Teaching children about their Cathedral is something we particularly enjoy doing, and we can’t wait to welcome schools back for visits. For children who are able to visit the Cathedral, we are excited to reveal our new Children’s Discovery Trail Guide to Llandaff Cathedral, which has been kindly drawn up by the Arts Society.

There are question sheets and an answer sheet for an accompanying adult (so you can pretend to know it all already!). There will be copies at the back of the Cathedral to borrow which are laminated so that they can be cleaned after each use.

If you would like to print your own to bring with you, just click the links below to download the Questions and Answers sheets.

Trail of Discovery Questions

Trail of Discovery Answers

The Cathedral is opening again for worship!

We are pleased to be able to announce that the Cathedral has resumed services from 19th July.

We are following the guidelines of the Welsh Government and the Church in Wales and taking a deliberately cautious approach to offering worship again. The initial plans will remain in place for the first few weeks although we will be reviewing the situation weekly.

Here are some of the key things to note:

· There will be two services: 9.00am and 11.00am

· Both services will be a celebration of the Holy Eucharist with the 9.00am service catering particularly for children and families.

· Social distancing guidelines must be maintained at all times.

· Hand sanitiser must be used on entry.

· Face-coverings may be worn by all – clergy may wear face shields to administer communion.

· A ‘track and trace’ card will need to be completed – please bring a pen.

· Communion will be administered standing and in one kind only.

· For now there will be no music.

· Ritual and ceremony will be kept to a minimum.

· No service sheets will be used – the order of service will be available online to print in advance and bring with you or to follow on a phone or other mobile device.

· The ‘2-metre distance’ rule means that the capacity of the Cathedral will be between 70 and 80 individuals although family groups sitting together will legitimately increase the number.

· 5 cathedral chairs must be left clear between households.

Please note that there will be a legal maximum capacity number and it may be necessary to impose restrictions on entry to ensure that number is not exceeded. During the early part of this week, protocols and detailed instructions will be issued to the Parish and Cathedral Stewards to enable them to assist with and implement the official guidelines.

Hi, my name is Owen Hurrell. I’m 12 and I’m in my 5^th year as a Chorister in Llandaff Cathedral. Since Lockdown everything has changed a lot and we haven’t been able to do any singing as a choir as of yet. I’ve been back to school a few times and really enjoyed being able to see my friends although it is very different to what it is normally like.

For starters, there are only 6 people in my group or pod whereas I’m usually in a classroom of 22. We also have four 75-minute lessons instead of seven 45-minute lessons. I’ve really missed Choristers during lockdown because I am usually really busy doing rehearsals and services but now it seems weird to not be doing it as much. It is also sad that some Choristers will not be able to continue singing after Lockdown as their voices will have broken but we will hopefully still be able to do a proper service to bid them farewell.

We also had to miss some of the best services of the year at Easter, which was very sad, but as of the 30^th of June, the choir is starting to do some singing via Zoom. Mr. Moore pre-records the rehearsals and then on Zoom we sing along to the accompaniment however we can’t hear each other because singing together on Zoom doesn’t work too well. Although we don’t know when we will be back singing again it is still great that we can continue practicing so we can be ready to start singing again when services finally begin.

Although I haven’t had choir during lockdown, I’ve still been doing plenty of singing. Every week my Mum and I record songs for our parish church’s online service. Altogether we have recorded 56 hymns and songs for our church so far. This is one we recorded for Maundy Thursday – https://youtu.be/g5YrkmyPAcU.

As well as this I’ve been continuing my singing, cello and piano lessons via Zoom and I have also taken part in a virtual evensong organised by the Rodolfus foundation. You can see my mum and me singing “I was Glad” 30 minutes into this video – https://youtu.be/3X8FYAb3JK0

You may also be able to see some other familiar faces from the choir and the school. We are all looking forward to continuing singing as a choir once again as soon as we are able to.