Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
serves of coal there were in the valleys - setting off a kind of black gold rush - the Butes
were in a position to insist that it be shipped from Butetown. Cardiff was off and running.
The docklands expanded rapidly, the Butes grew staggeringly rich and the city boomed,
its population mushrooming to 170,000 by the end of the 19th century and to 227,000 by
1931. A large, multiracial workers' community known as Tiger Bay grew up in the har-
bourside area of Butetown. In 1905 Cardiff was officially designated a city, and a year
later its elegant Civic Centre was inaugurated. In 1913 Cardiff became the world's top
coal port, exporting some 13 million tonnes of the stuff.
The post-WWI slump in the coal trade and the Great Depression of the 1930s slowed
this expansion. The city was badly damaged by WWII bombing, which claimed over 350
lives. Shortly afterwards the coal industry was nationalised, which led to the Butes pack-
ing their bags and leaving town in 1947, donating the castle and a large chunk of land to
the city.
Wales had no official capital and the need for one was seen as an important focus for
Welsh nationhood. Cardiff had the advantage of being Wales' biggest city and boast the
architectural riches of the Civic Centre. It was proclaimed the first ever capital of Wales in
1955, chosen via a ballot of the members of the Welsh authorities. Cardiff received 36
votes to Caernarfon's 11 and Aberystwyth's four.
Sights
TOP OF CHAPTER
1
Central Cardiff
Cardiff Castle
(
www.cardiffcastle.com
;
Castle St; adult/child £11/8.50, incl guided tour £14/11; 9am-5pm)
The grafting of
Victorian mock-Gothic extravagance onto Cardiff's most important historical relics makes
Cardiff Castle, quite rightly, the city's leading attraction. Until it was donated to the city in
1947, this was the private domain of the Butes, the family who transformed Cardiff from a
small town into the world's biggest coal port.
CASTLE
