The Butes

he Butes traced their descent from one of the noblest families in Scotland, which had been founded by Sir John Stewart, the natural son of King Robert II.
The Lordship was to be held by the Bute family, until 1947, when the Castle was given to the City of Cardiff.

The Bute family brought power and prosperity to Cardiff, which they turned from a sleepy backwater into one of the greatest coal ports in the world.
They transformed the Castle from all appearances an Eighteenth Century country house - into the marvellous place we know today.

Our story of the Butes and the changes they made to the Castle, must begin with the young 4th earl, who in 1771 invited the Scottish architect, Robert Adam to prepare plans for the modernising and extension of the Lodgings. Adam's proposal was palatial, and totally out of keeping a three storey Wing which - at an angle extended from the Lodgings to the South Gate. Adam's proposal may have been considered, but it was never carried out.

Seven years later, in 1778, 'Capability' Brown and his son-in-law, Henry Holland architect to the Prince Regent embarked upon an ambitious plan to landscape the Grounds and modernise the Lodgings. Brown cleared away the Lodgings of the Norman Knights (one of which was still held) and the Shire Hall, from the Green. Brown stripped the Keep of its Ivy (and toyed with the idea of turning it into a Ballroom), and cut down all the trees growing on the ancient Mound. He filled in the Moat.

Holland pulled down the 16th century Herbert additions, and rebuilt to the north and south of the Hall, the Greater and Lesser Wings the latter he built into the West Curtain Wall - cutting to a depth of seven feet.

The Great Hall was partitioned off into a New Entrance Hall, a Library and a Dining Room. Above the Hall, the bedrooms were modernised and given such names as the Red Room, the Velvet Room, etc.

Eventually, the Earl stopped the work. Perhaps he was tired of living at the old Angel Hotel, across the road from the Castle; it is said he rarely lived at the Castle, finding the noise and bustle of the busy little town, too much. In his time, inns and houses had steadily encroached upon the Walls, almost encircling the Castle. The last of these houses were not to go until this century.

In 1792 the Castle was fenced around and sheep were set into the Grounds to graze. The Ramparts of the South Curtain Wall were cleared and became a promenade for the townsfolk.

In 1814, John Stuart died. The Lordship passed to his grandson, John Stuart 2nd Marquess of Bute - 'The Founder of Modern Cardiff' - when he was eleven years old.

During his lifetime the apartments were further restored, and passages were cut through the West Curtain Wall to give easier access to other parts of the Castle. He restored the South Gate, and the Black Tower which was used as the Estate Office and the inside face of the South Curtain Wall.

In 1830, Sir Robert Smirke was asked to submit a plan for, 'Finishing Cardiff Castle', but nothing seems to have come of his proposal.

'Lord Bute's Tunnel' as it was known, seems to have been a carriage under-pass and is described has having been sited at 'the narrow space north of the Mound'.

On the 18th of March 1848, the Marquess was found dead in the morning room of the Castle. His son and heir, John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute - destined to become the greatest private patron of architecture this country has seen was six months old.

'JOHN MARQUESS OF BUTE BUILT THIS 1881 WILLIAM BURGES DESIGNED IT'
Thus reads the inscription in the Arab Room at Cardiff Castle. It is a memorial to the architect, William Burges, A.R.A. (1827 1881) from his patron and friend, Lord Bute.

In 1865 Lord Bute invited Burges to present a report on the state of the Castle; it was the beginning of a momentous partnership between two men, bound by a shared delight in all things mediaeval.

Lord Bute, the handsome, young (he was then eighteen) aristocrat; the heir to a vast fortune, scholarly, shy and deeply religious the inspiration, it is said, for his friend Disraeli's novel 'Lothair' and Burges, middle-aged, worldly and extrovert; a scholar and an architect, full of eccentric humour, who is described by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in a limerick:

There is a babyish party named Burges
Who from infancy hardly emerges.
If you had not been told he's disgracefully old,
You would offer a bulls-eye to Burges.

It was a partnership that was to endure for sixteen years, and Cardiff Castle was to be transformed into the courtly house of mediaeval splendour that we know today.

The 1865 report was accepted and preparations for the great work, began. Burges brought together a group of young men who were to work with him throughout the restoration of Cardiff Castle (and upon other of his principal works): the architects William Frame, R. P. Pullan and John Starling Chapple ; the decorative artists Fred Weekes, Frederick Smallfield, Nathaniel Westlake, Charles Campbell and the American-born H. Walter Lonsdale; the sculptors Thomas Nicholls, Fucigna and William Clarke of Llandaff; the wood-carvers Thomas John and his sons Goscombe and Thomas; the glass-makers Lavers Barraud, Saunders and Worrall; the tile-makers Simpson and Godwin.

Lord Bute called in distinguished local historians and himself assisted with tracing the history of the Castle: many of his pen-and-ink sketches, taken from early views of the Castle, are in the Cardiff Castle collection of Burges drawings.

He ordered the setting up of the Bute Workshops, employing the finest Welsh craftsmen. The workshops were responsible for the rebuilding, the leadwork, the joinery, and the beautiful marquetry which we see in the Castle today. Throughout the restoration of Cardiff Castle, Lord Bute paid the closest attention to every detail; every design passed through his hands to be amended again and again by Burges. Full-size models were made of everything from key-plates to complete rooms.

Work started in 1867 when Bute workmen pulled down the houses built against the South Curtain Wall, from the South Gate to the south-west angle. Burges restored the stonework, and he added a covered parapet walk with embrasures and arrow-slits. High on the outside face of the wall, he built a timber Bretache - or lookout - which has since been taken down.

Burges built the Clock Tower on the site of a Roman bastion, at the south-west angle of the wall. The Clock Tower is designed as a suite of bachelor apartments for the Lord of the Castle: Winter and Summer Smoking Rooms, Bachelor Bedroom and Bathroom (where Burges installed a Roman bath and a washing basin, which he decorated with silver and copper inserts of fish). Other rooms included the Clock Room, servants bed-rooms and the Maids Kitchen which has been restored and displays domestic items of the period loaned by the Welsh Folk Museum and other friends of the Castle. Each room is built one above the other, from lower basement level, and connected by a Turnpike Staircase. A parapet walk on the West Curtain Wall connects the Tower to the main body of the Castle.

Nothing from the austere outward appearance of the Clock Tower can prepare one of the glorious decorations of the principal rooms which are based upon the one theme the Passing of Time.

During the period between 1868-1875 when the Clock Tower was built, Burges redecorated Lord Bute's Sitting Room, in the Lesser North Wing, adding a painted frieze based upon the life of St. Blaan, the patron saint of the Isle of Bute. Burges enlarged the Stables, which, at that time, stood at the foot of the Clock Tower. He was later to build The Mews, outside the North Gate, which held twelve carriages, twenty-four horses and hacks, and housed up to twelve grooms. Burges built the Chapel in the Castle in memory of the late 2nd Marquess, on the site of the room in which he died. The Chapel is richly decorated with paintings and sculpture based upon the life of Jesus before and after the Passion, and the rising of Lazarus from the dead.

The memorial bust of the Marquess is the work of the Welsh sculptor, John Evan Thomas.
The Chapel was restored in 1977 and re-consecrated. In 1872 Lord Bute married Lady Gwendolen Howard, one of the beauties of the age. Burges decorated her rooms with conventional wallpapers and silken hangings, which Lord Bute chose for his bride.

In 1873 Burges proposed to extend the old lodgings. Lord Bute described it as 'throwing sort of wings out'. He did not like it at all, and he told Burges that he must build upwards.

Burges built upwards and in such a way as was to become his own, and Cardiff's glory: gleaming, chivalric towers, inset like jewels with rooms rich in glowing colour. Work was to start on the Bute Tower later that year. It is built up from the Lesser North Wing, and was designed to hold Lord Bute's private apartments, all richly decorated. The Small Dining Room has on the window shutters, small rosettes which are the earliest work undertaken by the Welsh sculptor, Sir William Goscombe John, after he was apprenticed to the Bute Workshops in 1874.

Burges designed the Abraham Chimneypiece, which he once thought of using at Knightshayes Court in Devon, and later, at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.A.

He re-vamped the Sitting Room, retaining the St. Blaan frieze (which was painted by Charles Campbell) and added a door decorated with painted panels, the work of Fred Weekes, based upon the Triumph of Virtue over Vice.
The Bedroom is richly decorated; on the Chimneypiece is a bronze gilt and jewelled statue of St. John the Evangelist, based upon the Vision of St. Gertrude.

The bathroom is lined with sixty different specimens of marble. Burges based his design for the mermaid washing bowl upon a poem written by his friend, Alfred Lord Tennyson, in 1853. The bowl is inscribed:
Who would be : a mermaid fair : singing alone : combing her hair : under the sea : in a golden curl : with a comb of pearl : . . .

On the top floor is the Roof Garden, with fountain, peristyle and pool.

The turnpike staircase connecting the rooms has a bronze newel-post and a coffered ceiling based upon the Aesop fable of The Fox and the Grapes. The Tower led out to the mediaeval Ladies Walk on the West Wall. A Loggia staircase and landing leads from the principal lodgings to the Bute Tower.

The Herbert Tower (1876) is built up from the Lesser South Wing, and contains Lord Bute's study, and the Arab Room. This beautiful Islamic room, with walls lined with cedarwood and marbles, and the golden stalactite ceiling, is said to have been a favourite room of Lord Bute.

The Guest Tower and the Tank Tower are built up from the South Wing, which Burges took down. These towers held the guest rooms, servants' rooms, and the tank room, with the kitchens and, later, a skittle-alley below. In the Guest Tower may be seen the Fairytale Nursery with a frieze of hand-painted tiles depicting scenes and characters from the Arabian Nights, Hans Anderson and the brothers Grimm.

Burges restored the 15th Century Octagon or Beauchamp Tower. He added a timber fleche or spire, above the battlements. Inside, creating more space by cutting from the thickness of the walls Burges built the Octagon Staircase, with a bronze and marble newel-post representing the lion of Scotland wearing a helmet crested by the Dragon of Wales. The dropped Visor denotes the Bar of the Throne.

The Octagon Staircase leads to the Chaucer Room, which has a gallery and a stained glass lantern. This room is a tribute to Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of English Literature, and the decorations are based upon his works 'The Legend of Good Women' and 'The Canterbury Tales'. The tiled floor is based upon a French Turf and Pavement Maze. The hearth is laid with Alphabet Tiles; on the Chimneypiece there is a statue of Chaucer, with books at his feet, which we like to think may be a likeness of Burges.

Burges built the new Library and the Banqueting Hall on the site of the old mediaeval Hall, where he retained (as in other parts of the Castle) much of the old fabric. The Library is designed to hold Lord Bute's personal collection (Burges designed a book-plate for him). It is richly decorated with sculpture, paintings and marquetry. The bookcases were made by Gillow. Inside the library tables are the radiators for the central heating system which Burges installed in the Castle.

The Banqueting Hail is built at the level of the old bedrooms which Burges took down. The timber-vaulted ceiling is ablaze with heraldic devices tracing the Bute ancestry. The stained-glass windows depict the lords of the Castle through the ages. The walls are painted with murals depicting events in the lives of Robert Consul, the Empress Matilda and King Stephen. This theme is continued on the great castellated chimneypiece. The lord Dais and Gallery continues this effect of a great restored mediaeval Hall.

Burges designed the sideboard; examples of his furniture may be seen in other rooms in the Castle. The Grand Entrance Hall and the Staircase of rose-red granite were never completed.

When Burges died in 1881, his work at Cardiff Castle was continued by his former assistant, William Frame. Frame built the Animal Wall, which had been designed by Burges, just outside the South Gate.

During this period, remains of the Roman Wall were discovered in the foundations of the Norman Curtain Wall. A section of the Roman work is to be seen in the tunnel behind the Gift Shop.

Lord Bute died in 1900. Frame was responsible for restoring the North Gate; Frame is said to have based his design for the North Gate upon a variety of antique sources, including Trajan's Column in Rome, and a 4th Century Roman coin.

After the First World War, the Architect to the Castle was J. P. Grant. Grant made further alterations to the Tank and Guest Towers, building day and night nurseries, which today house the Cardiff Castle collection of Burges drawings. In 1927, the 4th Marquees took down Burges' unfinished masterpiece, the Grand Entrance Hall and Staircase. In its place was built the present Entrance Hall, with a new Drawing Room and bedrooms above. William Clarke, who had worked with Burges on the Clock Tower, was responsible for some of the carving.

Grant restored the West Gate and moved and extended the Animal Wall from the South Gate to its present position by Bute Park. Further animals were added, carved by the Scottish sculptor Alexander Carrick.

In 1947 the Castle was given to the people of Cardiff. Today, Cardiff City Council preserves the ancient Castle, and Burges' wonderful transposition is being restored for the eternal delight of all visitors.

The collection, of over two thousand drawings and stained-glass cartoons, is a remarkable record of the 19th century restoration of Cardiff Castle and the diverse genius of the Architect, William Burges.

Beginning with the first sketches and surveys, the collection is rich with Burges's designs for architecture, painted glass, heraldry, sculpture, mosaics, the marquetry, design for furniture, fabric, ceramics, wood-carving, painted tiles and the wonderful polychromatic schemes of decorations which Burges designed for the principal rooms in the Castle. A research scheme has been introduced; requests to research the collection should be addressed to Director of Administrative and Legal Services, Cardiff City Council, City Hall, Cardiff, CF1 3ND, Wales, UK.