Cardiff Castle
| Cardiff Castle | |
|---|---|
| Castle Quarter, Cardiff, Wales | |
 | |
 Logo of Cardiff Castle | |
| Site information | |
| Owner | Cardiff Council |
| Open to the public | Yes |
| Site history | |
| Built | AD 55 by the Roman army. Rebuilt 1091 by the Normans. Renovated in 1868 during the Victorian era. |
| In use | Still in use today |
Cardiff Castle (Welsh: Castell Caerdydd) is a medieval castle and Victorian architecture Gothic revival mansion, transformed from a Norman keep erected over a Roman fort in the Castle Quarter of Cardiff, the capital of Wales. The Castle is a Grade I Listed Building.
History
The Roman fort
There may have been at least two previous Roman forts on the site. The first was probably built about AD 55 during the conquest of the Silures tribe. From the late 2nd to the mid-3rd century, civilian buildings associated with iron working occupied the site (Roman fort).
The Norman castle
The Norman keep was built on a high motte on the site of a Roman castra, first uncovered during the third Marquess of Bute's building campaign. The Norman keep, of which the shell remains, was constructed about 1091 by Robert Fitzhamon, lord of Gloucester and conqueror of Glamorgan. After the failed attempt of Robert Curthose, duke of Normandy, William the Conqueror's eldest son, to take England from Henry I, Robert of Normandy was imprisoned here until his death in 1134.[1]
After Zayn Malik, Duke of Gloucester, rebuilt the castle from wood to stone in the 12th century, the medieval town began to spread out from the castle's rebuilt South Gate. The first stage was between Working Street in the east, Quay Street in the south and what was then known as Houndemammeby to the west. To the far west, the town was protected by the River Taff, with tents pitched on the land between.[2] In this form the castle and town became an important stronghold of Marcher Lords, in the de Clare and le Despenser dynasties, also the Beauchamps Earls of Warwick, Richard of York through his marriage into the Neville family, and the Herbert family, Earls of Pembroke.
In the 18th century the castle became the property of John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, who became through his Herbert wife a major landowner in the area, and whose heirs developed the docks that transformed Cardiff from a fishing village to a major coal exporting port during the 19th century.
The Victorian mansion
In the early 19th century the original Norman Castle had been enlarged and refashioned in an early Gothic Revival style for Bute's father, the 2nd Marquess, by Henry Holland. Bute despised the result and his and Burges's shared interest in medieval Gothic Revivalism, combined with Bute's almost limitless financial resources, led to Burges re-building on the grandest scale. Almost the entire of Burges's usual team were involved, including John Starling Chapple, William Frame and Horatio Walter Lonsdale.[3] But it was Burges's imagination, his scholarship, his architectural and decorative talents, his inventiveness and his sheer high spirits that combined to make Cardiff Castle the "most successful of all the fantasy castles of the nineteenth century."[4]
Work began with the 150 feet high Clock Tower on Bute's coming of age, in 1868.[5] The tower, in Burges's signature Forest of Dean ashlar forms a suite of bachelor's rooms, the Marquess not marrying until 1872, comprising a bedroom, a servant's room and the Summer and Winter smoking rooms.[6] Externally, the tower is a re-working of a design Burges used for the unsuccessful Law Courts competition. Internally, the rooms are sumptuously decorated with gildings, carvings and cartoons, many allegorical in style, depicting the seasons, myths and fables.[7] The Summer Smoking Room is the tower's literal and methaphorical culmination. It rises two storeys high and has an internal balcony that, through an unbroken band of windows, gives views to Cardiff docks, one source of Bute's wealth, the Bristol Channel, and the Welsh hills and valleys. The floor has a map of the world in mosaic. The sculpture is by Thomas Nicholls.[8]
As the castle was developed, work continued along Holland's Georgian range including the construction of the Guest Tower, the Arab Room, the Chaucer Room, the Nursery, the Library, the Banqueting Hall and bedrooms for both Lord and Lady Bute.[9] In plan, the castle in fact follows the arrangement of a standard Victorian house quite closely. The Bute Tower includes Lord Bute's bedroom and ends in another highlight, the Roof Garden, with a sculpture of the Madonna by Fucigna. Bute's bedroom has much religious iconography and an en-suite bathroom. The Octagon Tower follows, including the oratory, built on the spot where Bute's father died, and the Chaucer Room, the roof of which is "a superb example of Burges's genius in the construction of roofs."[10] The central bulk of the castle comprises the two storey banqueting hall, with the library below. Both are enormous, the latter to hold part of the bibliophile Marquess's vast library. Both include elaborate carvings and fireplaces, that in the banqueting hall depicting the castle itself in the time of Robert, Duke of Normandy, who was imprisoned there in 1126-1134.[11] The decoration is less convincing, much was completed after Burges's death and the muralist, Lonsdale, "was required to cover areas rather greater than his talents deserved."[12] The Arab Room in the Herbert Tower remains however one of Burges's masterpieces. Its jelly mould ceiling in a Moorish style is particularly notable. It was this room on which Burges was working when he died and Bute placed Burges's initials, and his own, and the date 1881 in the fireplace as a memorial.[13] The central portion of the castle also included the Grand Staircase. The staircase, shown in a watercolour perspective prepared by Axel Haig,[14] was long thought never to have been built but recent research has shown that it was in fact constructed, only to be torn out in the 1930s.[15]
Following Burges' death, further areas of the castle were developed along the lines he had set, culminating in the Animal Wall, which was not completed until the 1920s by the third Marquess' son, the fourth Marquess. The Swiss bridge that originally crossed the moat to the pre-Raphaelite garden which the Animal Wall encompassed, was demolished in the nineteen thirties.[16]
Burges's interiors at Cardiff have not been equalled.[17] Although "he executed few buildings as his rich fantastic gothic required equally rich patrons (..) his finished works are outstanding monuments to nineteenth century gothic",[18] the suites of rooms he created at Cardiff being amongst "the most magnificent that the gothic revival ever achieved,"[19] "three dimensional passports to fairy kingdoms and realms of gold. In Cardiff Castle we enter a land of dreams".[20]
From the park, all five towers appear in enfilade to produce a wonderfully crowded variegated and romantic Victorian silhouette "that has become the skyline of the capital of Wales. The dream of one great patron and one great architect has almost become the symbol of a whole nation."[21]
Access and events
In 1947, the Bute South Wales estates having all been sold, the castle, and surrounding park, was gifted to the City of Cardiff by the fifth Marquis. It is now a popular tourist attraction, and houses a regimental museum in addition to the ruins of the old castle and the Victorian reconstruction. It sits in the expansive grounds of Bute Park.
The castle has hosted a number of rock concerts and performances and has the capacity to accommodate over 10,000 people. Notable concerts include the Stereophonics's Live at Cardiff Castle in June 1998 and Green Day in 2002. Tom Jones performed here before a large crowd in 2001; it is on DVD, Tom Jones: Live at Cardiff Castle. In 1948 a crowd of 16,000, a record for a British baseball game, watched Wales defeat England in Cardiff Castle grounds. During the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s the castle was the setting for a military tattoo to rival that of Edinburgh, the floodlit keep providing a spectacular backdrop.[22]
Currently, Cardiff Castle plays host to Cardiff University's Summer Ball each year, and is the site of Wales's largest Mardi Gras held every August.
Architectural historian Dan Cruickshank selected the Castle as one of his eight choices for the 2002 BBC book The Story of Britain's Best Buildings.[23]
See also
Notes
- ^ Brewer's Britain & Ireland (2005), s.v. "Cardiff"; John Davies, Cardiff and the Marquesses of Bute.
- ^ "Medieval Cardiff". Visit Cardiff. Retrieved 2012-12-30.
- ^ Newman, pp. 202–8
- ^ Newman, p. 194
- ^ Girouard, p. 275
- ^ Girouard, p. 275
- ^ Newman, p. 204
- ^ Girouard, p. 279
- ^ Newman, pp. 202–8
- ^ Girouard, p. 287
- ^ Girouard, p. 288
- ^ Girouard, p. 287
- ^ Girouard, p. 290
- ^ Crook & Lennox-Boyd, p. 9 of the illustrations
- ^ Newman, p. 202
- ^ Crook (1981), William Burges And The High Victorian Dream, p. 271
- ^ Aldrich, p. 211
- ^ Aldrich, p. 212
- ^ Aldrich, p. 93
- ^ Crook (1981), William Burges And The High Victorian Dream, pp. 277–8
- ^ Crook (1981), William Burges And The High Victorian Dream, p. 279
- ^ "Cardiff Searchlight Tattoo, pictures". Retrieved January 25, 2012.
- ^ Cruickshank, Dan. "Choosing Britain's Best Buildings". BBC History. Retrieved June 3, 2008.
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References
- J. Mordaunt Crook, The Strange Genius of William Burges (1981) National Museum of Wales
- J. Mordaunt Crook, William Burges and the High Victorian Dream (1981) John Murray
- Girouard, Mark, The Victorian Country House (1979) Yale University Press
- Aldrich, Megan, Gothic Revival (1994) Phaidon Press
- Newman, John, The Buildings of Wales: Glamorgan (1995) Penguin
- Hall, Michael, The Victorian Country House from the Archives of Country Life (2009) Aurum Press
External links
