City Road, Cardiff


City Road is a commercial thoroughfare in the Plasnewydd area of Cardiff, Wales. The B4261 road runs the entire length of City Road roughly in a south easterly direction from the junction of Crwys Road at the northern point, to its meeting point with Newport Road in the south. It had its own television series, broadcast on BBC Wales.

History

City Road was originally known as Plwcca Lane. Plwcca meaning dirty, wet, uncultivated land. Alai meaning an alley. In 1830 Plwcca Lane consisted of Roath Castle and six small cottages in two fields, it led to Plwcca Halog, named after the Gallows Field, which was where public executions were carried out.
Plwcca Lane became Castle Road in 1874, which was named after Roath Castle. it ran north south from Cardiff through the settlement of Plasnewydd. Roath and Plasnewydd were absorbed into Cardiff in 1875. Castle Road was renamed City Road in 1905 to mark Cardiff's new city status, after the Parish of Roath was absorbed into the county borough of Cardiff in 1903, as Cardiff already had another Castle Street. City Road gained the B4261 number classification in the late 1920s.
The northern point, where five roads meet has in later years gained the name "Death Junction", possibly because of its difficulty for pedestrians and motorists, though an alternative explanation is it being the location of the grisly execution of two Roman Catholic priests who were hung, drawn and quartered at this crossing point, during the reign of Charles II.

Description

The road has hosted a number of public houses, a cinema and a college campus.
City Road has gained a reputation for its multicultural mixture of restaurants and food takeaways.

TV series

City Road was the subject of a three-part television series, first broadcast on BBC One Wales in July 2016. The series featured several businesses including a hairdressers, a sex shop and a fitness centre. The series was made in partnership with Made Television and also broadcast on Made in Cardiff.