Butetown

Butetown (or The Docks, Tre-biwt) is a district and community in the south of the city of Cardiff, the capital of Wales. It was originally a model housing estate built in the early 19th century by the 2nd Marquess of Bute, for whose title the area was named. Commonly known as "Tiger Bay", this area became one of the UK's first multicultural communities with people from over 50 countries settled here by the outbreak of the First World War, working in the docks and allied industries. Some of the largest communities included the Somalis, Yemenis and Greeks, whose influence still lives on today. A Greek Orthodox church still stands at the top of Bute Street. It is known as one of the "five towns of Cardiff", the others being Crockherbtown, Grangetown, Newtown and Temperance Town. The population of the ward and community taken at the 2011 census was 10,125. It is estimated that the Butetown's population increased to 14,094 by 2019. By 1911 the proportion of Cardiff's population that was black or Asian was second in the UK to London though, mainly concentrated to the dock areas such as Tiger Bay. The district was one of the epicentres of the 1919 South Wales race riots, with eyewitnesses reporting six deaths instead of the official accounts of three, and with nearly all arrests made by the Cardiff police targeted towards the local ethnic minority population instead of the white soldiers who had instigated the riots. During World War II, local authorities attempted to ban Black American G.I.s from mixing in the city's pubs, however the Butetown pub workers refused to follow the ban. In the 1960s, most of the original housing was demolished including the historic Loudoun Square, the original heart of Butetown. In its place was a typical 1960s housing estate of low-rise courts and alleys, and two high rise blocks of flats. In the 1980s, the new Atlantic Wharf development was built on the reclaimed West Bute Dock, and has involved the construction of some 1,300 new houses.