Cathays Park

Cathays Park was formerly part of Cardiff Castle grounds. The present day character of the area owes much to successive holders of the title the Marquess of Bute, and especially the 3rd Marquess of Bute, an extremely successful and wealthy businessman. They acquired much of the lands in Cathays through investment and by inheritance through a marriage to Charlotte Windsor in 1766.

The idea of acquiring the Cathays House park as an open public space was raised in 1858 and again in 1875. In 1887 it was suggested the park could commemorate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. Negotiations did not begin until 1892, when Lord Bute agreed to sell 38 acres for £120,000[3] (equivalent to £14 million in 2019[4]). The idea of relocating the Town Hall to the park was controversial, but it was also proposed to locate a new University College building there.

Cathays Park and the site of the proposed National Museum & Library in 1905

On 14 December 1898, the local council bought the entire 59 acres (24 ha) of land for £161,000 from the Marquess of Bute[3] (equivalent to £18 million in 2019[4]). As part of the sale, the 3rd Marquis of Bute placed strict conditions on how the land was to be developed. The area was to be used for civic, cultural and educational purposes, and the avenues were to be preserved.

A six-month Cardiff Fine Arts, Industrial and Maritime Exhibition which included specially constructed boating lake, a wooden cycling track and an electric railway was held in 1896.[5]

In 1897 a competition was held for a complex comprising Law Courts and a Town Hall, with Alfred Waterhouse, architect of the Natural History Museum in London, as judge. The winners were the firm of Lanchester, Stewart and Rickards, who would later go on to design the Methodist Central Hall in Westminster. These were the first two buildings of the ensemble, and have an almost uniform façade treatment. The east and west pavilions of both façades are identical in design, except for the attic storeys, which are decorated with allegorical sculptural groups. On the Crown Court these are Science and Industry, sculpted by Donald McGill, and Commerce and Industry, by Paul Raphael Montford, while on the City Hall are Music and Poetry by Paul Montford and Unity and Patriotism by Henry Poole.

The third site in this complex went empty until 1910, when the competition for a National Museum of Wales was won by the architects Smith and Brewer. The design parts from the Edwardian Baroque of the Law Courts and City Hall and is more akin to American Beaux-Arts architecture, particularly in the entrance hall where a similarity to McKim, Mead and White's later Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has been noted. The Museum site was not bounded to the north by an avenue so there were scarcely any limits on the depth of the building; the 1910 plan was almost twice as deep as it was broad. The First World War, however, ensured that progress on the building was very slow. By 1927 part of the East range, with the lecture theatre funded by William Reardon Smith, was complete. Further extensions came only in the 1960s and 1990s; these remained faithful to the original design on the exterior (and included sculpture by Dhruva Mistry) but are of a neutral character on the inside.

Due to presence of the then Welsh Office building, by the 1990s 'Cathays Park' became used by some as a metonym for that Government Department,[6][7][8][9] and after devolution in 1999, for the Welsh Government's civil servants and ministerial offices.[10][11]

In addition to the large lawn in front of the City Hall, Cathays Park includes three formal gardens and a tree lined park. Main phases of construction of the gardens were from 1903 to 1906 and from 1924 to 1928.[13] The gardens are grade II on the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales.[13] All of the spaces are within conservation areas and many of the surrounding buildings are listed. The open spaces are very important to the image of the city. Several important buildings overlook these well kept spaces. Each of the three gardens has its own very different character and each retains its original layout.

Formal gardens and tree-lined park in Cathays Park

Alexandra Gardens with the Welsh National War Memorial in the background

Gorsedd Gardens

Friary Gardens with a statue of the 3rd Marquess of Bute to the right

The tree-lined Queen Anne Square

• 
  Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who, towards the end of WWII saved the lives of up to 100,000 Jews. Unveiled on 24 November 1985.
• 
  Cardiff City Falklands Conflict Memorial for the 7 servicemen from Cardiff who died during the Falklands War.
• 
  The Welsh National Falklands Conflict Memorial. Unveiled on 30 September 2007
• 
  Memorial for those who fought in the International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War, which was unveiled in October 1992.
• 
  The Gift of Life Stone memorial stone dedicated to organ donors. Erected in 2007 by Kidney Wales.
• 
  Monument for the contribution made by ethnic men & women during WW1, WW2 and subsequent conflicts. Unveiled on 2 November 2019
• 
  Memorial to mark the lives and achievements of Thalidomide impaired people in the UK. Unveiled on 30 June 2016.

• John B. Hilling (2016). The History and Architecture of Cardiff Civic Centre: Black Gold, White City. University of Wales Press. ISBN 978-1-78316-842-2.
• Morley, Ian (June 2009), "Representing a City and Nation: Wales's Matchless Civic Centre", The Welsh History Review, 24 (3): 56–81

Media related to Cathays Park at Wikimedia Commons

• Cathays Park on the Cardiff Council website
• Cathays Park Conservation Area