City of Layers: Monopoly to Metropolis

Cities shape people, and people shape cities.

Successive generations have contested the present and future shapes of Cardiff. In this walk we explore the simultaneous historical layers of the city, the changing kaleidoscope of space, place, and power.

We view today’s cityscape with fresh eyes, exploring prominent public buildings and memorial statues plus some lesser-known urban fragments to discover some of the key historical episodes and social actors in the formation of the global Coal Metropolis.

Our waymarks include traces of the Medieval walled town, fragments of industrial archaeology and maritime Cardiff, and the gothic splendour of the Church of St John the Baptist.

The climax of the tour is the architectural triumph of Cathays Park, which was the first planned Civic Centre in the United Kingdom and an inspiration for the American City Beautiful movement.

We will end the tour at the allegorical sculpture of Minerva featuring the labour of the coal miner as an emblem of the South Wales Coalfield and the source of Cardiff’s wealth as a port and city.

Meeting Place | The Statue of the Second Marquess of Bute, Callaghan Square CF10 1BT (behind Cardiff Central Railway Station).

Theme | History has acted as Muse in the cubist-like mapping of my guided walking tour entitled City of Layers: Monopoly to Metropolis, exploring Modern Cardiff’s evolution as a city through the wealth of the South Wales Coalfield.

Itinerary | As you walk with me, tracing a 1.5 km northerly line through the city space of 1.5 hours duration and covering some 150 years of history, you will see for yourself why Cardiff was dubbed the “Chicago of Wales”.