Cardiff Crown Court ( cy, Llys y Goron Caerdydd) is a historic building situated in

Cathays Park Cathays Park ( cy, Parc Cathays) or Cardiff Civic Centre is a civic centre area in the city centre of Cardiff, the capital city of Wales, consisting of a number of early 20th century buildings and a central park area, Alexandra Gardens. It i ...

Cardiff Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

. The building is a

Grade I listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. As a Crown Court venue it is part of the Wales Circuit of Her Majesty's Courts Service. The court house has nine courtrooms in addition to one "virtual" courtroom. The senior judge at the court is Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke, the Recorder of Cardiff.

History

Cathays Park was purchased in 1898 by the Borough of Cardiff from the 3rd Marquess of Bute for £160,000 and developed into the Cardiff Civic Centre by William Harpur, a council engineer. A competition for the law courts and the nearby town hall took place in 1897, and it was won by Lanchester, Stewart and Rickards. Building work commenced in 1901 and the external structure was complete by 1904. The building was opened by the 3rd Marquess of Bute in October 1906. Courts 1 and 2, formerly Crown Court (north) and Nisi Prius Court (south) were added to between 1966 and 1990 and the building was fully refurbished between 1991 and 1995.

Architecture

Located on King Edward VII Avenue, the east entrance front of the Law Courts faces the side of Cardiff City Hall. Writing in 1995, Newman observes that the projecting nine bay centre of the courts is of a more solemn composition than the city hall, reflecting its serious role compared to the more celebratory function of its neighbour. The front of the court boasts a full-scale external order, with unfluted

Doric column The Doric order was one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of c ...

s carrying a simplified entablature. The columns are arranged in pairs forming a recessed

loggia In architecture, a loggia ( , usually , ) is a covered exterior gallery or corridor, usually on an upper level, but sometimes on the ground level of a building. The outer wall is open to the elements, usually supported by a series of columns ...

, while the end bays host channelled quoins. Rising above are two large stone turrets with domical tops and paired diagonally projecting colonnettes, reminiscent of Wren. The central main doorway is set forward in line with the columns, with a richly carved coat of arms above. The front bays are observed to have the character of a temple or church due to the flight of heavy steps that rise up to meet them. The steps are flanked by two large bronze lampstands adorned with dragons. The south-facing side of the court was designed as a sister piece to the town hall, with Baroque features that helped established their reputation as setting a new standard in the emergence of the Edwardian grand style for public buildings in Britain. The external details lend heavily from the Baroque of south Germany and Austria combined with the neo-Baroque of Charles Garnier's Paris

opera house An opera house is a theatre building used for performances of opera. It usually includes a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and building sets. While some venues are constructed specifically fo ...

. The similarities between the courts and the city hall can be seen through the south fronts, with bulging banded plinth and broad areas of channelling at angles and breaks, long round-headed lower windows set in concave surrounds and at the outer end of each facade, three-bay canted projections. Although difficult to appreciate from the ground, and more obvious from the building plans, is the off-centre tower of the city hall which was placed to link the two buildings, as it stands over the west side entrance of the hall and is aligned on the axis of the portico of the law courts. Despite the heavy relationship in style, what makes the facades appear quite different is the prodigious centrepiece of City Hall which contrasts sharply from the emphasised centre of the law courts. Adorning the top of the Crown Courts are several attic sculptures, representing Welsh Science and Education by Donald McGill and Welsh Commerce and Industry by

Paul Raphael Montford __NOTOC__ Paul Raphael Montford (1 November 1868 – 15 January 1938) was an English-born sculptor, also active in Australia; winner of the gold medal of the Royal Society of British Sculptors in 1934.Jenny Zimmer,Montford, Paul Raphael (1868–1 ...

. Both were added in 1906, and like much of the Baroque were later additions to the submitted winning design. Central to the south side, on the lawn in front, is erected a statue to Judge Gwilym Williams by Welsh artist

Goscombe John Sir William Goscombe John (21 February 1860 – 15 December 1952) was a prolific Welsh sculptor known for his many public memorials. As a sculptor, John developed a distinctive style of his own while respecting classical traditions and forms of ...

. To the interior, Newman finds only one space of any architectural note, that of the main hall from the front entrance. Here, flights of steps rise and divide the space into a three bay room set transversely. The hall is crowned by three saucer domes on

pendentive In architecture, a pendentive is a constructional device permitting the placing of a circular dome over a square room or of an elliptical dome over a rectangular room. The pendentives, which are triangular segments of a sphere, taper to point ...

s, between which lunette windows light from both the front and back.

References

External links

Court information
* {{commons category-inline, Cardiff Crown Court Grade I listed buildings in Cardiff Court buildings in Wales Crown Court buildings Cathays Park Government buildings completed in 1906

History

Architecture

See also

References

External links