When the third Marquess of Bute (1847 - 1900) met the renowned Gothic designer William Burges it marked the start of a lifetime's collaboration with architects and artists, producing work ranging from the High Victorian Gothic exuberance of Cardiff Castle and Castell Coch to the ostentation of Mount Stuart on the Isle of Bute and the sumptuous restoration of the Renaissance Falkland Palace. This fascinating biography tells the story of a rich eccentric, whose learning, insight and kindness produced extraordinary results in architecture and life, a man who combined being amongst the richest men of the age with artistic patronage of an almost incomprehensible scale.

As late as 1980, a quarter of the population of Wales lived within the boundaries of what had once been the lordships of the Bute estate. Powerful landowners for centuries, the Stuarts of Bute were key drivers of the many social, political, and economic changes that transformed south Wales between the eighteenth and twentieth century. This volume explores the Butes and their influence, setting them in context of a long, interwoven history of landed proprietorship, economic development, and the rise of the industrial middle class throughout Britain.

Cardiff Castle is a major Roman, Norman and medieval survival, but what sets it apart is its extraordinary redevelopment during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, culminating in the fairytale Gothic Revival extravagances we see today. In this sumptuous illustrated study of the past 250 years of its history, the castle's curator, Matthew Williams, celebrates this reinvention, which was led by several generations of the wealthy Bute family. Eighteenth-century building and landscape work by the renowned landscape designer 'Capability' Brown and the architect Henry Holland was followed by William Burges' fantastical transformation in the nineteenth century, together creating what is now one of the most iconic and popular buildings in Wales. AUTHOR: Architectural historian Matthew Williams has been the Historian and Curator of Cardiff Castle since 1990. SELLING POINTS: * Explores the extraordinary redevelopment of Cardiff Castle in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which gave rise to the fairytale Gothic Revival extravagances we see today * An expertly personal history, drawing on the family, designers and architects who brought this change about * Celebrates 250 years of history of what is now one of the most iconic and popular buildings in Wales