The architectural writer Michael Hall considers these buildings to be Burges' best,[8] "amongst the most magnificent the Gothic Revival ever achieved".

[10] The two lowest storeys of the Clock Tower were to provide accommodation for a gardener and gave access directly into the moat.

[b][10] Work on the castle and the building of the Animal Wall was undertaken by Burges' assistant William Frame.

[c][15] The original nine animal figures were sculptured by Thomas Nicholls, Burges' favourite sculptor, and included a hyena, a wolf, two baboons, a seal, a bear, a lioness, a lynx and two lions.

[18] The animals featured in a 1930s cartoon strip, authored by Dorothy Howard Rowlands, which ran in the South Wales Echo.

In the 1970s city council planners planned to demolish the Animal Wall to further widen Castle Street, but the idea was later abandoned.