Cathays Park

Cathays Park
Aerial view of Cathays Park
Wikimedia | © OpenStreetMap
Type	Civic centre
Location	Cardiff, Wales
Coordinates	51°29′12″N 3°10′49″W / 51.4866°N 3.1804°W / 51.4866; -3.1804Coordinates: 51°29′12″N 3°10′49″W / 51.4866°N 3.1804°W / 51.4866; -3.1804
Created	Early 20th century buildings

Cathays Park (Welsh: Parc Cathays) or Cardiff Civic Centre^[1] is a civic centre area in the city centre of Cardiff, the capital city of Wales, consisting of a number of early 20th century buildings and a central park area, Alexandra Gardens. It includes Edwardian buildings such as the Temple of Peace, City Hall, the National Museum and Gallery of Wales and several buildings belonging to the Cardiff University campus. It also includes Cardiff Crown Court, the administrative headquarters of the Welsh Government, and the more modern Cardiff Central police station. The Pevsner architectural guide to the historic county of Glamorgan judges Cathays Park to be "the finest civic centre in the British Isles".^[2] The area falls within the Cathays electoral ward.

History[]

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 didn't 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 & Lbrary 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 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 . 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]

Buildings[]

Buildings and structures	Listed building status	Architect	Year opened	Image
Aberdare Hall	II	W. D. Caröe	1895
Biosciences and Tower Building	No listing	Dale Owen / Percy Thomas Partnership	1968
Bute Building	II	Percy Thomas and Ivor Jones	1916
Cardiff Central Police Station	No listing	John Dryburgh	1968
Cardiff Crown Court	I	Lanchester, Stewart and Rickards	1906
Cardiff Law School	No listing		1963
Cardiff University main building	II*	W. D. Caröe	1905
City Hall	I	Lanchester, Stewart and Rickards	1906
Cathays Park 1 (part of the Crown Buildings complex)	II	P. K. Hanton	1938
Cathays Park 2 (part of the Crown Buildings complex)	No listing	Alex Gordon	1979
Glamorgan Building (former Glamorgan County Council building)	I	Vincent Harris and Thomas Anderson Moodie	1912
Hut in Gorsedd Gardens	II		Not known
National Museum and Gallery of Wales	I	and Cecil Brewer	1927
Public conveniences on Museum Avenue	II		Not known
Redwood Building (Welsh School of Pharmacy)	No listing	Sir Percy Thomas & Son	1961
Temple of Peace	II	Percy Thomas	1938
University of Wales, Registry	II	H. W. Wills	1904
Welsh National War Memorial	II*	Ninian Comper	1928

Gardens[]

Formal gardens and tree-lined park in Cathays Park

Alexandra Gardens with the Welsh National War Memorial and City Hall in the background

Gorsedd Gardens and the Gorsedd Stones

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

The tree-lined Queen Anne Square

In addition to the large lawn in front of the City Hall, Cathays Park includes three formal gardens and a tree lined park. 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.

Alexandra Gardens[]

Named after Alexandra of Denmark, the queen consort of Edward VII, Alexandra Gardens is located at the heart of the civic centre. It consists of 2.5 hectares of beautifully maintained flower beds and grass, with the Welsh National War Memorial standing at its centre.

Gorsedd Gardens[]

Situated in front of the National Museum, this garden has as its centrepiece a stone circle constructed in 1899, when the National Eisteddfod of Wales was held in Cardiff. The garden's name refers to the Gorsedd of Welsh Bards, the ceremonial order that governs the Eisteddfod. The landscaped garden, was previously known as Druidical Gardens, but the name Gorsedd Gardens was later adopted. The gardens has statues of subjects including David Lloyd George and Lord Ninian Crichton-Stuart. Overlooking Gorsedd Gardens, though not strictly part of the Cathays Park complex, is Park House (or McConnochie House), an influential work by the Neo-Gothic architect William Burges.

Friary Gardens[]

Constructed in honour of the 3rd Marquess of Bute, it contains topiary, a statue of him standing upon a stone pedestal blazoned with a coat of arms, and clipped hedges around the perimeter.

Queen Anne Square[]

Queen Anne Square is a tree-lined grass park, which was built in the 1930s and 1950s. It was designed to be aligned with the main thoroughfare of King Edward VII Avenue, on a site that was originally planned for a Welsh Parliament House.^[13] The square is enclosed by a tree-lined no through road, by Corbett Road to the south and by Aberdare Hall to the south east.

Sculpture[]

Name	Sculptor	Date	Listed statues status	Image
Statue of Third Marquess of Bute	James Pittendrigh Macgillivray	Early 20th century	II
Statue of John Cory	Goscombe John	1906	II
Statue of Lord Aberdare	Herbert Hampton	1898	II
Statue of Lord Ninian Edward Crichton Stuart	Goscombe John	1917	II
Statue of David Lloyd George	Michael Rizzello	1960	II
Statue of Godfrey, First Viscount Tredegar	Goscombe John	1909	II
Statue of Judge Gwilym Williams of Miskin	Goscombe John	c. 1906	II
South African War Memorial (also known as the Boer War Memorial)	Albert Toft	1909	II*
Statue of Girl in Gorsedd Gardens	Robert Thomas	2005	No listing
Three Obliques (Walk In)	Dame Barbara Hepworth	1968	No listing
Relief Sculpture on Redwood Building	Edward Bainbridge Copnall	1961	No listing

Memorial stones[]

• 

  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 serviceman 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 in November 2019

• 

  Memorial to mark the lives and achievements of Thalidomide impaired people in the UK. Unveiled on 30 June 2016.

Gates and colonnades[]

Official listed name of gates and colonnades	Listing status	Image
University of Wales, Cardiff, including Forecourt Walls	II*
Colonnade and gateways at south end of Queen Anne Square	II

References[]

Further reading[]

• 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

External links[]

Media related to Cathays Park at Wikimedia Commons

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