The Arab Room
A gilded Moorish ceiling designed by William Burges, the finest single room in the castle.
Right in the middle of Cardiff, a few minutes from the shops and both railway stations, stands not one castle but three stacked on top of each other: a Roman fort first raised in the AD 50s and rebuilt in stone two centuries later, whose original masonry still shows at the base of the outer walls beneath a band of red stone that marks where the Victorian rebuilding begins; a twelfth-century Norman stone keep perched on its artificial mound; and a set of Victorian apartments of almost absurd opulence on which the 3rd Marquess of Bute, reputedly the richest man in Britain, spent a fortune in the 1860s and 1870s. Two thousand years of history in a site you can cross on foot in ten minutes is not something you meet often. The real surprise for an Arab visitor waits indoors. The Arab Room, designed by the architect William Burges and finished after his death in 1881, has a gilded ceiling in the Moorish manner, all stalactite vaulting and geometric pattern, that owes far more to the palaces of Granada than to rainy Wales. The rest of the apartments orbit around it: the Banqueting Hall with its painted walls, the Library with its carvings of the ancient alphabets, and the Clock Tower. The apartments are free-roam on the standard ticket; the guided House Tour, which runs at set times, opens extra rooms you cannot otherwise enter, and is worth the additional five pounds. The standard Castle Ticket (£16.50 for adults, £11 for children aged 5 to 16, and £44 for a family of two adults and two children) covers the grounds, the Norman Keep, the battlement walk, the wartime shelters where townspeople sheltered from Second World War bombing, the Firing Line museum of the Welsh regiments, and an audio guide. It is valid all day with re-entry, which matters with children: you can leave for lunch in town or a wander in Bute Park, which begins directly behind the castle, and come back. Opening is daily from 10:00 (09:00 at weekends) until 18:00 from March to October and until 17:00 from November to February, with last entry an hour before closing, and the castle shuts only on 25 and 26 December and 1 January. Advance booking is not compulsory, but buying online saves the queue on summer weekends and event days. The Norman Keep is reached by a steep stone stair that suits neither toddlers nor pushchairs, though the grounds and apartments are level and easy. Short on time? The Roman wall and the famous Animal Wall, with its fifteen stone creatures along Castle Street, can be seen free from the pavement; but the Arab Room alone justifies the ticket.
A gilded Moorish ceiling designed by William Burges, the finest single room in the castle.
A twelfth-century stone keep on its mound with a view over the whole city, after a steep climb.
Long passages inside the ramparts where close to two thousand Cardiff residents could shelter from bombing, with period sound effects.
Castle Street, Cardiff CF10 3RB
From outside you get the wall and the Animal Wall, pleasant but not the point. The Victorian apartments and the Arab Room inside are the real reason to come; if you have two hours, pay for the ticket.
Mostly yes: the grounds and apartments are level, and the ticket allows re-entry all day. Only the Norman Keep needs a steep stone climb, so leave the pushchair at the bottom.