Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Gwydr o Ffwrnais Awen' (Creating truth like glass from inspiration's furnace) and 'In
these stones horizons sing'.
You can wander through the large public lobby at will; the Cardiff Bay tourist informa-
tion centre is here and there's a stage which is often used for free performances. Guided
tours lead visitors behind the giant letters, onto the main stage and into the dressing
rooms, depending on what shows are on.
THE BEAUT BUTES
In Cardiff, the Bute name is inescapable. No family has had a bigger impact on the city. An aristocratic Scottish
family related to the Stuart monarchy, the Butes arrived in Cardiff in 1766 in the shape of John, Lord Mount Stu-
art. He married a local heiress, Charlotte Hickman-Windsor, acquiring vast estates and mineral rights in South
Wales in the process. Like his father of the same name (a prime minister under George III), he entered politics
and became a Tory MP, privy councillor, ambassador to Spain and, eventually, was awarded the title Marquess of
Bute.
Their grandson, the second Marquess of Bute, grew fabulously wealthy from coal mining and then in 1839
gambled his fortune to create a large complex of docks in Cardiff. The gamble paid off. The coal-export business
boomed, and his son, John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, the third Marquess of Bute, became one of the richest people
on the planet. He was not your conventional Victorian aristocrat; an intense, scholarly man with a passion for his-
tory, architecture, ritual and religion (Catholic), he neither hunted nor fished but instead supported the antivivisec-
tion movement and campaigned for a woman's right to a university education. In 1887 he gifted Roath Park to the
town. His architectural legacy ranges from the colourful kitsch of Cardiff Castle and Castell Coch, to the neoclas-
sical elegance of the Civic Centre.
The Butes had interests all over Britain and never spent more than about six weeks at a time in Cardiff. By the
end of WWII they had sold or given away all their Cardiff assets, the fifth Marquess gifting Cardiff Castle and
Bute Park to the city in 1947. The present marquess, the seventh, lives in the family seat at Mount Stuart House
on the Isle of Bute in Scotland's Firth of Clyde; another maverick, he's better known as Johnny Dumfries, the
former Formula One racing driver.
Senedd
OFFLINE MAP
NOTABLE BUILDING
GOOGLE MAP
(National Assembly Building; ; 0845 010 5500; www.assemblywales.org ; 9.30am-4.30pm Mon-Fri,
10.30am-4.30pm Sat & Sun) Designed by Lord Richard Rogers (the architect behind Lon-
don's Lloyd's Building and Millennium Dome and Paris' Pompidou Centre), the Senedd
is a striking structure of concrete, slate, glass and steel, with an undulating canopy roof
lined with red cedar. It has won awards for its environmentally friendly design, which in-
cludes a huge rotating cowl on the roof for power-free ventilation and a gutter system that
collects rainwater for flushing the toilets. The lobby and surrounding area is littered with
public artworks, including the 'meeting place', a curved bench made of 3-tonne slate
 
 
 
 
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