Guide to Museums in:


Cardiff

Newport

Swansea

WALES

CARDIFF MUSEUMS

National Museum Cardiff is a museum and art gallery in Cardiff, Wales. The museum has collections of archaeology, botany, fine and applied art, geology and zoology. The collection of Old Master paintings in Cardiff includes, among other notable works, The Virgin and Child between Saint Helena and St Francis by Amico Aspertini, The Poulterer's Shop by Frans Snyders and A Calm by Jan van de Cappelle. A collection of landscape paintings in the classical tradition includes works by Claude, Gaspard Dughet and Salvator Rosa. There is a gallery devoted to British patronage of the eighteenth century, in particular that of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn. Included is a portrait of Williams-Wynn in Rome with fellow Tourists by Pompeo Batoni, one of his second wife by Sir Joshua Reynolds and his chamber organ designed by Robert Adam. French art assembled includes. It includes the largest group of paintings by Honoré Daumier in the world and the most important by Jean-François Millet in Britain. Works by Claude Monet include San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk and examples form his Rouen Cathedral and Water Lilies series. Post-impressionism is represented by Van Gogh's late work Rain at Auvers, and by Paul Cézanne's The François Zola Dam, the first painting by the artist to be displayed in a British public collection. The two most famous works in the Davies Sisters' collection are La Parisienne by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, exhibited in the First Impressionist Exhibition, and a version of Rodin's Kiss cast in bronze. The collection of 20th century art includes works by sculptors Jacob Epstein and Eric Gill and painters including Stanley Spencer, the British Impressionist Wynford Dewhurst, L. S. Lowry and Oskar Kokoschka. Works by contemporary artists are on rotational display, including those by Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach and Rachel Whiteread. Entry to the museum is kept free by a grant from the Welsh Assembly Government.

For more information and enquiries please contact National Museum Cardiff, Cathays Park, Cardiff, CF10 3NP, Tel: (029) 2039 7951, E-mail: post@museumwales.ac.uk

The National Museum of Cardiff
Photograph © Philip Hallin

St Fagans National History Museum , commonly referred to as St Fagans after the village it is located in, is an open-air museum in Cardiff chronicling the historical lifestyle, culture and architecture of the Welsh people. Located in the grounds of St Fagans Castle in western Cardiff, the museum is part of Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales, formerly the National Museums and Galleries of Wales. It is also one of the most popular tourist attractions in South Wales, and one of the UK's most popular free tourist attractions. The museum includes over forty buildings which represent the architecture of Wales, including a Celtic village, a nonconformist chapel (in this case, Unitarian), a village schoolhouse, a Toll road tollbooth, a cockpit and even a cowshed. Apart from the Elizabethan manor house of St Fagans castle and the Celtic village and 'House of the Future' (a Millennium project), which were built from scratch, all the buildings have been transported from various locations around Wales and painstakingly reconstructed on this site. It also includes two working Watermills, one flour mill and one wool mill. A post-war prefabricated bungalow has even been erected on the grounds. Though the museum was intended to preserve aspects of Welsh rural life, it now includes several buildings that depict the industrial working life that succeeded it, itself almost extinct in Wales. The museum holds displays of traditional crafts with a working blacksmith's forge, a weaver and a miller. Part of the site includes a small working farm which concentrates on preserving local Welsh native breeds of livestock. Much of the produce from the museum is available for sale. St Fagans National History Museum is located 4 miles west of Cardiff City Centre, just off the A4232.

For more information and enquiries please contact St Fagans National History Museum, Cardiff, CF5 6XB, Tel: (029) 2057 3500, E-mail: post@museumwales.ac.uk

St Fagans National History Museum,
the manor house of St Fagans Castle

The Cardiff Story is a museum in Cardiff, Wales which exhibits the history of the city. The museum will open in Spring 2011 and entrance will be free. The Cardiff Story is situated in the Old Library, at the northern end of The Hayes. The venue has hosted several exhibitions before its inauguration as a museum. The first Cardiff Museum Project exhibition, Moving Stories 1905-2005, opened at the Old Library. During its 6 month run it attracted 16,873 visits. The Cardiff’s War: 1939-1945 exhibition featured at the Old Library in January 2006, attracting 10,390 visits in just 6 weeks. River and Rail, how Isambard Kingdom Brunel shaped Cardiff exhibition opened in October 2006. oots to Cardiff featured at the museum between February and June 2007. Bats, Boots and Balls: the highs and lows of sport in Cardiff, closed in November 2007 with over 14,000 visits. Fury of the Waters: how Cardiff faced the floods exhibition opened on 15 December 2007. The exhibition weighed up the evidence for the Great Flood of 1607 being caused by a tsunami or a storm surge. The Cardiff Story will be opened in two phases. The Sense of Cardiff gallery and City lab are scheduled to open in 2011. The First Floor communities gallery will follow in 2013.

For more information and enquiries please contact Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona Montalegre 5, 08001 Barcelona, Tel: 93 306 41 00, E-mail: info@cccb.org

The Cardiff Story,
the south face of Cardiff's Old Library

Cardiff Castle Museum of the Welsh Soldier is a museum and exhibition centre dedicated to the history of the Royal Welsh and the 1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards. The museum is located in Cardiff Castle in Cardiff city centre. The museum commemorates the services of the infantry in South Wales, as well as the history of the Glamorgan militia and the auxiliary land forces of South Wales. All the items in the museum closely relate to the Welch Regiment and cover regimental archives, displays of infantry weapons, coins and the regiment's medal collection plus exhibits on personalities from regimental history and the social history and traditions of the regiment. The museum also displays items relating to the Royal Regiment of Wales, into which the Welch Regiment was amalgamated.

For more information and enquiries please contact Cardiff Castle Museum of the Welsh Soldier, The Interpretation Centre, Cardiff Castle, Cardiff, CF10 2RB, Tel: 029 20229367, E-mail: curator@cardiffcastlemuseum.org.uk

Doctor Who Exhibition Cardiff

The Doctor Who Exhibition Cardiff is the only permanent exhibition in the UK open 7 days a week. Situated in the Red Dragon Centre, Cardiff Bay, the museum opened December 2005. Currently Cardiff is where all the current series are filmes and produced. There is a wide selection of new props displayed as well as costumes worn by Martha Jones, Captain Jack, Donna Noble and the Doctor. In 2011, an exhibition in London titled Doctor Who Experience, complete with a new interactive Doctor Who episode with the Eleventh Doctor, will open in 2011. It has been anounced that the exhibition will move to Cardiff in 2012 and remain here.

For more information and enquiries please contact Unit 9B, The Red Dragon Centre, Atlantic Wharf Leisure Village, Hemingway Road, Cardiff Bay, CF10 4JY, Tel: 02920 489 257, E-mail: info@doctorwhoexhibitions.com

Pierhead Building

The Pierhead Building stands as one of the city of Cardiff's most familiar landmarks and was built 1897 as the headquarters for the Bute Dock Company. Today it serves as a Welsh history museum. Incorporating a French-Gothic Renaissance theme, the Pierhead boasts details such as hexagonal chimneys, carved friezes, gargoyles, and a highly ornamental and distinctive clock tower. On 1 March 2010, the building reopened to the public as a Welsh history museum and exhibition. Artefacts on display include the original binnacle (the stand housing the ship's compass) from Scott of the Antarctic's ship the Terra Nova, and the Pennal Letter sent by Prince of Wales Owain Glyndwr to Charles VI of France in 1406. Another feature is an audio-visual display of Welsh heroes who have made significant contributions to Wales' cultural and political identity, such as former Prime Minister David Lloyd George, fashion designer Laura Ashley and the late rugby player and broadcaster Ray Gravell. Films and exhibits explore the history of Cardiff Bay from the Neolithic era onwards and show how iron ore and coal exports made Cardiff one of the busiest ports in the world.

For more information and enquiries please contact Pierhead, c/o The National Assembly for Wales, Cardiff Bay, Cardiff, CF99 1NA, Tel: 0845 010 5500, E-mail: info@pierhead.org

Pierhead Building
Photograph © Lilo Lil/Eiona Roberts