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Cardiff Leasing

Did You Know?

It’s one of its newest capital cities. It officially became a city on 28 October 1904 and the capital city in 1955. Today, it’s the largest city in Wales, 11th largest city in the UK and the most important administrative, shopping, and cultural centre in the country. It’s also the headquarters for a wide array of national organizations and government departments.Cardiff Bay

Spillers Records is the oldest record shop in the world. Dating all the way back to 1894, it’s been in business for over 125 years. Located along the historic Morgan Arcade in Cardiff, the shop first specialised in phonographs, wax phonograph cylinders and shellac photograph discs. They also sold and repaired musical instruments. These days they sell an eclectic mix of records and CDs, as well as tickets for live music across the city.

Cardiff is known as the “City of Arcades” for good reason. It has the highest concentration of Victorian, Edwardian and contemporary indoor shopping arcades in Britain. These house over 100 independent cafes, bars and shops right in the heart of the city. Castle Arcade and High Street Arcade are two of the most famous.

In the 18th century, the authorities fixed a chair to the end of a long piece of timber and suspended it over the water on the Taff in Cardiff. They forced people to sit on it as a punishment. For instance, in 1739 a woman called Elizabeth Jones was “chaired” for being “a common narrator or scandal-monger, eavesdropper and hearkened after news”. Seems like a hefty punishment for gossiping.

Most people who know anything about Cardiff have heard of Cardiff Castle. Built over 2,000 years ago, it’s been occupied by everyone from the Romans to the Normans to Cardiff’s citizens during World War II. But, fewer people know about Morgraig Castle. Built more than 600 years ago, local experts only re-discovered the castle in the early 1900s. No one knows exactly who built the castle, but it was likely either Gilbert de Clare of the Lord of Sneghennydd. It sits on the crest of Graig Llanishen ridge to the north of Cardiff, on the border between the medieval Welsh Lordship of Senghenydd and the English Lordship of Glamorgan.

There’s a centuries-old friars tunnel, which once connected the Blackfriars Friary in Bute Park to Greyfriars Road. There are hidden canals running under the city’s main shopping district. There’s even a tunnel running from Stadium House to Cardiff Castle, built in the late ’70s by the British Post Office to carry cables.

Cardiff has been permanently inhabited since the 11th century when the Normans built a fortified castle on top of an old Roman outpost. The rest, as they say, is history!

A highlight of a visit to Cardiff Castle is the wall at Bute Park, which features stone carved animals. The ones with glass eyes, the lions, apes, a lynx, a bear, a wolf, a hyena and a sea lion, were all built in the late 19th century. The other six animals were added later..

Another of our surprising Cardiff facts is that the River Taf once flowed right past Cardiff Castle. The direction of the river was changed by the famous engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The river was diverted to solve flooding problems, and allow for the building of Cardiff Central railway station.

The most famous person from the Cardiff area is the singer Dame Shirley Bassey. She was the first Welsh singer to have a UK number 1 hit single (1959), has had 27 top 40 hits, and recorded no less than 3 James Bond theme tunes!

The next of our interesting facts about Cardiff is a gory one! Richmond Road runs through what was once an area of fields where executed criminals were buried. The fields were named Gallows Pit, Defiled Pool, Cut Throats and Putrid Field. With names like that, it’s no wonder Cardiff claims to be haunted!.

Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium opened in June 1999 and was renamed the Principality Stadium in 2016. It’s the national stadium of Wales, home to the Welsh national rugby union team, and often hosts national football team games and the Speedway Grand Prix of Great Britain.  It is the largest stadium in Wales and can seat 73,931 people.

One of the more unusual shops in the city of Cardiff is ‘The Pumping Station’ on Penarth Road. This antique / junk shop is fun to browse, and home to ‘Simba’ the (now stuffed) lion who stared alongside Elizabeth Taylor in the 1963 film Cleopatra. This was once the world’s biggest lion, who gave his name to the famous Disney character!