Cathays from Old English haga. An unlikely explanation which is sometimes found is that it is from 'Cad Hayes' – cad, the Welsh word for battle, and the various shades of meaning of the medieval English hague/hay above. The current term shares its orthography, but not its pronunciation nor meaning with 'Cathay', an alternative name for China. By the medieval period farmland outside the old Cardiff Castle, Cathays takes in the northern limit of medieval Cardiff — marked by the crossroads of Fairoak Road and Crwys Road. After John Stuart, 1st Marquess of Bute, married The Hon. Charlotte Hickman-Windsor (daughter of
Cathays Park 1927 part of the East range, with the lecture theatre funded by William Reardon Smith, was complete. Further extensions came only in the 1960s and '90s; these remained faithful to the original design on the exterior (and included sculpture by Dhruva Mistry) but are of a neutral character on the inside. Due to presence of the then Welsh Office building, by the 1990s 'Cathays Park' became a metonym for that Government Department. In addition to the large lawn in front of the City Hall, Cathays Park includes three formal gardens. All of the spaces are within conservation areas and many