The Gaiety Cinema in City Road - geograph

City Road () runs through the

Plasnewydd Plasnewydd (meaning ''New Manor'' or ''New Place'') is an electoral ward (and formerly the name of a community) of Cardiff, Wales. It falls within the parliamentary constituency of Cardiff East. It is bounded by the electoral wards of Cyn ...

area of

Cardiff Cardiff (; ) is the capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of Wales. Cardiff had a population of in and forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area officially known as the City and County of Ca ...

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

. Designated as the B4261, it runs roughly south-southeasterly from the junction of Crwys Road ( A469) and Albany Road (known as "Death Junction"), to

Newport Road Newport Road is a 4.7 mi (7.5 km) road leading east from the centre of Cardiff, Wales, towards Newport, Wales, Newport, until it joins the A48 road, A48 at St Mellons. Description Newport Road follows the route of the A4161 road, ...

( A4161). It is lined with small shops and business premises. A documentary series about the road was broadcast on

BBC Wales BBC Cymru Wales is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcasting, public broadcaster in Wales. It is one of the four BBC national regions, alongside the BBC English Regions, BBC Northern Ireland and BBC Scotland. Established in 1964, ...

History

City Road was originally known as Plwcca Lane (), ''plwcca'' meaning dirty, wet, uncultivated land, and ''alai'' meaning alley. In 1830 Plwcca Lane consisted of Roath Castle and six small cottages in two fields. It led to Plwcca Halog, named after the Gallows Field, which was where public executions were carried out. Plwcca Lane became Castle Road in 1874, which was named after Roath Castle. it ran north–south from Cardiff through the settlement of

. Roath and Plasnewydd were absorbed into Cardiff in 1875. Castle Road was renamed City Road in 1905 to mark Cardiff's new city status, after the Parish of Roath was absorbed into the county borough of Cardiff in 1903, as Cardiff already had another Castle Street. City Road gained the B4261 number classification in the late 1920s. The northern point, where five roads (City Road, Richmond Road, Crwys Road, Mackintosh Place, Albany Road) meet, has been nicknamed "Death Junction", possibly because of its difficulty for pedestrians and motorists, although an alternative explanation is that it was the location of a

gallows A gallows (or less precisely scaffold) is a frame or elevated beam, typically wooden, from which objects can be suspended or "weighed". Gallows were thus widely used to suspend public weighing scales for large and heavy objects such as sa ...

where criminals were executed. It was the site of the execution of

Philip Evans and John Lloyd Philip Evans, SJ and John Lloyd were Catholic Church in England and Wales, Welsh Catholic priests killed in the aftermath of the alleged Popish Plot. They are among the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. Philip Evans Philip Evans was born ...

, two Roman Catholic priests who were

hung, drawn and quartered To be hanged, drawn and quartered was a method of torture, torturous capital punishment used principally to execute men convicted of High treason in the United Kingdom, high treason in medieval and early modern Britain and Ireland. The convi ...

here in 1679. Evans and Lloyd were

canonised Canonization is the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint, specifically, the official act of a Christian communion declaring a person worthy of public veneration and entering their name in the canon catalogue of sai ...

Pope Paul VI Pope Paul VI (born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini; 26 September 18976 August 1978) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 21 June 1963 until his death on 6 August 1978. Succeeding John XXII ...

in 1970.

Description

The road has hosted a number of public houses, a cinema and a college campus. It has gained a reputation for its multicultural mixture of restaurants and food takeaways.

TV series

City Road was the subject of a three-part documentary television series, first broadcast on

BBC One Wales BBC One Wales is a Welsh free-to-air television channel owned and operated by BBC Cymru Wales. It is the Welsh variation of the UK-wide BBC One network and is broadcast from Central Square in Cardiff. History and operation The first televisi ...

in July 2016. The series featured several businesses including a hairdressers, a sex shop and a fitness centre. The series was made in partnership with

Made Television Local TV (formerly Made Television) is a local television network in the United Kingdom, operating nine channels serving the Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Leeds, London, Liverpool, North Wales, Teesside and Tyne and Wear areas. Overview 2012-2 ...

and also broadcast on

Made in Cardiff LOCAL TV Cardiff (formerly known as TalkCardiff, Cardiff TV and Made in Cardiff) is a local television station serving Cardiff and surrounding areas. The station is owned and operated by Local Television Limited and formed part of a group of ...

References

External links

{{Transport in Cardiff Roads in Cardiff Roath