Bute Park

To the west of Cardiff Castle flows the River Taff, which is flanked on either side by lovely parklands that extend northwest for 1.5 miles to Llandaff. Bute Park, landscaped in the 1870s by Scots landscape architect Andrew Pettigrew and donated to the city along with the castle in 1947, Sophia Gardens, Pontcanna Fields and Llandaff Fields were all part of the Bute holdings that once extended to Castell Coch.

In Cooper's Field, the part of the park just west of the castle, is a stone circle - not Neolithic but fin de siècle - erected in 1899 when Cardiff hosted the Royal National Eisteddfod. Such so-called gorsedd stones are found all over Wales where eisteddfodau have been held.

Nearby are the foundations of the 13th-century Blackfriars Priory, which was destroyed in 1404 when Owain Glyndŵr attacked Cardiff, and later rebuilt, only to be finally vacated in 1538 when the monasteries were dissolved.