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Cardiff Crown Court

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Cardiff Crown Court
Llys y Goron Caerdydd
Cardiff Crown Court.JPG
The main eastern entrance to the Crown Courts from King Edward VII Avenue
Rear of Cardiff Crown Court.jpg
The rear western side of the Crown Courts from North Road (the A470)
Established1906
LocationWales
Coordinates51°29′05″N 3°10′49″W / 51.48459°N 3.1802°W / 51.48459; -3.1802Coordinates: 51°29′05″N 3°10′49″W / 51.48459°N 3.1802°W / 51.48459; -3.1802
Composition methodCrown Court
Appeals toCourt of Appeal, (Royal Courts of Justice)
WebsiteCardiff Crown Court
Recorder of Cardiff
CurrentlyTracey Lloyd-Clarke
Since2022

Cardiff Crown Court (Welsh: Llys y Goron Caerdydd) is a historic building situated in Cathays Park, Cardiff, Wales. The building is a Grade I listed building. 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.[2] The senior judge at the court is Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke, the Recorder of Cardiff.

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Welsh language

Welsh language

Welsh is a Celtic language of the Brittonic subgroup that is native to the Welsh people. Welsh is spoken natively in Wales, by some in England, and in Y Wladfa. Historically, it has also been known in English as "British", "Cambrian", "Cambric" and "Cymric".

Cathays Park

Cathays Park

Cathays Park 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 includes Edwardian buildings such as the Temple of Peace, City Hall, the National Museum and Gallery of Wales and several buildings belonging to the Cardiff University campus. It also includes Cardiff Crown Court, the administrative headquarters of the Welsh Government, and the more modern Cardiff Central police station. The Pevsner architectural guide to the historic county of Glamorgan judges Cathays Park to be "the finest civic centre in the British Isles". The area falls within the Cathays electoral ward.

Cardiff

Cardiff

Cardiff is the capital and largest city of Wales. Cardiff had a population of 362,310 in 2021, forms a principal area officially known as the City and County of Cardiff, and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingdom. Located in the south-east of Wales and in the Cardiff Capital Region, Cardiff is the county town of the historic county of Glamorgan and in 1974–1996 of South Glamorgan. It belongs to the Eurocities network of the largest European cities. A small town until the early 19th century, its prominence as a port for coal when mining began in the region helped its expansion. In 1905, it was ranked as a city and in 1955 proclaimed capital of Wales. Cardiff Built-up Area covers a larger area outside the county boundary, including the towns of Dinas Powys and Penarth.

Wales

Wales

Wales 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 2021 of 3,107,500 and has a total area of 20,779 km2 (8,023 sq mi). Wales has over 1,680 miles (2,700 km) of coastline and is largely mountainous with its higher peaks in the north and central areas, including Snowdon, its highest summit. The country lies within the north temperate zone and has a changeable, maritime climate. The capital and largest city is Cardiff.

Crown Court

Crown Court

The Crown Court is the court of first instance of England and Wales responsible for hearing all indictable offences, some either way offences and appeals lied to it by the magistrates' courts. It is one of three Senior Courts of England and Wales.

Courtroom

Courtroom

A courtroom is the enclosed space in which courts of law are held in front of a judge. A number of courtrooms, which may also be known as "courts", may be housed in a courthouse. In recent years, courtrooms have been equipped with audiovisual technology to permit everyone present to clearly hear testimony and see exhibits.

Circuit judge (England and Wales)

Circuit judge (England and Wales)

Circuit judges are judges in England and Wales who sit in the Crown Court, the County Court and some specialized sub-divisions of the High Court of Justice, such as the Technology and Construction Court. There are currently over 600 circuit judges throughout England and Wales.

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.[3] The building was opened by the 3rd Marquess of Bute in October 1906.[4] 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.[1]

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District of Cardiff

District of Cardiff

The Cardiff district was one of the two local government districts of South Glamorgan in Wales from 1974 to 1996.

John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute

John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute

John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute, was a Scottish landed aristocrat, industrial magnate, antiquarian, scholar, philanthropist, and architectural patron.

Cathays Park

Cathays Park

Cathays Park 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 includes Edwardian buildings such as the Temple of Peace, City Hall, the National Museum and Gallery of Wales and several buildings belonging to the Cardiff University campus. It also includes Cardiff Crown Court, the administrative headquarters of the Welsh Government, and the more modern Cardiff Central police station. The Pevsner architectural guide to the historic county of Glamorgan judges Cathays Park to be "the finest civic centre in the British Isles". The area falls within the Cathays electoral ward.

City Hall, Cardiff

City Hall, Cardiff

City Hall is a civic building in Cathays Park, Cardiff, Wales, UK. It serves as Cardiff's centre of local government. It was built as part of the Cathays Park civic centre development and opened in October 1906. Built of Portland stone, it is an important early example of the Edwardian Baroque style. It is a Grade I listed building.

Henry Vaughan Lanchester

Henry Vaughan Lanchester

Henry Vaughan Lanchester was a British architect working in London. He served as editor of The Builder, was a co-founder of the Town Planning Institute and a recipient of the Royal Gold Medal.

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.[3] The front of the court boasts a full-scale external order, with unfluted Doric columns carrying a simplified entablature.[3] The columns are arranged in pairs forming a recessed loggia, 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.[3] 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.[3] The steps are flanked by two large bronze lampstands adorned with dragons.[3]

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.[5] 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.[5] 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.[5] 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.[5] 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.[5]

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.[3] Both were added in 1906, and like much of the Baroque were later additions to the submitted winning design.[5] Central to the south side, on the lawn in front, is erected a statue to Judge Gwilym Williams by Welsh artist Goscombe John.[6]

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 pendentives, between which lunette windows light from both the front and back.[3]

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Entablature

Entablature

An entablature is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and are commonly divided into the architrave, the frieze, and the cornice. The Greek and Roman temples are believed to be based on wooden structures, the design transition from wooden to stone structures being called petrification.

Loggia

Loggia

In architecture, a loggia 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 or arches. They can be on principal fronts and/or sides of a building and are not meant for entrance but as an outdoor sitting room. An overhanging loggia may be supported by a baldresca.

Colonnette

Colonnette

A colonnette is a small slender column, usually decorative, which supports a beam or lintel. Colonettes have also been used to refer to a feature of furnishings such as a dressing table and case clock, and even studied by archeologists in Roman ceramics. Architectural colonnettes are typically found in "a group in a parapet, balustrade, or cluster pier". The term columnette has also been used to refer to thin columns. In Khmer art, the colonnette designates in particular the columns which frame the doors of the sanctuaries and which are one of the dating elements of their style. Summits of complexity were attained in the development of the Khmer colonnette, according to Philippe Stern:There a few designs which present, as well as the khmer colonnette, a continuity of evolution, the persistence of a direction, which, though it may weaken at times, is taken up again each time.

Christopher Wren

Christopher Wren

Sir Christopher Wren FRS was one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history, as well as an anatomist, astronomer, geometer, and mathematician-physicist. Known for his work in the English Baroque style, he was accorded responsibility for rebuilding 52 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including what is regarded as his masterpiece, St Paul's Cathedral, on Ludgate Hill, completed in 1710.

Baroque architecture

Baroque architecture

Baroque architecture is a highly decorative and theatrical style which appeared in Italy in the early 17th century and gradually spread across Europe. It was originally introduced by the Catholic Church, particularly by the Jesuits, as a means to combat the Reformation and the Protestant church with a new architecture that inspired surprise and awe. It reached its peak in the High Baroque (1625–1675), when it was used in churches and palaces in Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Bavaria and Austria. In the Late Baroque period (1675–1750), it reached as far as Russia and the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in Latin America. About 1730, an even more elaborately decorative variant called Rococo appeared and flourished in Central Europe.

Charles Garnier (architect)

Charles Garnier (architect)

Jean-Louis Charles Garnier was a French architect, perhaps best known as the architect of the Palais Garnier and the Opéra de Monte-Carlo.

Palais Garnier

Palais Garnier

The Palais Garnier, also known as Opéra Garnier, is a 1,979-seat opera house at the Place de l'Opéra in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, France. It was built for the Paris Opera from 1861 to 1875 at the behest of Emperor Napoleon III. Initially referred to as le nouvel Opéra de Paris, it soon became known as the Palais Garnier, "in acknowledgment of its extraordinary opulence" and the architect Charles Garnier's plans and designs, which are representative of the Napoleon III style. It was the primary theatre of the Paris Opera and its associated Paris Opera Ballet until 1989, when a new opera house, the Opéra Bastille, opened at the Place de la Bastille. The company now uses the Palais Garnier mainly for ballet. The theatre has been a monument historique of France since 1923.

Cant (architecture)

Cant (architecture)

A cant in architecture is an angled (oblique-angled) line or surface that cuts off a corner. Something with a cant is canted.

Paul Raphael Montford

Paul Raphael Montford

Paul Raphael Montford was an English-born sculptor, also active in Australia; winner of the gold medal of the Royal Society of British Sculptors in 1934.

Goscombe John

Goscombe John

Sir William Goscombe John 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 sculpture. He gained national attention with statues of eminent Victorians in London and Cardiff and subsequently, after both the Second Boer War and World War I, created a large number of war memorials. These included the two large group works, The Response 1914 in Newcastle upon Tyne and the Port Sunlight War Memorial which are considered the finest sculptural ensembles on any British monument.

Pendentive

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 points at the bottom and spread at the top to establish the continuous circular or elliptical base needed for a dome. In masonry the pendentives thus receive the weight of the dome, concentrating it at the four corners where it can be received by the piers beneath.

Lunette

Lunette

A lunette is a half-moon shaped architectural space, variously filled with sculpture, painted, glazed, filled with recessed masonry, or void. A lunette may also be segmental, and the arch may be an arc taken from an oval. A lunette window is commonly called a half-moon window, or fanlight when bars separating its panes fan out radially.

Source: "Cardiff Crown Court", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, January 14th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_Crown_Court.

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References
  1. ^ a b c d Cadw. "Law Courts (13736)". National Historic Assets of Wales. Retrieved 9 January 2023.
  2. ^ "Daily Court Status - Cardiff". Ministry of Justice. Retrieved 1 April 2018.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Newman, John (1995). Glamorgan. London: Penguin Group. p. 225. ISBN 0140710566.
  4. ^ "Science and Education". Public Monuments and Sculpture Association. Archived from the original on 1 April 2018. Retrieved 1 April 2018.
  5. ^ a b c d e f Newman, John (1995). Glamorgan. London: Penguin Group. p. 222. ISBN 0140710566.
  6. ^ Newman, John (1995). Glamorgan. London: Penguin Group. p. 229. ISBN 0140710566.
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