William ‘Billy’ Burges was short, fat, eccentric and bad-tempered. He was also a genius who created some of the most extraordinary buildings of the nineteenth century. Immersed in the world of the Middle Ages, he designed churches, castles, bridges, interiors, furniture, textiles, metalwork and jewellery for his few, equally individual clients.

Matthew Williams was for many years curator of one of Burges’s greatest creations, Cardiff Castle. His book Cardiff Castle and the Marquesses of Bute was published in 2019.