A Fascinating Yet Brief History of Cardiff

Cardiff, situated on the northern shores of the Severn Estuary, has a rich history with the course of events seeing it evolve from a small Neolithic settlement into the capital of Wales and that ancient nation’s largest city. Archaeological evidence, including several burial sites, indicates that the Cardiff area has been inhabited by humans for around 6,000 years and by the 1st century C.E. it had become an important population centre in the territory of the Silures tribe who once inhabited the southern portion of Wales and were documented by the Roman writer Tacitus in his classic Agricola.
After a period of resistance to Roman rule following the invasion of 43 C.E. the Ancient British settlement had been taken by the Romans by the 70s C.E. and a Roman fort was constructed in its place, strategically positioned by the rivers Taff and Ely in what is believed to be the site of the Medieval castle. After more than 300 years of Roman rule and the withdrawal of Roman troops from Britain in the fifth century the settlement passed into the hands of local rulers after which it lived under perpetual threat from the Pictish, Irish and Saxon raiders that terrorised Britain at this time.

Post-Roman Cardiff, documented in the Annales Cambriae, may have been abandoned at some times due to external threats while at others it might have experienced an influx of refugees from war-torn areas. Although Cardiff resisted Anglo-Saxon expansion for centuries it succumbed to Viking occupation in the ninth century and fell to the Normans in the 11th century. Robert Fitzhamon, Lord of Gloucester, defeated Iestyn ap Gwrgant, ruler of Morgannwg, in the 1080s after which Cardiff joined the Lordship of Glamorgan. It was during this Norman period that Cardiff Castle was built.

During the 18th century Cardiff developed into a modern and prosperous city and became one of the early hotbeds of the Industrial Revolution due, in part, to its rich reserves of natural resources such as coal. The city’s riverine and coastal location made it an ideal position for a port and the construction of a railway connected it with the major towns and cities of Britain. As Cardiff grew in prosperity, at one point being the world’s second largest exporter of coal, the population boomed as working people migrated to the city looking for employment in the city’s many industrial centres.