During Doctor Who there were 200 people in the house at one point. We have said no to one or two things. Sometimes people aren't prepared to put things back. All these companies have insurance and we have insurance as well. You have to. .I have a huge admiration for people in TV. It's a very skilled job and interesting to see how it works."

(Extract from an article on filming at residences for television series)

Further links about the location:

Swansea Heritage - Photo with brief history of the house.