Bronze Age Gold from Wales

Port bow view of S.S. LLANDAFF entering Cardiff Docks. Watermans boat also in image.

The Radcliffe company was taken over by the Cardiff fuel factors Evans & Reid in 1947, and the ships were given new liveries and fleur-de-lys funnel markings in place of the 'Cardiff British India Line' black funnel and two white bands. The Sunderland-built Llandaff of 1937, a 4,826 gross ton steamer, is seen here arriving at Cardiff in the new colours, c.1950. Sold to German owners in 1951, she was eventually stranded at Esbjerg in 1959 and broken up at Ghent later that year. The author's great-uncle, Captain John Rees Jenkins of Aber-porth, Dyfed was the first master of this vessel when she joined the Radcliffe fleet in 1937.

Source: Shipping at Cardiff: Photographs from the Hansen Collection 1920-1975 by David Jenkins, 1993.

pre 1937 Built 1937 as LLANDAFF for Evan Thomas, Radcliffe & Co., Cardiff, by Bartram & Sons Ltd., Sunderland. She survived being bombed by enemy aircraft at the entrance to Kola Inlet, Russia, in August 1943 1951 – Sold to K.G. Bornhofen Reederei of Hamburg, and renamed MAX BORNHOFEN. 1959 – Sold to San Anastassias Cia Ltd., Greece, and renamed PILASTASSIOS. Managed by E.A. Karavias, but probably registered in Costa Rica. She ran aground and was wrecked at Esbjerg Roads, Denmark on 20th February 1959 while carrying cement from Alborg to Jeddah. She was later salvaged, and arrived at Ghent, Belgium in July 1959 to be broken up.