Roath Park stands in a beautiful location at the centre of this busy capital city - a stunning sight at day and night. The park still retains the classic Victorian Park atmosphere where local inhabitants and visitors alike can enjoy their leisure time in many different pursuits.

Although sections of the land was sold by the Tredegar, Clark, Morgan and Jackson families much of the land was owned and donated by the Marquess of Bute to the then Cardiff Corporation in 1887 in return for the building of roadways around the park. This was a mutually beneficial arrangement as the people of Cardiff acquired their park and the Marquess was able to develop the surrounding land.

The Butes were a well known family who exported coal and owned large areas of land in South Wales. A tradition of land donation was begun which has made an enormous contribution to public ownership of open space and parkland in the city. Covering in all an area of 52 hectares (130 acres) the lake alone is nearly 12 hectares (30 acres) and was excavated by hand. Land here was originally poor, wet scrubland and was described as a 'malarial bog' at the time of purchase. Construction of the park cost a total of £63,000, which was quite a lot of money for the time!!