Cathays Park judges Cathays Park to be "the finest civic centre in the British Isles". The area falls within the Cathays electoral ward. Cathays Park was formerly part of Cardiff Castle grounds. The present day character of the area owes much to successive holders of the title the Marquess of Bute, and especially the 3rd Marquess of Bute, an extremely successful and wealthy businessman. They acquired much of the lands in Cathays through investment and by inheritance through a marriage to Charlotte Windsor in 1766. In 1898, the local council bought of land from the 3rd Marquess of Bute to erect a
Splott medieval times, and a derivation of "plat", meaning a grassy area of land. The name of the original farm would seem to be Middle English "splott", from Old English (speck, blot, patch of land) and the word is to be found in other English place names in the Vale of Glamorgan, Gower, and Pembrokeshire, as well as in Somerset and Devon, in the West Country of England, from where it was presumably introduced by English settlers. It has frequently been noted on lists of unusual place names. The population of Splott in the United Kingdom Census 2001 was 12,074, in