{"id":5694,"date":"2011-12-31T12:02:24","date_gmt":"2011-12-31T12:02:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/?p=5694"},"modified":"2011-12-31T12:06:31","modified_gmt":"2011-12-31T12:06:31","slug":"cardiff-city-centre-at-christmas-2011-funfairs-shopping-and-brains-sa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/cardiff-city-centre-at-christmas-2011-funfairs-shopping-and-brains-sa\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardiff city centre at Christmas 2011 – funfairs, shopping and Brains SA"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

Sadly, there wasn’t a snow-covered festive scene<\/a> to greet me on my return to\u00a0Cardiff\u00a0this\u00a0year, as the weather had turned boringly mild.<\/p>\n

There was still loads going in around the city centre, so here’s a few snaps:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

Cardiff Castle<\/a>, the Grade One listed\u00a0medieval castle and Victorian architecture Gothic revival mansion. The structure started as a Norman keep erected over a Roman fort.<\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

Working Street in the damp December air.<\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

Inside the\u00a0swanky\u00a0St Davids 2 shopping mall.<\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

View of The Hayes, with the new Cardiff Central Library<\/a> and John Lewis buildings in the distance.<\/p>\n

To the right, is the Dr Martens store which once housed the Spillers independent record store.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

The old David Morgan department store, now upmarket apartments.<\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

The famous Hayes Island snack bar<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

Statue of John Batchelor (1820-83) ‘The Friend of Freedom,’ in The Hayes, with a seagull stood on his bonce.<\/p>\n

Created by the sculptor James Milo Griffith and unveiled on 16 October 1886, the statue commemorates the work of the Newport-born, Cardiff based Liberal politician who campaigned against slavery.<\/p>\n

Batchelor’s political activities meant that he was constantly rubbing up the all-powerful Bute family, so much so that a petition of 1,200 names was raised in opposition to the statue after his death in 1883.<\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

St John’s Church, St. John Square. The church dates back to 1180, with the perpendicular tower (boasting a peal of ten bells) being added on the 15th Century.<\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

A quiet St Mary Street. The street can get very lively at night, with the scenes of drunken mayhem famously captured by\u00a0Maciej Dakowicz’s wonderful Cardiff After Dark photo series<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

Now in its 11th year, the ‘Cardiff Winter Wonderland’ takes place in the Civic Centre and offers fairground rides and ice skating.<\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

The fancifully named ‘Boulevard de Nantes’ in the centre of Cardiff.<\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

Inside the\u00a0National Museum at Cardiff. I liked this piece – Scala Napoletana, Joseph Beuys (1985) –\u00a0by\u00a0Joseph Beuys.<\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

\"Cardiff<\/p>\n

My last look at Cardiff before heading back to Llundain, showing the legendary Brains brewery opposite the Central railway station.<\/p>\n

Happily, I had a bag full of Brains SA beers, so I was taking a little bit of\u00a0Wales\u00a0back with me.<\/p>\n

[More Wales photos<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sadly, there wasn’t a snow-covered festive scene to greet me on my return to\u00a0Cardiff\u00a0this\u00a0year, as the weather had turned boringly mild. There was still loads going in around the city … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20,17,193,198],"tags":[1196,1194],"class_list":["post-5694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cardiff","category-photos","category-places","category-wales-places","tag-cardiff","tag-wales"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/cardiff-christmas-2011-25.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQI7P-1tQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5694"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5696,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5694\/revisions\/5696"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}