Our Eras Tour #12: Cardiff

Cardiff from Cardiff Castle

We were ending our trip in Cardiff, the capital of Wales.

I had planned to drive from the Gower Peninsula through Bannau Brycheiniog National Park (English: Brecon Beacons), the other mountainous region in Wales. But, we had stayed a long time at Rhossili and I was, at this point, really done with driving. So, we stuck to the big highway and still didn't get to Cardiff until late afternoon. 

Just couldn't do it

I learned on this trip that one cannot apply U.S. driving planning (or Google Map estimates) to the UK. It just takes longer to get places.

I wanted to see Wales' mountains and failed – twice. Oh, well, the rest was wonderful. And, we have mountains where I live. We don't have castles.

Missed it! Photos: Ordnance Survey,  PeakVisor, Country Living Magazine

We stayed at WiseStay, which was just across the river from Principality Stadium, where The Eras Tour concert would be held in two days.

We knew we would be able to walk to the stadium, but we didn’t anticipate that it would be as close as it was. I think that was because the River Taff between us and the stadium was much narrower than we anticipated (even with a scale on a map, we tend to color our perceptions with biases).

The stadium from our room's window

The hotel wasn’t fancy; in fact, it looked much like a college door. But the proximity to the stadium made it the most wonderful place in the world.

Map: Freepik

But, let’s talk about Cardiff first.

With a population of 362,400, Cardiff is the largest city of Wales. 

It was a small town until the early 19th century when it became a prominent port for coal. 

In 1905, it was ranked as a city and, in 1955, it was named capital of Wales.

Ancient burial sites around the city show that people had settled in the area by at least around 6,000 BC. 

Cardiff is built on reclaimed marshland on a bed of Triassic stones, which are used throughout the city as building materials. Many of these rocks are purplish, especially coastal marl. 

The River Taff winds through the city center and, together with the River Ely, flows into the freshwater Cardiff Bay. A third river, the Rhymney, flows through the east of the city directly into the Severn Estuary.

The River Taff

Until the Roman conquest, Cardiff was part of the territory of the Silures, a Celtic British tribe that flourished in the Iron Age in the areas that would become known as Breconshire, Monmouthshire and Glamorgan.

Roman wall under Cardiff Castle

The city's Welsh name, Caerdydd, comes from the Middle Welsh Caerdyf, meaning fort of the Taff, referencing a Roman border defense fort on the Taff River. 

The fort was built around 75 AD over an large Roman settlement that had been established in the 50s AD and was abandoned by the early 2nd century.

In 1081, William I, King of England (AKA William the Conquerer), began work on what is now a castle keep within the walls of the old fort. Cardiff Castle has been at the heart of the city ever since. The Castle was substantially altered and extended during the Victorian period, but Roman work can still be distinguished in the wall facings.

Cardiff Castle

A town grew up within the Castle walls, consisting mainly of settlers from England. Cardiff had a population of between 1,500 and 2,000 in the Middle Ages, a normal size for a Welsh town in the period. By the end of the 13th century, however, Cardiff had become the only town in Wales with a population exceeding 2,000, although it remained relatively small compared with notable towns in England.

Owain Glyndŵr; Art: Visit Caernarfon

In 1404, Welsh rebellion leader Owain Glyndŵr took possession of the Castle and set it on fire. But, since many of the town's buildings were tightly packed within the Castle walls and most were constructed of timber, much of Cardiff was destroyed. 

The settlement was soon rebuilt on the same street plan and began to flourish again. Cardiff was a busy port in the Middle Ages.

Cardiff flood woodcut; Source: Living Legends

In 1538, Henry VIII closed Cardiff's Dominican and Franciscan friaries, using them for building material. A flood in 1607, now believed to have been a tidal wave, changed the course of the River Taff and destroyed St. Mary's Parish Church, which was replaced by a chapel dedicated to John the Baptist.

The Battle of St. Fagans in 1648, in which Oliver Cromwell’s Parliamentarians defeated Royalist rebels and conquered the country, was the last major battle in Wales.

Cardiff was at peace throughout the ensuing century. In 1778, renovations on Cardiff Castle began and, by 1790, it had added a racecourse, printing press, bank, coffeehouse and stagecoach service to London. 

Cardiff Castle, 1775; Source: FromOldBooks

In the late 1700s and early 1800s, the Cardiff docks were built and a twice-weekly boat service between the city and Bristol opened in 1815. In 1821, the Cardiff Gas Works was established.

The town grew rapidly from the 1830s onwards, with more docks, a railway and growing coal exports. The population grew nearly 80 percent per decade between 1840 and 1870 from migration from within and outside Wales. 

The Bute Docks, With Shipping, National Media Museum 

In 1841, a quarter of Cardiff's population were English-born and more than 10 percent came from Ireland. By 1881, Cardiff had become the largest town in Wales and it was chosen as the site for the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire in 1883.

Cardiff faced a challenge in the 1880s when the Barry Railway Company promoted rival docks at Barry, which had the advantage of being accessible in all tides. Starting in 1901, coal exports from Barry surpassed those from Cardiff, but administration of the coal trade remained in Cardiff. The Coal Exchange determined the price of coal on the entire British market. 

The old Coal Exchange building is now a hotel; Photo: Wikipedia

In the early 1900s, the city strengthened its industrial base with a steelworks. A Roman Catholic cathedral was built in 1916, followed by the National Museum of Wales, the Welsh National War Memorial and the University of Wales Registry Building. 

Photo: Tiger bay and Coal Docks History

At its peak, Cardiff's port area, known as Tiger Bay, became the busiest port in the world and the world's most important coal port. In the years leading up to World War I, more than 10 million tons of coal was exported annually from Cardiff Docks. 

After a brief post-war boom, Cardiff docks entered a prolonged decline; by 1936, trade was at less than half its value in 1913. Then, Cardiff was targeted during World War II. Bomb damage in the Cardiff Blitz included the devastation of Llandaff Cathedral.

The steelworks closed in 1978 and Cardiff lost population in the 1980s, consistent with a wider pattern of counter-urbanization in Britain. However, it recovered to become one of the few cities outside London where population grew in the 1990s.

Photo: Deeside.com

The Senedd (Welsh Parliament) has been based in Cardiff since its formation in 1999 as the National Assembly for Wales.

Cardiff is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the UK, receiving 18.3 million visitors in 2010. I wonder what The Eras Tour did for that.

Cardiff is an active city

Cardiff is also a media center, with BBC Cymru Wales, S4C and ITV Wales all having studios in the city. 

There is a large independent TV production industry sector of more than 600 companies. Productions include Doctor Who and Sherlock.

Principality Stadium is home of the Wales National Rugby Union team.

Our first night in Cardiff, we wandered around in search of dinner and I found the area to be a bit seedy and dirty.

The next morning, a Monday, it was much nicer because the streets had been cleaned and the ratio of homeless persons to Swifties was shifting.

We saw the Eras merch truck pulling in; Photo: Caty Stevens

Cardiff claims the largest concentration of castles of any city in the world. As well as Cardiff Castle, there is Castell Coch, Caerphilly, St. Fagan's and the remains of two motte-and-bailey castles in Morganstown and Rhiwbina, known as Morganstown Castle Mound and Twmpath Castle or Twmpath Motte.

 We didn't see Caerphilly, Coch or St. Fagan's Castles

Cardiff Castle

We visited Cardiff Castle (Welsh: Castell Caerdydd). I mean, what’s one more castle in the scheme of things? It is situated in the heart of the city about two blocks from our hotel.

Cardiff Castle

Cardiff Castle has two parts: ruins of a medieval castle and a sumptuously decorated Victorian gothic revival mansion.

The mansion

The original castle built in the late 11th century on top of the Roman fort was a motte and bailey bordering the Taff River. At that time, the ocean would have come much closer to the site than now, so the castle would have directly overlooked the harbor. 

Cardiff Castle formed the heart of the medieval town of Cardiff and the Marcher Lord territory of Glamorgan. In the 12th century, the Castle began to be rebuilt in stone, with a shell keep and substantial defensive walls. 

The top of the motte

Further work was conducted in the second half of the 13th century. Cardiff Castle was repeatedly involved in the conflicts between the Anglo-Normans and the Welsh, being attacked several times in the 12th century and stormed in 1404 during the revolt of Owain Glyndŵr.

It's a steep climb up

After being held by the de Clare and Despenser families for several centuries, the Castle was acquired by the 13th Earl of Warwick in 1423. Warwick conducted extensive work, including building the main range on the west side of the Castle, dominated by a tall octagonal tower. 

Following the Wars of the Roses, the status of the Castle as a Marcher territory was revoked and its military significance began to decline. 

The Herbert family took over the property in 1550, remodeling parts of the main range and carrying out construction work in the outer bailey. 

During the English Civil War, Cardiff Castle was initially taken by a Parliamentary force, but was regained by Royalist supporters in 1645. When fighting broke out again in 1648, a Royalist army attacked Cardiff in a bid to regain the Castle, leading to the Battle of St. Fagans just outside the city. Cardiff Castle escaped potential destruction by Parliament after the war and was instead garrisoned, probably to protect against a possible Scottish invasion. 

Rough times!

In the mid-18th century, Cardiff Castle passed into the hands of the Stuart dynasty. They renovated the main range, turning it into a Georgian mansion and landscaped the Castle grounds, demolishing many of the older medieval buildings and walls. 

During the first half of the 19th century the family became extremely wealthy as a result of the growth of the coal industry in Glamorgan. They lavished money on the Castle in a gothic revival style. 

No expense was spared

The resulting interior designs are considered to be among the most magnificent that the Gothic Revival ever achieved.

The rooms are, indeed, stunning

The grounds were re-landscaped and, following the discovery of the remains of the old Roman fort in 1889, the walls and gatehouse were reconstructed in a Roman style. Extensive landscaped parks were built around the outside of the Castle.

Bute Park from the Castle

Further archaeological investigations were carried out on the Roman walls in 1922 and 1923.

A mural near the ancient wall commemorates the Roman era

The grounds were extensively planted with trees and shrubs, including over the motte. From the late 18th century until the 1850s, the Castle grounds were completely open to the public, but restrictions were imposed in 1858 and, as a replacement, the 434 acres of land to the west and north of the Castle was turned into Bute Park. 

Bute Park

From 1868, the Castle grounds were closed to the public altogether. Stables were built just to the north of the Castle, but only half were completed during the 19th century.

The 150-foot-high Clock Tower was built in 1868, forming a suite of bachelor's rooms, including a bedroom, a servant's room and summer and winter smoking rooms. Internally, the rooms were sumptuously decorated with gildings, carvings and cartoons, many allegorical in style, depicting the seasons, myths and fables.

The clock tower

The Gothic mansion comprises a guest tower, the Arab room, the Chaucer room, a nursery, a library, a banquet hall and bedrooms (one with an en suite bathroom). In plan, the new castle followed the arrangement of a standard Victorian country house.

The enormous library holds part of the bibliophile owner’s vast book collection and includes elaborate carvings and fireplaces, with many referencing favorite authors and books.

Ornate interior design

Outside the Castle, the sculptured Animal Wall (Welsh: Wal yr Anifeiliaid), depicting 15 different animals, was built in the late 1880s and moved to the west of the entrance to Cardiff Castle in the early 1930s. 

Leopard, Raccoons and Anteater

Some, including the Bear, have glass eyes

The original nine animal figures were a Hyena, a Wolf, two Baboons, a Seal, a Bear, a Lioness, a Lynx and two Lions. 

In 1931, a further six sculptures were added: a Pelican, an Anteater, two Raccoons, a Leopard, a Beaver and a Vulture. 

The animals were originally painted in naturalistic colors, but the paint deteriorated rapidly and was removed.

In the 1970s city council planners wanted to demolish the Animal Wall to further widen Castle Street, but the idea was abandoned.

In the early 20th century, the family sold off or nationalized lands and commercial interests around Cardiff until, by the time of World War II, little was left except the Castle. 

During the war, air raid shelters that could hold up to 1,800 people were built in the Castle walls; there are displays on this in the dark, damp hallways.

The thick walls provided some protection; Left Photo: The History of Wales

In 1947, the Castle was given to the City of Cardiff. Today Cardiff Castle is run as a tourist attraction. In addition to the mansion and Castle, there is a small museum, the Firing Line Regimental Museum and Interpretation Centre. It was manned by a very enthusiastic docent when we went in.

All about war with, sadly, lots of talk about "bravery" while fighting to colonize other nations

The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, founded in 1949, was housed in the main range for many years, but moved into the former stables north of the Castle in 1998. A new Interpretive Centre, which opened in 2008, was built alongside the South Gate.

The Castle also serves as a venue for events, including musical performances and festivals. We had to work around signs and tents for the multi-week Depot Music Festival to get more “authentic” photos.

Lots of tents and structures

We had a light lunch at the café in the Interpretive Center while visiting the different parts of the Castle.

Spectacular!

Then, afterwards, we walked around in the Bute Park behind the Castle, where we were surprised to see what appeared to be an ancient stone circle (cromlech). People were using the stones as backrests, which seemed disespectful. Turns out that this circle was installed in 1978 to celebrate Cardiff hosting the Welsh National Eisteddfod.

The central table stone was moved from the circle of stones in Gorsedd Gardens to Bute Park.

Gorsedd Stone Circle in Bute Park

We ended our time at the Castle complex with the most wonderful afternoon tea at the Pettigrew Tea Rooms, which occupy a building that looks like a guardhouse along the walls inside the park. The scones were, without a doubt, the best we had ever had. We had two savory and two plain, keeping some (and buying more) to eat for breakfast over the next two days.

 

Now, I know what scones are supposed to taste like

Trip date: June 6 - 20, 2024