Early history The area now occupied by Barry has seen human activity in many periods of history.
Mesolithic or Middle
Stone Age microlith flint tools have been found at Friars Point on
Barry Island and near
Wenvoe and
Neolithic or New Stone Age polished stone axe-heads were discovered in
St. Andrews Major. A cinerary urn (pottery urn buried with cremation ashes) was found on Barry Island during excavations of
Bronze Age barrows and two more were found in a barrow at Cold Knap Point. A large defended enclosure or
Iron Age promontory hillfort was located at
the Bulwarks at
Porthkerry and there was evidence of the existence of an early Iron Age farmstead during construction of
Barry College off Colcot Road. In
Roman times farmsteads existed on the site of
Barry Castle and Biglis and there were verbal reports of discovery of a cemetery including lead coffins with scallop-shell decoration. Both
St. Baruc's Chapel and
St. Nicholas Church have re-used Roman bricks and tiles incorporated in their building fabric and a
Roman villa was discovered in
Llandough. In 1980 a Roman building consisting of 22 rooms and cellars in four ranges around a central courtyard was excavated at Glan-y-môr and is believed to be a third-century building associated with naval activity, maybe a supply depot. The
Vikings launched raids in the area and Barry Island was known to be a raider base in 1087.
Flat Holm and
Steep Holm islands in the
Bristol Channel have their name Holm name derived from a Scandinavian word for an island in an estuary. The excavation of the Glan-y-môr site revealed the site had been reused in the 6th and 7th century and also between AD 830 and 950 as a
dry stone sub-rectangular building with a
turf or
thatched roof. Following the
Norman conquest of England the area was divided into
manors with the Barry area split into two large
lordships,
Penmark and
Dinas Powys. Penmark was split into the sub-manors of Fonmon, West Penmark and Barry. Dinas Powys was split into the sub-manors of
Cadoxton and ('Highlight'). The sub-manor of Barry was granted by the
de Umfraville family to the de Barri family and the seat of the manor was Barry Castle, located on high ground overlooking the Bristol Channel, a site occupied in Roman times by a native homestead. The
castle was a small
fortified manor house, built to replace an earlier earthwork. By the late 13th century the castle had two stone buildings on the east and west sides of a courtyard. Early in the 14th century the castle was strengthened by the addition of a large hall and gatehouse on its south side, the ruins of which are all that survive today. By now Barry had grown into a village and port with its own church and
watermill but in the 14th century its population was drastically reduced by the
Black Death and the consequences of the rebellion of
Owain Glyndŵr. It took the population some 300 years to recover and once more hold the title of village, essentially a sparsely populated area with a few scattered farms and much of the land a marsh that a small river flowed through. By 1622 the pattern of fields, where enclosure was almost complete, around Barry village was pretty much as it was to remain until the growth of the modern town. According to the 1673
hearth tax list the parish contained thirteen houses. Whitehouse Cottage, the oldest existing inhabited house in modern Barry, dates from the late 1500s with the east end of the building added in around 1600. It overlooks the sea at
Cold Knap.
Industrial history in July 2007 was once crossed many times daily by trains transporting coal from the valleys north of Bridgend By 1871 the population of Barry was over 100, with 21 buildings, the new estate-owning Romilly family being involved in the buildup of the village but it remained a largely agricultural community. It grew when it was developed as a coal port in the 1880s. The coal trade was growing faster than the facilities at
Tiger Bay in
Cardiff ever could and so a group of colliery owners formed the
Barry Railway Company and chose to build the
docks at Barry. Work commenced in 1884 and the first dock basin was opened in 1889 to be followed by two other docks and extensive port installations. The Barry Railway brought coal down from the
South Wales Valleys to the new docks whose trade grew from one million tons in the first year, to over nine million tons by 1903. The port was crowded with ships and had flourishing ship repair yards, cold stores, flour mills and an ice factory. By 1913, Barry was the largest coal exporting port in the world.
Barry Council Office and Library was completed in 1908. Behind the docks rose the terraced houses of Barry which, with Cadoxton, soon formed a sizeable town. The railways which had played a major part in the development of the dock helped make Barry Island a popular resort.
Barry Memorial Hall on Gladstone Road was inaugurated in November 1932, and obtained its name to honour those locals who lost their lives in World War I. During its industrial peak a number of
ships sank off the Barry coast.
Barry Scrapyard Following the rise of diesel and electric power on the UK railways, the marshalling yards at Barry Docks became the largest repository of steam engines awaiting scrapping in the UK.
Dai Woodham owned the
Woodham Brothers Scrap yard and he allowed rail preservation organisations to buy back the locomotives at the scrap value, allowing around 200 of the 300 locomotives to be saved for future generations, although during the years of storage many were vandalised or looted by souvenir hunters. When interviewed just before his death, Woodham was reluctant to take full credit for this and pointed out that the town of Barry with its redundant sidings was the major factor in allowing these locomotives to be saved. ==Modern times==