History of Cardiff Castle

Cardiff Castle was built by the romans in the late 50s AD. They decided to built a fort on this post because it was a strategic site that was close to the Bristol Channel. They also used this fort as a trading area. In 1970 archeologists made excatvations in the site and found that Cardiff Castle was the first of four forts and a roman wall that you can still admire today.
In 1091 AD the Normans came and built a new stone version of the Castle that had been unoccupied sinds 400AD.

Untill 1766 the Castle had been occupied by many noble families i.e. the Clares, the Beauchamps and the Tudors. But in this perticular year the Bute family moved in to the Castle. This was a good thing for the Castle as it was a good thing for the city of Cardiff as the 2nd marquess of Bute was responsible for turning Cardiff into the largest coal exporting port in the world. As he did this he made himself the richest man of the world in the 1860s.

When the 3rd Marquess asked the well respected architect William Burgess to change the Castle lodgings, the Castle transformed in a very positive way.
Mr Burgess decided to add some gothic towers, changed complete interiors with the worlds finest materials. Each room took up it’s own eyepopping theme including Mediterranean gardens aswell as Italian and Arabian decoration.

 

In 1900 the 3rd Marquess died at the age of 53, but in his short life he transformed the Castle into a Welsch Victorian Camelot. The 4th Marquess decided to finish alot of his fathers restoration projects on the site including the reconsturuction of the roman wall.

After the death of the 4th Marquess the bute family decided to give the Castle and a great deal of it’s parkland to the City of Cardiff.
Since 1974 the Castle has turned into one of Wales main tourist attractions.