Cardiff Arms Park (), also known as The Arms Park, situated in the centre of Cardiff, Wales, is primarily known as a rugby union stadium, but it also has a bowling green.

On 8 May 2012, it was announced that Cardiff Blues would be returning to the Arms Park on a permanent basis.

The Cardiff Arms Park site was originally called the Great Park, a swampy meadow behind the Cardiff Arms Hotel.

The hotel was built by Sir Thomas Morgan, during the reign of Charles I. Cardiff Arms Park was named after this hotel.

From 1803, the Cardiff Arms Hotel and the Park had become the property of the Bute family.

The Arms Park soon became a popular place for sporting events, and by 1848, Cardiff Cricket Club was using the site for its cricket matches.

However by 1878, Cardiff Arms Hotel had been demolished.

At that time Cardiff Arms Park had a cricket ground to the north and a rugby union ground to the south.

In 1922 John Crichton-Stuart, 4th Marquess of Bute, had sold the entire site and it was bought by the Cardiff Arms Park Company Limited for GB £ 30, 000, it was then leased to the Cardiff Athletic Club ( cricket and rugby sections ) for 99 years at a cost of £ 200 per annum.

< center > The 1934 new North Stand, rugby ground, Cardiff Arms Park </ center >

By 7 October 1966, the first floodlit game was held at Cardiff Arms Park, a game in which Cardiff RFC beat the Barbarians by 12 points to 8.

This would become the fourth redevelopment of the Cardiff Arms Park site.

Although the Millennium Stadium is on roughly two thirds of the National Stadium, Cardiff Arms Park site, it is currently no longer using the Arms Park name.

The official website confuses the issue as well, one part states that " The Millennium Stadium is located on Westgate Street in Cardiff ; next to the Cardiff Arms Park ".

whereas another section specifically refers to the stadium as " The Millennium Stadium, on the Cardiff Arms Park "

Venues used since 1990 include Manchester City's now demolished Maine Road stadium, Manchester United's Old Trafford Stadium, Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough stadium, Arsenal's former home, Highbury ( since redeveloped as housing ), London's Wembley Stadium, the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff and Aston Villa's Villa Park in Birmingham.

Aberdare is south-west of Merthyr Tydfil, north-west of Cardiff and east-north-east of Swansea.

* 1955 – Cardiff is proclaimed the capital city of Wales, United Kingdom.

Regarding the inscription reading, John Hines of Cardiff University comments that there is " quite an essay to be written over the uncertainties of translation and identification here ; what are clear, and very important, are the names of two of the Norse gods on the side, Odin and Heimdallr, while Þjalfi ( masculine, not the feminine in-a ) is the recorded name of a servant of the god Thor.

Alternatively, Portsmouth and Southsea is another railway station, used for connections to Bristol ( Temple Meads ) and Cardiff.

The site is owned by Cardiff Athletic Club and has been host to many sports, apart from rugby union and cricket ; they include athletics, association football, greyhound racing, tennis, British baseball and boxing.

The site also has a bowling green to the north of the rugby ground, which is used by Cardiff Athletic Bowls Club, which is the bowls section of the Cardiff Athletic Club.

The Cardiff Athletic Clubhouse is situated in the corner of the ground between the South Stand and the Westgate Street end.

There is doubt about the future of the Arms Park after 2010 following the move of the Cardiff Blues to the Cardiff City Stadium.

But the Arms Park site is a prime piece of real estate in the centre of Cardiff, which means that it may be difficult to sell the land to property developers.

The bowls club is a section of the Cardiff Athletic Club and shares many of the facilities of the Cardiff Arms Park athletics centre.

On the other hand, the largely self-contained Merseyrail system is part of the National Rail network, and urban rail networks around Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow and West Yorkshire consist entirely of National Rail services.

Reading's best performance in the FA Cup came in 1926 – 27 when they lost to eventual winners Cardiff City at Wolverhampton in the semi-final.

This is still the best ever performance by a non-first division club in a major UEFA competition ( together with Cardiff City ).

Cardiff University continues the tradition of all three of its former institutions in providing high quality research-based education in Wales, as shown in its five year standing as the best centre of excellence in Wales in the Sunday Times League Tables.

The Barbarian Final Challenge match with the All Blacks at Cardiff Arms Park on 27 January 1973 is celebrated as one of the best games of rugby union ever played.

The Cardiff venue has won the Chortle Award for best venue ( Wales and West ) eight times since the awards began in 2002.

Some of the best examples are in the National Museum Cardiff and in Tate Britain, London.

The sea has, traditionally, been for Cardiff the means by which the Welsh export their best to the world and the route by which the world comes to Cardiff.

They also lost 74 – 18 Wales in Cardiff, but in the process scored a spectacular length-of-the-field try through Kosuke Endo that many regarded as the best in the tournament.

The Cardiff Civic Centre is probably the oldest and best preserved civic centre in the UK.

The area of Cathays is probably best known today by locals for the disproportionately high number of students living in the locality, given its proximity to most of Cardiff University's teaching sites and University Hospital of Wales.

Following overland tests at Salisbury Plain during March 1897, on 13 May 1897, the Italian born and recently British based inventor, best known for his development of a radiotelegraph system, Guglielmo Marconi, assisted by George Kemp ( who was a Cardiff based Post Office engineer ) transmitted and received the first wireless signals over open sea between Lavernock Point and Flat Holm island.

The band was named after The Amen Corner, a weekly disc spin at the Victoria Ballroom ( later to become The Scene Club ) in Cardiff, Wales, where every Sunday night Dr. Rock would play the best soul music from the United States.

The battalion re-enacted the defence of Rorke's Drift as part of the centenary events at the Cardiff Castle Tattoo in 1979, probably the best known event in their history.

The school currently has the best exam results in the Greater Cardiff area.

In 2011, At GCSE, the percentage of pupils gaining at least five grades A *- C is 96 %-the best in Cardiff.

Pete Fowler ( born 1969 in Cardiff ) is a Welsh artist best known for his artwork for the Welsh band Super Furry Animals and his Monsterism toys and goods.

He was reckoned to be the best player on the pitch at The 2002 Play Off Final at The Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.

He is best known for working in Debenhams as a storeman in Cardiff, then with just two days notice, he accepted the fight against John Davison in 1993 for the vacant WBO Featherweight title and won the contest on a points decision.

Though regular performers into the early 1980s on Crewe – Cardiff passenger trains, they are best known in that respect for their use on the summer Saturday trains to Aberystwyth, a task they relinquished in 1984.

Ordinarily, Glamorgan would have ended Mercer's contract, but the erratic availability of their best bowlers meant he stayed with them for another two years, during which he produced his famous hitting spree against Worcestershire at Cardiff when Glamorgan were faced with certain defeat ( the weather saved them ).