Object History
BY REPUTE.
The magnificent Edwardian City Hall is the finest building of this superb ensemble, but is actually the fifth to have served as the centre of local Government. Little is known of Cardiff’s original ‘Gild Hall’, but the second Town Hall stood in the middle of St Mary’s Street until it was replaced on the same site in the mid- eighteenth century. The fourth Town Hall, on the western side of St Mary’s Street, was built in 1853 and remained in use until the present City Hall opened in 1904.
The Civic buildings stand in Cathays Park, once the site of a short lived Georgian mansion (1812-25), built for the 1st Marquess of Bute. The Bute family sold the 59 acres to the town in 1898, for £159,000. Plans were drawn up for the new buildings, and the new Town Hall (Cardiff was not yet a City) was to form its focal point.
The design is inspired by English and French Renaissance architecture, but has in addition all the presence and confidence of the Edwardian period, when Cardiff’s prosperity from the coal industry was at its height.it is understood that these rare set of 6 fire curbs came from the magnificent town hall.