Welcome to the Llanbadarn Fawr Community Council Website
The community council represents everyone who lives, works and studies in Llanbadarn through its fifteen elected members, divided in two wards – Padarn and Sulien.
As the first tier of government, we mostly deal with local issues, ensuring the provision of local services and facilities, such as bus shelters, playgrounds and playing fields. We also work closely with the Police to reduce crime and improve safety in the community. As consultees of all planning applications locally, we play an important role in shaping the future of our community.
Full Council meetings are open to the public and take place on the second Monday of each month except in August. For now, meetings are held on-line. Please contact the Clerk to arrange to receive the link to a meeting.
Given its very old history many of the district’s inhabitants think of Llanbadarn just as a village.
Nevertheless, the Community Council has responsibilities over quite a wide area around the ‘old village’. The hill-fort that we know today as Pen Dinas, reminds us that we know that there were people living in these parts as far back as the Bronze Age. A long time after that, in about the year 517 AD, it is believed that a Breton, Padarn, along with two cousins of his (Cadfan and Tydecho) sailed to the nearby coast, possibly to that part of the shore between where the pier and the Old College stand in Aberystwyth today – Pwll Padarn (Padarn’s Pool) is the old name for that particular place. Padarn (or ‘Paternus’ in Breton) was a man of noble lineage, being a grandson of Emyr Llydaw, one of Brittany’s foremost leaders. The first Bretons were natives of Wales and Cornwall and there was a close relationship between all these Celts in the age of the Celtic Saints.
Without doubt, Padarn left his mark on this area and over a wider one. He established a community of monks and over the centuries his monastic settlement developed into a most important place. By the 11th century there was here, in the place that became ‘Llanbadarn Fawr’ (that is, ‘the main church dedicated to Padarn’), under Abbot Sulien, a library that was bigger than the library in Canterbury, or the one in York. There was a scriptorium here too. Few, indeed, are the manuscripts that have survived but one, Llaswyr Rhygyfarch (Rhygyfarch’s Psalter – Rhygyfarch was one of Sulien’s sons), is now in Trinity College, Dublin.
Padarn’s name is prominent around Llanbadarn and around Aberystwyth too. It is often used as part of the names of houses or tracts of land and of local businesses. It must be said that there is more than one Llanbadarn – there is, for example, Llanbadarn Fynydd (a village in Powys) and Llanbadarn Trefeglwys (a church near Pennant). Originally, Llanbadarn Gaerog (‘fortified Llanbadarn’) was the name given to the small town that grew around the walls of Aberystwyth Castle.
