Bute Street, Cardiff Bute Street, Cardiff Bute Street () is a street in Cardiff, Wales. It links Cardiff Bay (previously Tiger Bay) and Butetown with Cardiff city centre. It now has no road number. It runs from the dockside of the Mermaid Quay complex in the south, which is now a pedestrian zone, to the junction of Bute Terrace (A4160) in the north. What is today Bute Street was previously mostly meadow and marshland called Soudrey, the Cardiff south moors. The 2nd Marquess of Bute realised in the 1820s that the Glamorganshire Canal was not sufficient to cope with the demands of the
Cardiff Bay Barrage of Cardiff Bay, exposing extensive mudflats save for two hours either side of high water, was seen as aesthetically unappealing. Edwards credited the solution to this perceived problem to a Welsh Office civil servant, Freddie Watson. Watson proposed building a barrage stretching across the mouth of Cardiff Bay from Cardiff Docks to Penarth, which would impound freshwater from the rivers Ely and Taff to create a large freshwater lake, thus providing permanent high water. By making the area more appealing, investment was to be attracted to the docklands. The barrage was consequently seen as central to the regeneration project. In