The Animal Wall
A stone lion, bear, seal and baboons have peered down on Castle Street since 1890, and the pavement is the best free seat.
Until 1947 the great green sweep behind Cardiff Castle was one family's back garden. The Butes were among the richest people in Britain, and from 1873 their head gardener Andrew Pettigrew spent three decades planting, paving and importing rare trees, extending a landscape whose castle end Capability Brown had shaped before him, until the fifth Marquess handed the whole thing to the city. What you get today is a free municipal park of more than fifty hectares that starts at the castle wall and follows the east bank of the River Taff north to Blackweir. Its most famous feature can be seen from the pavement without going in at all: the Animal Wall on Castle Street, where a stone lion, bear, seal, baboons and their companions peer down at passers-by, the nine originals with glass eyes, as they have since 1890 (the wall was shifted some fifty metres to its present spot in 1922). Inside, the trees are the real point. The arboretum holds more than 3,000 individually catalogued specimens, among them 41 champion trees, the tallest or broadest of their kind in the British Isles and the largest such tally in any UK public park, and a self-guided trail links the best of them. Out on the lawns you will also find the excavated footprint of a thirteenth-century Dominican friary picked out on the ground, pleasant to stumble across rather than something to plan a trip around. This is a working city park, not a manicured palace garden: expect joggers, cyclists and students cutting across the footbridges to Sophia Gardens. It still suits families well. The main paths are flat and surfaced, fine for pushchairs, a leisurely loop from the castle to Blackweir and back takes about an hour, and there are three cafés en route, the Secret Garden Café being the best known for its homemade, locally sourced menu. Entry costs nothing; the West Gate on Castle Street is roughly ten minutes on foot from Cardiff Central station, and since there is no parking inside, use the pay-and-display car parks at Sophia Gardens, Castle Mews or North Road. Two honest caveats. The gates lock half an hour before sunset, which means about half past three in the afternoon in December and around nine in the evening in June, so time your walk. And Cardiff's rain leaves the unsurfaced riverside paths muddy for days; in winter keep to the tarmac, or treat it as a quick look at the Animal Wall on the way into the castle.
A stone lion, bear, seal and baboons have peered down on Castle Street since 1890, and the pavement is the best free seat.
An arboretum of more than 3,000 catalogued trees, 41 of them the tallest or broadest of their species in the British Isles, linked by a self-guided trail.
A flat riverside walk up to Blackweir passes the excavated outline of a thirteenth-century friary laid out on the lawn.
North Road, behind Cardiff Castle, Cardiff CF10 3ER
With one day in Cardiff, passing through is enough: the Animal Wall from the street and fifteen minutes behind the castle. With children or on a sunny afternoon, walk up to the Secret Garden Café and back; it is a free, calm hour that offsets the city-centre crowds. You do not need a castle ticket to enter, as the park has its own gates.
Doable, but without illusions: daylight is short, gates lock before four, and the unsurfaced riverside paths turn to mud. Keep to the tarmac or settle for the Animal Wall, and save the long loop for a dry morning.