Historic Sitting Room Opens at Cardiff Castle

15th November 2010

After years of work, Lord Bute’s sitting room at Cardiff Castle has been restored to its former glory and is now open to visitors.

Photographs of the room in 1910 were used to re-instate furniture and fittings, including some pieces which were moved to the Bute family home in Scotland and have now been placed back in their original setting at Cardiff Castle.

Of all the items put back into the sitting room, the most striking feature which could not be displayed were the wall coverings, which were removed by the Bute family in 1947 and subsequently went missing.

Exactly what these wall coverings were remained a mystery for many years but research by the Castle Curator, Matthew Williams, revealed that rare Burges-designed wall hangings decorated the walls. Only a few examples of the originals remained and they are too delicate to display.

Volunteers from Malvern Hills Decorative and Fine Arts Society stepped up to the challenge but it has taken 7 years of painstaking research and needlework to create the wall hangings that can now  be displayed.

The sitting room was used by the 3rd and 4th Marquesses of Bute for reading, writing letters and attending to paperwork. In the 1950s and 1960s it was used as the principal’s office when the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama were based here. Since then it has been closed to visitors until recent restoration work was completed.

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