Touring Cardiff city centre

Caerdydd (the Welsh name of the city), and its anglicised form Cardiff, derive from post-Roman Brythonic words meaning "the fort on the Taff". The fort refers to that established by the Romans. "Dydd" or "Diff" are both modifications of "Taff", the river on which Cardiff Castle stands, with the T mutating to D in Welsh.

Cardiff was made a city in 1905, and proclaimed capital of Wales in 1955.

Map Cardiff city centre

Since the 1990s Cardiff has seen significant development with a new waterfront area at Cardiff Bay which contains the new Welsh Assembly Building and the Wales Millennium Centre arts complex.

The city centre is undergoing a major redevelopment.

Central Library, 2009

Central Library, text

International sporting venues in the city include the Millennium Stadium (rugby union and football),

Millennium Stadium in the background

Clock Tower and Castle Appartments in the foreground

SWALEC Stadium (cricket) and the newly opened Cardiff City Stadium. The city was awarded with the European City Of Sport in 2009 due to its role in hosting major international sporting events.

John Batchelor

1820 - 1883

John Batchelor was an active figure in the civic and political life of Cardiff in the mid 19th century. After his death in 1883 funds were raised by public subscription to erect a bronze memorial in his honour.

Saint John Church

1473

St John the Baptist Church is a parish church in Cardiff, and the oldest church in the city centre. Originally it was built as a chapel of ease for the larger St Mary’s Church, which was destroyed in the 17th century. The bell tower has a crown of openwork battlements reminiscent of churches in the West Country of England, and is dated c. 1490, when the similar Jasper Tower of Llandaff Cathedral was also built.

Since 1922 Cardiff has included the suburban cathedral ’village’ of Llandaff, whose bishop is also Archbishop of Wales since 2002.

was designed by William Burges in 1866, but it was not built until 1890, after William Burges’s sudden death in 1881. The work of the restoration of Cardiff Castle and the building of the Animal Wall for the Marquess of Bute, was continued by his former assistant William Frame. The original nine animal figures were sculptured by Thomas Nicholls, they were the hyena, wolf, apes, seal, bear,

bear animal wall, Castle Street

lioness, lynx, and 2 different lions. They were painted in naturalistic colours, although since then the paint work on the sculptures has been removed.

The wall was moved about 50 metres (164 feet) from outside Cardiff Castle to its present location outside Bute Park in 1922, due to road widening in front of the castle in Duke Street and Castle Street (A4161). In 1931 six further animals were added the pelican, ant-eater, racoons, leopard, beaver and vulture. They were sculptured by Alexander Carrick. In the 1970s Council planners had wanted to demolish the Wall to widen the road again, but this idea was later abandoned.

As part of a £5.6 million refurbishment of Bute Park, restoration of the animals began in July 2010. During the repair, the anteater’s missing nose, which has been missing since the late 90s, was replaced as well as the missing glass eyes in the nine original animals

If you want to know more about Cardiff’s city centre, click on the PDF document below.

Cardiff, city centre, text