50 Fun Facts About Cardiff

Spillers, founded in Cardiff in 1894, is recognised as the world's oldest shop selling what?

Records have been sold at Spillers since the age of wax cylinders, when Henry Spiller also sold phonographs and repaired musical instruments.

Which children's author, born in Cardiff in 1916, has a Cardiff Bay plaza named after him?

Roald Dahl spent his early childhood in Cardiff, where at age eight he was caned for hiding a dead mouse in a sweet shop's gobstopper jar.

Which BBC science-fiction series was relaunched in 2005 with its production moved to Cardiff?

Doctor Who returned in 2005 with production moved to BBC Wales, and from 2012 it was filmed at the BBC's Roath Lock studios in Cardiff Bay.

Cardiff grew into the world's largest port for exporting which cargo from the South Wales Valleys?

Coal made Cardiff so central to the trade that the price for the whole British market was set in the city's own exchange.

Which polar explorer's doomed South Pole expedition sailed from Cardiff aboard the Terra Nova in 1910?

Captain Scott reached the South Pole in January 1912, only to find that Amundsen's team had arrived 34 days earlier.

Which bird gives Cardiff City football club its nickname, a nod to the home shirts worn since 1908?

Bluebirds stayed the nickname even when an owner controversially switched the home shirts to red between 2012 and 2015.

What unexpected structure stands in the lake at Cardiff's Roath Park as a memorial to a polar voyage?

A lighthouse was built in the lake in 1915, and inside it sits a scale model of the Terra Nova, the ship that left Cardiff for Antarctica.

Which sport do the Cardiff Devils play in the Elite League at their arena in Cardiff Bay?

Ice hockey came to the city in 1986, when the Devils were formed alongside a new national rink, and they won their first home game 32–0.

Which river flows past Cardiff Castle and through the city centre before emptying into Cardiff Bay?

The Taff once ran closer to the city centre, until Brunel had it diverted westwards to make a safer site for the railway station.

Which animal, added in 1931, sits on Cardiff's Animal Wall alongside a pelican, a beaver and two raccoons?

An anteater was among six stone animals carved for the wall that year, and its nose went missing in the late 1990s until repairs gave it a new one.

What is the Welsh name for Cardiff, which grew out of older words meaning a fort on a river?

Caerdydd is the modern spelling of the medieval Caerdyf, and English speakers turned that older form into Cardiff.

Which creature does Cardiff's official Welsh-language motto promise will lead the way?

The red dragon in the motto is the same beast that fills the national flag of Wales, set against a field of green and white.

Which coastal city to the west ranks second in population in Wales, behind Cardiff?

Swansea was once the bigger of the two, and it was only by the 1881 census that Cardiff had overtaken it to become the largest town in Wales.

Which invaders built the first fort on the site of Cardiff Castle, close to the mouth of the river?

The Romans' ruined walls became the base of the Norman castle's outer perimeter, and original Roman stonework still shows in the southern wall.

What feature of Cardiff's Principality Stadium, opened in 1999, was only the second of its kind in Europe?

A retractable roof lets the stadium be closed up in bad weather, and it is still among the largest venues in the world to have one.

Which trophy did Cardiff City win in 1927, becoming the only club from outside England ever to lift it?

The FA Cup left England for the only time when Cardiff beat Arsenal 1–0 in the final. They won the Welsh Cup that season too, taking two countries' national cups at once.

Which Cardiff-born cyclist became the first Welshman to win the Tour de France in 2018?

Geraint Thomas had already won two Olympic gold medals on the track before he turned his focus to road racing's biggest prize.

Which motorway connects Cardiff with Newport and London to the east, through four junctions around the city?

The M4 reaches South Wales by crossing the River Severn, and since December 2018 drivers have made that crossing without paying a toll.

During the Second World War, what were the tunnels inside the walls of Cardiff Castle used as?

Air-raid shelters in the walls could hold up to 1,800 people in eight sections, and the castle was also used to tether defensive balloons above the city.

Which London stadium's rebuilding sent English football's top cup finals to Cardiff from 2001 to 2006?

Wembley was a building site for those years, so Cardiff staged England's cup finals and play-off finals in its place.

What is the Welsh name of the parliament that meets in a glass-fronted building on Cardiff Bay?

The Senedd sits in a building opened on St David's Day in 2006, where the public can watch debates from a gallery above the chamber.

Which arm of the sea, shared with Somerset and Devon, lies to the south of Cardiff?

The Bristol Channel flooded disastrously in 1607, a surge that changed the course of Cardiff's river and ruined St Mary's parish church.

Which Spanish club beat Juventus 4–1 in the 2017 Champions League final, staged in Cardiff?

Real Madrid became the first team to successfully defend the European title since Milan in 1990.

Which Cardiff-born winger joined a Spanish club in 2013 for what was then a world-record transfer fee?

Gareth Bale ended his first season there by scoring the extra-time goal that put his new club ahead in the 2014 Champions League final.

What nickname was given to Cardiff's old docklands district, where the singer Shirley Bassey was born?

Tiger Bay became one of the UK's oldest multicultural communities, home to people of more than 50 nationalities drawn in by the port.

Which multi-sport event, held in Cardiff in 1958, introduced the baton relay that still precedes it?

The Commonwealth Games of 1958 also saw an anti-apartheid crowd at Cardiff Arms Park protest against South Africa's all-white team.

Which country did England face in 2009 when Cardiff staged the first Test cricket match ever held in Wales?

Australia were denied victory in that opening Ashes Test, as England hung on for a draw with just one wicket to spare.

Which sci-fi drama starring John Barrowman as Captain Jack is set in Cardiff, with a base beneath the Bay?

Torchwood hid its headquarters, the Hub, beneath a waterfront plaza, with a secret lift that rose beside the fountain.

Which Cardiff-born singer shot to fame as a schoolgirl with the 1998 classical album Voice of an Angel?

Charlotte Church became the youngest artist to have a No. 1 album on the British classical crossover charts.

Which Cardiff-born rock and roll singer topped the UK chart with Green Door and Merry Christmas Everyone?

Shakin' Stevens was born Michael Barratt, the youngest of 13 children in a Cardiff family, and went on to four UK number ones.

Cardiff is nicknamed the 'City of' which covered Victorian and Edwardian shopping streets?

Arcades are more densely packed in Cardiff than in any other British city, and the first of them, the Royal Arcade, opened in 1858.

The small church on Cardiff Bay, now an arts centre and café, was built for sailors from which country?

Norway's seamen's mission ran the church, which was clad in iron sheets on the harbourmaster's orders so that it could be moved if necessary.

Which village on the edge of Cardiff is home to an open-air museum of rebuilt historic Welsh buildings?

St Fagans has more than forty re-erected buildings in the grounds of an Elizabethan manor, and was named the UK's favourite visitor attraction in 2011.

Renoir's La Parisienne, in National Museum Cardiff's Davies collection, belongs to which art movement?

Impressionism came to Cardiff through the sisters Gwendoline and Margaret Davies, whose painting hung in the movement's very first exhibition in 1874.

Which aristocratic family built Cardiff's docks and later paid for the Gothic remodelling of Cardiff Castle?

The Butes gambled a fortune on the port, and the newspapers of the day hailed the 2nd Marquess as the creator of modern Cardiff.

What structure, completed across the mouth of Cardiff Bay in 1999, turned mudflats into a freshwater lake?

A barrage was strongly opposed by environmental groups, because the bay's mud had been an important feeding ground for birds.

Castell Coch, a fairy-tale Gothic castle on a hillside north of Cardiff, takes its Welsh name from which colour?

Red is in the name because of the medieval stronghold that first stood on the site, probably after the colour of its sandstone defences.

Which Cardiff-born athlete held the 110 metres hurdles world record for nearly 13 years?

Colin Jackson set that mark of 12.91 seconds in 1993, and his indoor record over 60 metres hurdles lasted even longer, nearly 27 years.

Which Cardiff brewery, founded in 1882, has sponsored the shirts of the Wales rugby union team?

Brains had to vanish from the shirts for matches in France, where alcohol logos are banned on jerseys, so in 2005 the team wore the word Brawn.

Which animal, nicknamed Billy, lived at Cardiff's Victoria Park from 1912 until 1939?

A seal named Billy spent 27 years at the park, living in what is now the paddling pool, where a sculpture by David Petersen recalls the animal.

Which Cardiff-born composer and matinée idol gives his name to Britain's leading songwriting awards?

Ivor Novello had his first big hit with a wartime song in 1914, and the awards took his name in 1955, four years after his death.

Which BBC hospital drama, on air since 1986, moved its production to Cardiff's Roath Lock studios in 2011?

Casualty had kept its hospital set in a warehouse for 24 years before the move, and wrote the old department out of the story with a fire.

Which Welsh rebel leader burned Cardiff and seized its castle in 1404 during a revolt against English rule?

Owain Glyndŵr was later honoured by the town he burned: Lloyd George unveiled a statue of him in Cardiff City Hall during the First World War.

Which Victorian architect turned Cardiff Castle into a Gothic fantasy and also rebuilt nearby Castell Coch?

William Burges worked for a patron reputed to be the richest man in the world, which let him lavish money and attention on the castle's rooms.

From which island off Cardiff did Marconi send the first wireless signals across open sea in 1897?

Flat Holm was the transmitting end of the experiment, which Marconi ran at the age of 22 with help from a Cardiff Post Office engineer, George Kemp.

Which monarch, in the fifth year of his reign, raised Cardiff from a town to a city in 1905?

Edward VII made Cardiff a city fifty years before it was proclaimed the capital of Wales in 1955.

Which Welsh cathedral, hit by a parachute mine in the Cardiff Blitz, holds Epstein's Christ in Majesty?

Llandaff lost the roof of its nave to the blast in 1941, and the rebuilt interior raised Epstein's figure above the nave on a concrete arch.

Cardiff is the county town of which historic county, whose name is carried by a first-class cricket club?

Glamorgan grew out of the early Welsh kingdom of Glywysing, and Cardiff later became the centre of its Norman lordship.

Which 12th-century Welsh lord scaled the walls of Cardiff Castle and kidnapped the earl who held it?

Ifor Bach carried off the earl, his countess and their young son to the woods of Senghenydd, and a Cardiff nightclub now bears his name.

Which Welsh rock, more than a thousand tonnes of it, clads the walls of Cardiff's Wales Millennium Centre?

Slate was chosen along with metal, wood and glass because the designers wanted local materials that reflect different parts of Wales.