ianto's shrine

this beast that you're after will eat you alive
and spit out your bones.

ianto's shrine is a physical shrine in cardiff, dedicated to the torchwood character ianto jones. i wrote its wikipedia page and i'm fascinated by its evolution over the years, especially considering it was established in 2009 and yet is still lively and active to this day!

as someone that grew up visiting cardiff bay regularly, and being at the age where i was just about starting to retain memories at the time when ianto died, i have the strange memories of always stopping to look at ianto's shrine, wondering who he was. was he a real person? was this some beloved member of the community that people were remembering en-masse?

in some ways, the answer is yes. to torchwood watchers, especially queer fans and those from wales and cardiff, he was part of the community. it's been surreal to get into torchwood as an adult with this background knowledge that's been a part of my life for as long as i can remember. i think it's a big part of why i'm so fascinated by ianto's shrine.

this page uses free images from wikimedia commons (of the entire shrine, not specific tributes) to track the visual history of the shrine. click on an image to go to its page on wikimedia commons and see full-size versions and who uploaded it! if you have a photo you took of ianto's shrine, especially an image from its first few years, please consider uploading it to wikimedia commons under a free license - it's a valuable piece of fandom history! (consider also letting me know :])

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may 2009

this is what the site looked like before the shrine! this photo was taken in between torchwood s3 filming and it airing.

november 2009

this is the earliest freely-available photo of the shrine i've been able to find, from four months after ianto's death aired. some of the tributes already look weathered :P

april 2010

by this point, the shrine was already well-established. there's no sign, but many tributes are already present and the "save ianto jones" campaign had hosted a memorial service two months earlier.

may 2010

september 2011

this is the first appearance of the "we want torchwood cardiff" sign above the shrine. by this point, the final series of torchwood was close to ending, and the shrine had been displayed in an episode.

august 2012

september 2012

october 2013

here we see the appearance of the familiar name "ianto's shrine", and a plaque (top left of the shrine) had been added by mermaid quay staff the previous year.

december 2013

october 2014

at roughly this point, the shrine began to be looked after by torchwood fan carol-anne hillman, who has continued to be its caretaker since. she decorates the shrine for events such as valentine's day and ianto's birthday, as well as placing tributes from those who cannot visit.