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Cardiff Castle (Castell Caerdydd) is a medieval castle and Victorian Gothic revival mansion located in the city centre of Cardiff, Wales. The original motte and bailey castle was built in the late 11th century by Norman invaders on top of a 3rd-century Roman fort. The castle was commissioned either by William the Conqueror or by Robert Fitzhamon, and formed the heart of the medieval town of Cardiff and the Marcher Lord territory of Glamorgan. In the 12th century the castle began to be rebuilt in stone, probably by Robert of Gloucester, with a shell keep and substantial defensive walls being erected. Further work was conducted by Richard de Clare, 6th Earl of Gloucester, in the second half of the 13th century. Cardiff Castle was repeatedly involved in the conflicts between the Anglo-Normans and the Welsh, being attacked several times in the 12th century, and stormed in 1404 during the revolt of Owain Glyndŵr.

After being held by the de Clare and Despenser families for several centuries the castle was acquired by Richard de Beauchamp in 1423. Richard conducted extensive work on the castle, founding the main range on the west side of the castle, dominated by a tall octagonal tower. Following the Wars of the Roses, the status of the castle as a Marcher territory was revoked and its military significance began to decline. The Herbert family took over the property in 1550, remodelling parts of the main range and carrying out construction work in the outer bailey, then occupied by Cardiff's Shire Hall and other buildings. During the English Civil War Cardiff Castle was initially taken by a Parliamentary force, but was regained by Royalist supporters in 1645. When fighting broke out again in 1648, a Royalist army attacked Cardiff in a bid to regain the castle, leading to the Battle of St Fagans just outside the city. Cardiff Castle escaped potential destruction by Parliament after the war and was instead garrisoned, probably to protect against a possible Scottish invasion.

In the mid-18th century, Cardiff Castle passed into the hands of the Marquesses of Bute. John Stuart, the first Marquess, employed Capability Brown and Henry Holland to renovate the main range, turning it into a Georgian mansion, and to landscape the castle grounds, demolishing many of the older medieval buildings and walls. During the first half of the 19th century the family became extremely wealthy as a result of the growth of the coal industry in Glamorgan. The third Marquess, John Crichton-Stuart, used this wealth to back an extensive programme of renovations under William Burges. Burges remodelled the castle in a Gothic revival style, lavishing money and attention on the main range. The resulting interior designs are considered to be amongst "the most magnificent that the gothic revival ever achieved". The grounds were re-landscaped and, following the discovery of the old Roman remains, reconstructed walls and a gatehouse in a Roman style were incorporated into the castle design. Extensive landscaped parks were built around the outside of the castle.

In the early 20th century the fourth Marquess inherited the castle and construction work continued into the 1920s. The Bute lands and commercial interests around Cardiff were sold off or nationalised until, by the time of the Second World War, little was left except the castle. During the war, extensive air raid shelters were built in the castle walls; they could hold up to 1,800 people. When the Marquess died in 1947, the castle was given to the city of Cardiff. Today the castle is run as a tourist attraction, with the grounds housing the "Firing Line" regimental museum and interpretation centre. The castle has also served as a venue for events, including musical performances and festivals.

1st–4th centuries AD
The future site of Cardiff Castle was first used by the Romans as a defensive location for many years. The first fort was probably built about AD 55 and occupied until AD 80. It was a rectangular structure much larger than the current site, and formed part of the southern Roman border in Wales during the conquest of the Silures. When the border advanced, defences became less important and the fort was replaced with a sequence of two, much smaller, fortifications on the north side of the current site.

A fourth fort was built in the middle of the 3rd century in order to combat the pirate threat along the coast, and forms the basis of the Roman remains seen on the castle site. The fort was almost square in design, approximately 635 ft by 603 ft large, constructed from limestone brought by sea from Penarth. The fort's irregular shape was determined by the River Taff that flowed along the west side of the walls. The sea would have come much closer to the site than is the case in the 21st century, and the fort would have directly overlooked the harbour. This Roman fort was probably occupied at least until the end of the 4th century, but it is unclear when it was finally abandoned. There is no evidence for the re-occupation of the site until the 11th century.

11th century
The Normans began to make incursions into South Wales from the late 1060s onwards, pushing westwards from their bases in recently occupied England. Their advance was marked by the construction of castles, frequently on old Roman sites, and the creation of regional lordships. The reuse of Roman sites produced considerable savings in the manpower required to construct large earth fortifications.

Cardiff Castle was built during this period. There are two possible dates for the construction: William the Conqueror may have built a castle at Cardiff as early as 1081 on his return from his pilgrimage to St Davids. Alternatively, the first Norman fortification may have been constructed around 1091 by Robert Fitzhamon, the lord of Gloucester. Fitzhamon invaded the region in 1090, and used the castle as a base for the occupation of the rest of southern Glamorgan over the next few years. The site was close to the sea and could be easily supplied by ship, was well protected by the Rivers Taff and Rhymney and also controlled the old Roman road running along the coast.

Cardiff Castle was a motte-and-bailey design. The old Roman walls had collapsed and the Normans used their remains as the basis for the outer castle perimeter, digging a defensive trench and throwing up a 27 ft high bank of earth over the Roman fortifications. The Normans further divided the castle with an internal wall to form an inner and an outer bailey. In the north-west corner of the castle a wooden keep was constructed on top of a motte, surrounded by a moat. Mills were essential to local communities during this period, and the castle mill was located outside the west side of the castle, fed by the River Taff; under local feudal law, the residents of Cardiff were required to use this mill to grind their own grain.

The conquered lands in Glamorgan were given out in packages called knights' fees, and many of these knights held their lands on condition that they provided forces to protect Cardiff Castle. Under this approach, called a castle-guard system, some knights were required to maintain buildings called "houses" within the castle itself, in the outer bailey. Anglo-Saxon peasants settled the region around Cardiff, bringing with them English customs, although Welsh lords continued to rule the more remote districts almost independently until the 14th century. Cardiff Castle was a Marcher Lord territory, enjoying special privileges and independence from the English Crown. The medieval town of Cardiff spread out from the south side of the castle.

12th–14th centuries
FitzHamon was fatally injured at the Battle of Tinchebray in 1106 and died shortly afterwards. Henry I then gave the castle in 1122 to Robert of Gloucester, the king's illegitimate son and the husband of FitzHamon's daughter, Mabe. After the failed attempt of Robert Curthose, duke of Normandy, William the Conqueror's eldest son, to take England from Henry I, Robert of Normandy was imprisoned in the castle until his death in 1134. Robert held the castle during the troubled years of the Anarchy in England and Wales, and passed it on to his son, William Fitz Robert. Around the middle of the century, possibly under Robert of Gloucester, a shell keep was constructed on top of the motte, along with a stone wall around the south and west sides of the inner bailey. The building work was probably undertaken in response to the threat posed following the Welsh uprising of 1136.

Tensions with the Welsh continued, and in 1158 Ifor Bach raided the castle and took William hostage for a period. A further attack followed in 1183. By 1184 town walls had been built around Cardiff, and the West Gate to the town was constructed in the gap between the castle and the river. William died in 1183, leaving three daughters. One of these, Isabel, Countess of Gloucester, was declared the sole heir to the estate by Henry II. This was contrary to legal custom in England, and was done in order that Henry could then marry her to his youngest son Prince John and thus provide him with extensive lands. John later divorced Isabel, but he retained control of the castle until she married Geoffrey de Mandeville in 1214.

Upon Isabel's death in 1217 the castle passed through her sister to Gilbert de Clare, becoming part of the Honour of Clare, a major grouping of estates and fortifications in medieval England. The castle formed the centre of the family's power in South Wales, although the de Clares typically preferred to reside in their castles at Clare and Tonbridge. Gilbert's son, Richard de Clare, 6th Earl of Gloucester, carried out building work at the castle in the late 13th century, constructing the Black Tower that forms part of the southern gateway seen today. On the ground floor the tower contained the Stavell Oged and Stavell Wenn chambers, with three rooms constructed above them. Richard was also probably responsible for rebuilding the northern and eastern walls of the inner bailey in stone. The inner bailey was reached through a gatehouse on the eastern side, protected by two circular towers and later called the Exchequer Gate. The defensive work may have been prompted by the threat posed by the hostile Welsh leader Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Prince of Wales.

Richard's grandson, Gilbert de Clare, the last male de Clare, died at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314 and the castle was given to Hugh Despenser the Younger, the controversial favourite of Edward II. Poor harvests and harsh governance by the Despenser family encouraged a Welsh rebellion under Llywelyn Bren in 1316; this was crushed and Llywelyn was hanged, drawn and quartered in Cardiff Castle in 1318 on Hugh's orders. The execution attracted much criticism from across both the English and Welsh communities, and in 1321 Hugh arrested Sir William Fleminge as a scapegoat for the incident, first detaining him in the Black Tower and then executing him in the castle grounds. Conflict between the Despensers and the other Marcher Lords broke out soon after, leading to the castle being sacked in 1321 during the Despenser War. The Despensers recovered the castle and retained it for the rest of the century, despite the execution of Hugh Despenser for treason in 1326. Under a 1340 charter granted by the Despensers, the castle's constable was made the de facto mayor of Cardiff, controlling the local courts.

15th–16th centuries
By the 15th century, the Despensers were increasingly using Caerphilly Castle as their main residence in the region rather than Cardiff. Thomas le Despenser was executed in 1400 on charges of conspiring against Henry IV. In 1401 rebellion broke out in North Wales under the leadership of Owain Glyndŵr, quickly spreading across the rest of the country. In 1404 Cardiff and the castle were taken by the rebels, causing considerable damage to the Black Tower and the southern gatehouse in the process. On Thomas's death the castle passed first to his young son, Richard, and on his death in 1414, through his daughter Isabel to the Beauchamp family. Isabel first married Richard de Beauchamp, the Earl of Worcester and then, on his death, to his cousin Richard de Beauchamp, the Earl of Warwick, in 1423.

Richard did not acquire Caerphilly Castle as part of the marriage settlement, so he set about redeveloping Cardiff instead. He built a new tower alongside the Black Tower in 1430, restoring the gateway, and extended the motte defences. He also constructed a substantial new domestic range in the south-west of the site between 1425 and 1439. A flower garden was built to the south of the range, with private access to Richard's chambers. Richard also rebuilt the town's wider defences, including a new stone bridge over the River Taff guarded by the West Gate, finishing the work by 1451.

Cardiff Castle remained in the hands of Richard's son, Henry and Henry's daughter, Anne until 1449. When Anne died, it passed by marriage to Richard Neville, who held it until his death in 1471 during the period of civil strife known as the Wars of the Roses. As the conflict progressed and political fortunes rose and fell, the castle passed from George, the Duke of Clarence, to Richard, Duke of Gloucester, to Jasper Tudor, the Duke of Bedford, back to Richard Neville's wife Anne, back to Jasper and finally to Prince Henry, the future Henry VIII. The ascension of the Tudor dynasty to the English throne at the end of the wars heralded a change in the way Wales was administered. The Tudors were Welsh in origin, and their rule eased hostilities between the Welsh and English. As a result, defensive castles became less important. In 1495 Henry VII formally revoked the Marcher territory status of Cardiff Castle and the surrounding territories, bringing them under normal English law as the County of Glamorgan.

The Crown leased the castle to Charles Somerset in 1513; Charles used it while he was living in Cardiff. In 1550 William Herbert, later the Earl of Pembroke, bought Cardiff Castle and the surrounding estates from Edward VI. At this time, the outer bailey contained a range of buildings, and extensive building work was carried out during the century. The Shire Hall had been built in the outer bailey, forming part of a walled complex of buildings that included the lodgings for the traditional twelve holders of castle-guard lands. The outer bailey also included orchards, gardens and a chapel. The castle continued to be used to detain criminals during the 16th century, with the Black Tower being used as a prison to hold them; the heretic Thomas Capper was burnt at the castle on the orders of Henry VIII. The visiting antiquarian John Leland described the keep as "a great thing and strong, but now in some ruine", but the Black Tower was considered to be in good repair. In the inner bailey, the Herberts built an Elizabethan extension to the north end of the main range, with large windows looking onto a new northern garden; the southern garden was replaced by a kitchen garden.

17th–18th centuries
In 1610 the cartographer John Speed produced a map of the castle, and noted that it was "large and in good repair." In 1642, however, civil war broke out between the rival Royalist supporters of King Charles I and Parliament. Cardiff Castle was then owned by Philip Herbert, a moderate Parliamentarian, and the castle was initially held by a pro-Royalist garrison. It was taken by Parliamentary forces in the early period of the war, according to popular tradition by a sneak attack using a secret passageway. The Royalist commander William Seymour, the Marquess of Hertford, then attacked the castle in turn, taking it in a surprise assault. Parliamentary forces and local troops then immediately besieged the castle, retaking it after five hours of fighting and reinstalling a garrison. In early 1645 Mr Carne, the High Sheriff, rebelled against Parliament, taking Cardiff town but initially failing to seize the castle. The King sent forces from Oxford, under the command of Sir Charles Kemys, to reinforce Carne but Parliament despatched a naval squadron to provide support to their forces from the sea. A small battle ensued before the castle was taken by the Royalists.

With the Royalist military position across the country worsening, King Charles himself came to Cardiff Castle that July to meet with local Welsh leaders. Relations between his commander in the region, Sir Charles Gerard, and the people of Glamorgan had deteriorated badly and when Charles left the castle, he was confronted by a small army of angry locals, demanding to be given control of the castle. These clubmen then declared themselves the "Peaceable Army" and increased their demands to include near independence for the region. After negotiations, a compromise was found in which the royal garrison would quit the castle, to be replaced by a local Glamorgan force, commanded by Sir Richard Beaupré; in return, £800 and a force of a thousand men were promised to Charles. In September, Charles returned to South Wales and reneged on the agreement, disbanding the Peaceable Army, but his military position in the region was collapsing. The Peaceable Army's leaders switched sides and forced the surrender of Cardiff and the castle to Parliament in mid-September.

With the outbreak of fresh fighting in 1648, a Royalist army of 8,000 fresh recruits was mustered under the command of General Rowland Laugharne and Sir Edward Stradling, with the intent of retaking Cardiff. Parliamentary forces in Brecon under the command of Colonel Thomas Horton moved quickly to reinforce the castle, although with only 3,000 men they were content to wait until a larger army under Oliver Cromwell could arrive from Gloucester. With time against them, the Royalist army attacked, leading to the battle of St Fagans just to the west of Cardiff, and a heavy Royalist defeat.

After the war, Cardiff Castle escaped the slighting, or deliberate damage and destruction, that affected many other castles. Probably because of the threat of a pro-Royalist invasion by the Presbyterian Scots, a Parliamentary garrison was installed instead and the castle remained intact. The Herberts continued to own the castle as the Earls of Pembroke, both during the interregnum and after the restoration of Charles II. The castle's constable continued to act as mayor of the town of Cardiff, controlling the meetings of the town's burgesses, bailffs and aldermen; the Herberts usually appointed members of the more important local gentry to this position during the period.

Lady Charlotte Herbert was the last of the family to control Cardiff Castle. She married twice, latterly to Thomas, Viscount Windsor and on her death in 1733 the castle passed to their son, Herbert. Herbert's daughter, Charlotte Jane Windsor, married John Stuart, who rose to become the Marquess of Bute, beginning a family line that would control the castle for the next century.

In 1776 the Marquess began to renovate the property with the intention of turning it into a residence for his son, John. The grounds were radically altered under a programme of work that involved Capability Brown and his son-in-law, Henry Holland. The stone wall that separated the inner and outer baileys was destroyed using gunpowder, the Shire Hall and the knights' houses in the outer bailey were destroyed and the remaining ground partially flattened; the whole of the area was laid with turf. Considerable work was carried out on the main lodgings, demolishing the Herbert additions, building two new wings and removing many of the older features to produce a more contemporary, 18th century appearance. The keep and motte was stripped of the ivy and trees that had grown up them, and a spiral path was laid down around the motte. The motte's moat was filled in as part of the landscaping. A summer house was built in the south-east corner of the castle. Further work was planned on the property, including a reported proposal to roof the keep in copper, insert new windows and turn it into an assembly room for dances, but these projects were cut short by the death of the Marquess's son in 1794.

19th century
In 1814 Lord Bute's grandson, John, inherited his title and the castle. In 1825 the new Marquess began a sequence of investments in the Cardiff Docks, an expensive programme of work that would enable Cardiff to become a major coal exporting port. Although the docks were not particularly profitable, they transformed the value of the Butes' mining and land interests, making the family immensely wealthy. By 1900, the family estate owned 22,000 acre of land in Glamorgan.

The second Marquess preferred to live on the Isle of Bute in Scotland and only used Cardiff Castle occasionally. The castle saw little investment and only four full-time servants were maintained on the premises, meaning that cooked food had to be brought across from the kitchens at a nearby hotel. The castle remained at the centre of the Butes' political power base in Cardiff, however, with their faction sometimes termed as "the Castle party". During the violent protests of the Merthyr Rising of 1831, the Marquess based himself at Cardiff Castle, from where he directed operations and kept Whitehall informed of the unfolding events. The governance of the city of Cardiff was finally reformed by an act of Parliament in 1835, introducing a town council and a mayor, severing the link with the castle constable.

The third Marquess of Bute, again called John, inherited the title and castle in 1848. He was then less than a year old, and as he grew up he came to despise the existing castle, believing that it represented a mediocre, half-hearted example of the Gothic style. In 1865, Bute met William Burges. This may have resulted from Burges's father, Alfred Burges, having worked for Bute's father on the East Bute Docks in Cardiff. Together, their joint interests in the medieval world, supported by Bute's money and Burges's skill, transformed the castle into a "Gothic feudal extravaganza". In plan, the new building broadly follows the arrangement of a standard Victorian country house. The 150 ft high Clock Tower forms a suite of bachelor's rooms. To the north, the Guest Tower contains accommodation for visitors. The main block comprises the principal reception rooms, the library and the banqueting hall. The Herbert Tower houses the Arab Room, on which Burges was working when he fell ill and died in 1881. The Beauchamp Tower, crowned with a flèche, holds an oratory, built on the spot where Bute's father died. The Bute Tower held family bedrooms. The interiors of the castle are unique; as significant was its role as a training ground for British arts and crafts. Led by Burges, who took overall responsibility for every aspect of his interiors, developments in the manufacture of stained glass, in carving in wood and stone, in tiling, metalwork, textiles design and painting at the castle, saw a generation of craftsmen grow up "in the Burgesian mould".

Clock Tower
The Clock Tower was Burges's first contribution to the castle; conceived in 1866, and planned by 1868, it was built between 1869 and 1873. The design draws on Burges's failed entry for the Royal Courts of Justice. Originally designed as a suite of bachelor rooms, the tower comprises six or seven storeys; a gardener's room cum-storeroom on the ground floor, the Winter smoking room, entered from the wall walk, Bute's Bachelor bedroom, a servant's room with clock mechanism room above that, and finally the double-height Summer smoking room. The curtain wall which connects the tower with the Black Tower was heightened by Burges, the battlements being given timber covers and a bretache. This defensive feature, which can be seen in early photographs, was subsequently removed. Internally, the rooms were sumptuously decorated with gildings, carvings and cartoons, many allegorical in style, depicting the seasons, myths and fables. The overarching decorative theme is Time. In his A History of The Gothic Revival, written as the tower was being built, Charles Locke Eastlake wrote of Burges's "peculiar talents (and) luxuriant fancy." The tower was complete by September 1873.

Burges planned the tower to be "a handsome object at the present entrance to the town". It gives a strong vertical accent to the south-west corner of the site. Constructed of Forest of Dean ashlar stone, the tower rises to the clock stage. The faces of the clocks are decorated with carvings representing the planets, by Thomas Nicholls. The statues were re-painted and re-gilded in a four-year restoration project begun in 2004. The interiors of the tower focus on a single theme, Time. In the Winter smoking room, stained glass windows, designed by Frederick Weekes and made by Saunders & Co., depict the Norse days of the week. The wall murals depict the seasons and the sculptured corbels show the times of the day. The theme of the Bachelor bedroom is mineral wealth, a none-too subtle nod to the source of the fortune that paid for the castle's redevelopment, and astrology and alchemy. It has an early en-suite bathroom, with a sunken bath carved from Italian marble. The Summer smoking room sits at the top of the structure and is two storeys high with an internal balcony that, through an unbroken band of windows, gives views of the Cardiff Docks, the Bristol Channel, and the Glamorganshire countryside. Girouard describes it as "perhaps the strangest and most wonderful of all Victorian rooms". The floor has a map of the world in mosaic. The sculpture was created by Thomas Nicholls. The tiling used throughout the tower is "particularly striking". As with stained glass, Burges led a revival in the manufacture of encaustic tiles; working with George Maw and William Godwin, he pioneered techniques in the area which sought to replicate medieval precedents. Then, as now, Burges's designs could bewilder critics; the contemporary reviewer in The Building News confessed; "the portentous corbellings are of a character of design which we honestly allow we fail to comprehend". Much of the furniture and furnishings made for the castle were removed in 1947; Cardiff City Council continues to work for their return where possible. An example is the tulip vase purchased by Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales in 2016. Burges designed four such vases to sit on the corner corbels in the Summer smoking room – they are highly architectural in design, being modelled on the Abbot's Kitchen at Marmoutier Abbey near Tours. Removed by the Butes in 1947 and subsequently sold, one is now held by the Victoria and Albert Museum, one by The Higgins Art Gallery & Museum, Bedford, and the third was bought by the National Museum. The fourth was acquired by National Museums Scotland in 2017, with a grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, after an export bar was placed on the item in June 2016. Other examples of returned furniture include an ebonised side table designed for the Summer Smoking Room and acquired in 2007 and a glazed fire screen designed for the same room and acquired in 2012.

Guest Tower
The Guest Tower, lying beyond the Tank Tower, is entirely Burges, replacing Henry Holland's new wing. Of seven storeys, with an octagonal stair turret, its double height, arcaded, top storey echoes the design for the Bishop's Palace at St Davids. The tower contains the site of the original kitchen at its base and above, the nursery, decorated with painted tiles depicting Aesop's Fables, and characters from nursery rhymes and children's tales including Ali Baba, Robinson Crusoe and The Invisible Prince, depicted as an empty silhouette between two trees. The Walnut room above that has a fireplace carved with images from the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. Much of the decoration of this tower was not completed until the early 20th century, long after Burges's death.

Herbert Tower
The Herbert Tower is of brown rubble and is Holland's work up to the third storey. Above it, Burges added two further storeys and the battlemented roof. The tower contains two of Burges's "finest miniature interiors", Bute's study and the Arab room. The latter room is one of Burges's masterpieces, John Newman describing it as "the most exotic in the castle". Its jelly-mould ceiling in a Moorish style is drawn from Burges's studies of Islamic art in Spain and Sicily, and from a book on the architecture of Cairo published in 1877. John Grant, the architect employed at the castle by the fourth Marquess, and author of a history of the building published in 1923, incorrectly stated that "the decoration is based on an actual room in Arabia", as well as repeatedly misspelling Burges's surname. As usual, Burges led on every aspect of the room's design, including the stained glass, the marbled floor and walls, the gilded parrots on the cornice, the cedar wood wall cabinets inlaid with silver and the statuettes of Eastern deities. It was the last room on which he was working when he fell ill in 1881. After his death in April of that year, Bute placed Burges's initials, together with his own, and the date, in the fireplace of the Arab Room as a memorial. The room was completed by Burges's brother-in-law, Richard Popplewell Pullan. The room is almost exactly contemporaneous with the Arab Hall constructed by Frederick, Lord Leighton in his Holland Park house and illustrates the later Victorian obsession with the Orient.

Banqueting hall, library and grand staircase
The central part of the castle, the Beauchamp range, shows the extent of Holland's construction most clearly. The turrets visible from the courtyard are his work, except for the most southern, which was installed as part of the reconstruction of the grand staircase in 1927. The origins are late-medieval. The range comprises the library on the ground floor with the two-storey banqueting hall above it. Both rooms are enormous. The decoration of these rooms is less impressive than elsewhere in the castle, much of it being completed after Burges's death by Lonsdale, a painter “required to cover areas rather greater than his talents deserved”.

In the Banqueting hall, the murals depict scenes from the history of the county of Glamorgan. The exploits of Robert of Gloucester formed the basis of Bute's address to the Archaeological Institute when he addressed them as President in Cardiff in 1871. A huge fireplace has a mantle depicting the castle in Norman times. Robert, Earl of Gloucester is shown leaving the castle, with his wife waving him off and trumpeters on the battlements heralding his departure. The imprisoned Robert of Normandy looks on from a barred cell window. Burges drew inspiration for the room's hammerbeam roof from Framlingham Church and St Peters, Mancroft. The hall screen was designed by Frame in 1887.

A pair of double doors led from the hall to the grand staircase, recorded in a watercolour perspective prepared by Axel Haig. Long believed not to have been built, recent investigation has confirmed that it was constructed during Burges's time, but removed in its entirety in the 1930s, reputedly after the third Marchioness had "once slipped on its polished surface." The staircase was not universally praised in the contemporary press; the Building News writing that the design was "one of the least happy we have seen from Mr Burges's pencil...the contrasts of colour are more startling than pleasing."

The library, under the Banqueting hall, is extremely large, "to encompass all the interests of its polymath owner". Construction began in 1873, and concluded just after Burges's death. The chimneypiece has carved figures referring to the purpose of the room and to the Marquess, a noted linguist. Four represent the ancient Greek, Assyrian, Hebrew and Egyptian alphabets while the fifth figure is believed to represent Bute himself, clad as a Celtic monk. Desks, constructed from walnut, incorporate early radiators, decorated with heraldic motifs. Carvings in the library, as elsewhere, illustrate Burges's sense of humour, as well as his alertness to contemporary controversy. Four monkeys cavorting around the Tree of Knowledge, one stealing an apple, two wrestling over the Book of Truth, and one poring over the book in puzzlement, are his comment on Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species.

Beauchamp Tower
The Beauchamp, or Octagon, Tower was constructed from 1876–1881. Its origin is medieval, of lias limestone, which Burges restored. The flèche which crowns the tower is of timber, covered in lead. An octagonal staircase leads to an oratory, commemorating Bute's father. The sculpture is by Fucigna. A marble bust records "On this spot John Marquess of Bute fell asleep and woke in eternity 1848". The oratory is located in a turret to the south side of the tower. In the main tower is the Chaucer Room, designed as a sitting room for Lady Bute. A double-height room, decorated with scenes from The Canterbury Tales, Newman suggests Burges used a library at the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome as a source, which he had visited in 1877. Its elaborately carved ceiling is cited by Mark Girouard as "a superb ... example of Burges's genius in the construction of roofs." Lady Bute involved herself closely in the designs for the room, William Frame writing to one of the stained glass manufacturers; "the whole must be most carefully done as it is Lady Bute's Room. I think the best way will be to execute a panel; as Lord and Lady Bute will be here in Sept(ember) they will be able to see at once if they like it or not". The inspiration for the flèche comes from Amiens Cathedral, and recalls details from the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry.

Bute Tower
The foundation stone of the Bute tower was laid on 24 April 1873. Its origin is again Holland's work, extended upwards by Burges. It includes the family's private apartments and culminates in the roof garden, with a sculpture of the Madonna by Ceccardo Fucigna. The drawing room is plain, and decorated in a simple classical style. Reputedly, Bute insisted on the walls being undecorated as it was the only room in the castle in which he could hang his collection of family portraits. The dining room, in contrast, has a full Burgesian decorative scheme, illustrating the life of Abraham. The design was another re-using of an earlier, rejected, work; in this case for Trinity College in the United States. The decoration of this room was carried out by Charles Campbell, of Campbell, Smith & Co., a company formed largely as a result of Burges's encouragement. Lord Bute's bedroom contains extensive religious iconography, a mirrored ceiling and an en-suite bathroom. The windows of the bathroom are glazed with transparent alabaster. The Marquess's name, John, is repeated in Greek, ΙΩΑИΣ, along the ceiling beams. Lady Bute's bedroom is to a simpler design. The roof garden, at the top of the tower, draws inspiration from "southern Italy, not South Wales". A sunken courtyard, it contains a sculpture of the Madonna and child by Ceccardo Fucigna. The murals depict Hebraic scenes; the Marquess was learning Hebrew at the time of the garden's construction in the mid 1870s.

Landscape
Until the 1850s, Bute Park, laid out on the site of five farms and known as Cooper's Fields, was open to the public. In 1858, Bute's mother gave Sophia Gardens to the city and Bute Park was closed and transformed into the private gardens for the castle. In the 1870s, using Andrew Pettigrew his head gardener at Mount Stuart House, Bute began the development of the gardens. Burges contributed three main elements; the Swiss Bridge, the Animal Wall and the stables. His original plan was for a pre-Raphaelite garden in the moat on the two sides of the Clock Tower facing the city. The Animal Wall provided the enclosing perimeter on the Castle Street frontage, while the Swiss Bridge gave Bute access directly from the Bute Tower into the castle park. The bridge was completed but in 1881 Burges died before the wall was anything more than a sketched plan. His assistant William Frame brought the idea to fruition, with the animal carving being undertaken by Burges' long-term sculptor Thomas Nicholls. Both structures were moved by Bute's son during developments in the 1920s and 1930s. The Animal Wall was placed in its current position at the end of Bute Park and was extended with additional sculptures by Alexander Carrick. The Swiss Bridge was moved to a new site below the Castle Mews. By the 1960s, the bridge was derelict, having suffered considerably from vandalism and Cardiff City Council had it broken up. The stables, of less interest to Bute, were built by Burges between 1868–1869 and were subsequently remodelled in the 1920s and reduced in scale by the removal of the pigeon tower in the 1960s.

Appreciation
Burges's interiors at Cardiff Castle have been widely praised. The historian Megan Aldrich contended that Burges's interiors at Cardiff have "rarely [been] equalled, [although] he executed few buildings as his rich fantastic gothic required equally rich patrons (..) his finished works are outstanding monuments to nineteenth century gothic". J. Mordaunt Crook, Burges's biographer, described the principal rooms as "three dimensional passports to fairy kingdoms and realms of gold. In Cardiff Castle we enter a land of dreams". The architectural historian John Newman considered Cardiff, and Castell Coch, as "most successful of all the fantasy castles of the nineteenth century". The architectural writer Michael Hall described the interiors of the Clock Tower as, "some of the most magnificent that the Gothic Revival ever achieved". Charles Handley-Read, the first serious student of Burges, wrote of his work at Cardiff and Castell Coch; "I have yet to see any High Victorian interiors from the hand, very largely, of one designer, to equal either in homogeneity or completeness, in quality of execution or originality of conception the best of the interiors of the Welsh castles. For sheer power of intoxication, Burges stand[s] unrivalled".

The exterior of the castle has received a more mixed reception from critics. John Grant, who worked on the castle in the 1920s, considered the towers to present a "picturesque if not happy combination" of varying historical styles, and Adrian Pettifer criticised them as "incongruous" and excessively Gothic in style. Crook disagreed; describing the castle's silhouette, he wrote; "it performs a national function; it has become the skyline of the capital of Wales. The dream of one great patron and one great architect has almost become the symbol of a whole nation".

20th and 21st centuries


John, the fourth Marquess, acquired the castle in 1900 on the death of his father, and the family estates and investments around the castle began to rapidly reduce in size.

Cardiff had grown hugely in the previous century, its population increasing from 1,870 in 1800 to around 250,000 in 1900, but the coal trade began to diminish after 1918 and industry suffered during the depression of the 1920s. John only inherited a part of the Butes' Glamorgan estates, and in the first decades of the 20th century he sold off much of the remaining assets around Cardiff, including the coal mines, docks and railway companies, with the bulk of the land interests being finally sold off or nationalised in 1938.

The reconstruction of the Roman walls and gateway, and the castellated walls, continued well into the 20th century. After Burges's death in 1881, his assistant William Frame continued the work for the 3rd Marquess, and after Frame's death in 1905, the 4th Marquess employed firstly H. Sesom-Hiley and then John Grant to finalise the works in a "Burgesian spirit". There was extensive restoration of the medieval masonry in 1921, with Grant rebuilding the South Gate and the barbican tower, and reconstructing the medieval West Gate and town wall alongside the castle. Further archaeological investigations were carried out into the Roman walls in 1922 and 1923, leading to Grant redesigning the northern Roman gatehouse. The Swiss Bridge was moved in 1927 to make room for the new West Gate development. The second half of the castle stables were finally completed. The Animal Wall was moved in the 1920s to the west side of the castle to enclose a pre-Raphaelite themed garden. The grand staircase in the main range was torn out in the 1930s. During World War II, extensive air-raid shelters were tunnelled out within the medieval walls, with eight different sections, able to hold up to 1,800 people in total, and the castle was also used to tether barrage balloons above the city.

In 1947, the John, the fifth Marquess, inherited the castle on the death of his father and faced considerable death duties. He sold the very last of the Bute lands in Cardiff and gave the castle and the surrounding park to the city on behalf of the people of Cardiff; the family flag was taken down from the castle as part of the official hand-over ceremony. The castle was protected as a grade I listed building and as a scheduled monument.

Cardiff Castle is now run as a tourist attraction, and is one of the most popular sites in the city. The castle is not fully furnished, as the furniture and fittings in the castle were removed by the Marquess in 1947 and subsequently disposed of; an extensive restoration has been carried out, however, of the fittings originally designed for the Clock Tower by Burges.

The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, founded in 1949, was housed in the castle's main range for many years, but moved into the castle's former stables north of the castle in 1998.

A new interpretation centre, which opened in 2008, was built alongside the South Gate at a cost of £6.5 million, and the castle also contains "Firing Line", the joint regimental museum of the 1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards and the Royal Welsh.

The castle has been used for a range of cultural and social events. The castle has seen various musical performances, including by Tom Jones, Green Day and the Stereophonics, with a capacity to accommodate over 10,000 people. During the 1960s and 1970s the castle was the setting for a sequence of military tattoos.