Wenvoe () is a small Welsh village between Barry and Cardiff in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales. Nearby is the Wenvoe Transmitter near Twyn-yr-Odyn and the old HTV national headquarters in Culverhouse Cross in the suburbs of Cardiff.

History

Maintaining a thriving farming community for centuries, Wenvoe, while still a farming village to an extent, has doubled in population in the last hundred years due to the vast amount of high-end property created by both the government and private developers. The village originally developed around the parish church of St. Mary, which can be traced back to the twelfth century with the adjacent locality now being a conservation area. Some medieval or earlier fortification is known to have existed in wooded hillside at Wrinstone .

Amenities

The village has a village shop with a post office, a parish church, primary school, hotel, a part-time library, barber and three village halls.

It is home to three pubs (two that have been in the village for hundreds of years - The Wenvoe Arms and The Horse & Jockey at nearby Twyn-yr-Odyn, both of which are protected buildings - and the more recent Walston Castle) and many acres of forestry and fields. There is also another church at St Lythans.
Wenvoe has a very healthy community spirit which supports a number of local community groups. Amongst these are Wenvoe Scout Group, the Village Quaffers, Ladies Choir, Youth Club and of course the Church. Wenvoe won 'Best Kept Village in the Vale of Glamorgan' in 2005 and again in 2007. It is served by its own monthly newspaper titled the Wenvoe What's On. A new venture is the annual Village Show convened every September at the Community Centre hosted by the village Scout Group. This is an opportunity for any resident to participate by submitting their art, craft, cookery or gardening successes for impartial judging.

Wenvoe is a popular village as it is convenient for the city of Cardiff. Despite being a commuter village unfortunately it no longer has a railway line which was the victim of the "Beeching Axe" of the 1960s.The route of the old line remains but is now heavily overgrown, grazed by farm animals and to a great extent innaccesible. The old railway station is now a family dwelling.

Local attractions

The St Lythans Burial Chamber () is only 2km (1 1/4 miles) west of Wenvoe, or about 4.5km (3 miles) by road, past the village of S Lythans (). The St Lythans Burial Chamber is a single stone Megalithic dolmen, built around 6,000 BP (before present) as part of a Chambered long barrow, during the Neolithic period.
The Tinkinswood Burial Chamber () is about 3.5km (2 1/2 miles) north west of Wenvoe, near the village of St Nicholas (), or about 6km (3 3/4 miles) by road towards Bonvilston (). Tinkinswood is a more extensive cromlech than St Lythans, which it may have once resembled, and was constructed during the same period.

Between the St Lythans and the Tinkinswood Burial Chambers lies Dyffryn Gardens (), the estate to which both burial chambers once belonged.
Dyffryn Gardens is a collection of botanical gardens located near the village of St. Nicholas. They were selected by the British Tourism Association as one of the Top 100 gardens in the UK.