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100 Facts - Architecural Features

100 Facts

  1. Exterior decorations of Main Building include coats of arms of benefactors and supporters, a ‘figural frieze’ and statues of King George V and Edward VII when Prince of Wales.
  2. Main Building is neoclassical in style, reminiscent of the late 16th and 17th centuries.
  3. Main Building is a Grade II listed building.
  4. Main Building has a usuable area roughly equivalent to four Association Football pitches.
  5. The marble statue in the entrance hall of Main Building is of John Viriamu Jones, the first Principal of the College. It was created by Sir William Goscombe John, one of Wales’ most famous sculptors, and exhibited at the Royal Academy of 1906.
  6. The statue of John Viriamu Jones weighs three tons.
  7. In 1998, in order to improve access to the University, the statue, having been securely shrouded, was suspended on pulleys and moved forward twenty feet from its original position.
  8. If you look up the ceiling in the John Viriamu Jones Gallery, you can see where additional pillars of Portland Limestone were removed in the late 1960s to open up the space.
  9. Sir Aubrey Trotman-Dickenson, Principal from 1988 -1993, personally designed the carpets for the John Viriamu Jones Gallery in Main Building, as well as for the foyer and stairs in Bute Building.
  10. In 1977, in preparation for its renovation and re-opening as the Science Library, the Drapers’ Library was emptied of books for the first time in sixty-five years.
  11. The mezzanine floor in the Science Library was added in 1977.
    12. Stained Glass

    Stained Glass

  12. Before the mezzanine floor was installed in the Library, the front of each alcove on the second floor had a balustrade and the only way to move around the floor was via small (540mm / 21 inches wide) gaps at the back of each alcove.
  13. The message carved prominently in the Portland stone over the main entrance reads ‘Nerth gwlad ei gwybodaeth – A nation's strength is in its learning.’
  14. The transcription for the Ancient Greek engraving visible from the balcony by the Council Chamber and Science Library is Phrontidos telesphoron selas which translates as The flame of thought which brings fulfilment.
  15. Main Building’s staircase is made from Welsh marble.
  16. There are several stained-glass windows in the John Viriamu Jones Gallery. If you look closely at these, you will see that one of them represents the symbol adopted by the new University College: an angel carrying a book.
  17. The coat of arms of Lord Aberdare appears above the entrance to the south wing. Henry Austin Bruce, first Baron Aberdare, was the first President of the University College between 1884 and 1889.
  18. The relief of the coat of arms of University College Cardiff located outside the Council Chamber was placed there in 1994 having been rescued from demolition, restored and repainted. It was originally a feature on a Newport Road building demolished to make way for the construction of the new Engineering and Physics complex.
  19. The dragon on top of Main Building, which revolves in the wind like a weather vane, is one of three dragons overlooking Cathays Park. The others are on top of Bute Building and City Hall.
  20. It is said that, if the dragons on top of the University’s Main Building and Bute Building are ever taken down, a terrible fate will befall the people of Cardiff.