Cardiff Castle, animal-friendly

Cardiff Castle, an animal-friendly place

They are everywhere, carved:

frog, wood-carved

and/or painted:

even alive.

The sculpted animals are wooden or stone decorations; outside and inside; on walls, doors and stained-glass windows.

Apart from those on the Animal Wall in Castle Street and along Bute Park,

Animal wall; stone-carved monkeys

there are many in the Castle apartments,in the Banqueting Hall

chimneypiece, Banqueting Hall

and Library we could visit.

Many are scuplted by Thomas Nicholls, who also sculpted the statues on the Clock Tower. They are of all sorts, to start with the Welsh dragons.

Castle-owners belong to families with coats of arms.

arms Crichton-Stuart, Marquesses of Bute

John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, third Marquess of Bute inhertited Cardiff Castle in 1848 and he continued restoring the castle, so the blue rampant lion of his coat of arms can be seen everywhere:

"rampant lion", weather vane, Clock Tower

This coat of arms is particularly interesting regarding animals:

lions with red dragon on top .... Banqueting Hall

Lions are recurring symbols in the coat of arms of royalty and chivalry, particularly in the UK, where the lion is also a national symbol of the British people.

heraldic shields, Clock Tower

A "lion rampant" is depicted in profile standing erect with forepaws raised.

details chimneypiece

Banqueting Hall

Here’s a rampant dragon on a shield:

coat of arms, Cardiff

"The Supporters of the shield are on the left, a Welsh goat (an ancient emblem of the mountains of Wales), and on the right a hippocamp or sea-horse (representing the Severn Sea and the carrying trade of the port). "

Capricorn is symbolized by the Goat, ruled by the planet Saturn.

capricorn (goat) zodiac sign of Saturn

Other lions:

lion, Zodiac sign of Sol (Sun); south face Clock Tower

lionness, Animal wall

The library is especially rich in animals – each bookcase has different ones carved and inlaid, to represent each different country of the British Empire.

But apart from the bookcases, you can find them on doorways too:

wood-carved mouse

wood-carved wild boar

The carved monkeys in the library are very particular; what exactly are the two monkeys on the left doing with the book ? The monkey on the right may be a satire on Darwin’s theory of evolution, as it is said to have Darwin’s face .....

wood-carved monkeys, library door

Then there are also all the Zodiac signs of the seven figures on the Clock Tower.

Here they are detailed and enlarged:

cancer, zodiac sign of Luna (Moon)

on the north face of the Clock Tower

Mars, south face, Clock Tower

scorpion on his shield; gilded Aries (Ram)

Pisces, Zodaic sign of Jupiter

west face, Clock Tower

Taurus, Zodiac sign of Venus

east face, Clock Tower

Last but not least, there are live animals !

We were lucky to attend a falconry display near the Castle Falconry;

two well-trained hawks, a young

and old one, flew all around the castle apartments and all around us, well guided by Phillipa Hawkins.

Phillipa Hawkins, at work at Cardiff Castle

Phillipa HAWKINS

Click on the stained-glass falcon, detail from a window in the Banqueting Hall, and you can read an article from the local Guardian about Phillipa’s job at Falconry Services.

Guardian Local

Phillipa HAWKINS

We know the British animal-lovers, so here’s another newspaper article, from BBC News, about the peacocks at Cardiff Castle.

If you want another animal-friendly place in Cardiff, go to Cardiff Bay’s sculptural beastie benches, created in 1994 by Gwen Heaney.