Cardiff : Cambrian Buildings

I often forget that it always pays to look up!

I was meandering around the streets of Cardiff one day last week, gathering images for future blogs, and had almost reached Cardiff Bay station to catch the train home, when I felt the need to look skywards – and this is what I saw. 

This was only one of thirteen, each unique, that adorn a building of two names, the Cambrian Buildings which face on to Mount Stuart Square and, around the corner, the Cymric Buildings on West Bute Street. Built between 1907 and 1911 to the design of local architect Henry Budgen, this is a large imposing Grade II-listed structure of four main storeys, with a basement beneath and an attic level above. If you want to read a precise description of the architectural design, you can do so on the British Listed Buildings website, but for me it was all about the sculptural embellishments.

Running along the top of the fourth floor, they are a spectacular mix of the marine, with walruses, dolphin-type creatures, sea monsters and, rather incongruously, what looks like a lion, all underscored with nautical paraphernalia, like anchors, ropes, compasses, and chains. I’ve not uncovered any details of the sculptor, or sculptors, whose superb craftsmanship this is but they were obviously masters of their craft. The Cambrian Buildings have five of these Ionic-style capitals (shown above in order from the left of the building to the right, where it turns the corner into West Bute Street), and the Cymric Buildings have eight (shown below, again in order from left to right).

As well as these lavish sculptures at the top of the three-storey-high pilasters, there is a series of individual sea monsters on each side of the bases of the pilasters, between the windows of the first floor. These are described as dolphins in the official building description, though they’re not like any dolphins I’ve ever seen – perhaps the sculptors had only their imaginations to go on when carving these designs. The ‘dolphin’ closest to the neighbouring building has been rather squeezed into his position, but the others are more elegantly arranged. These are my particular favourites because of the amazing expressions on their faces.

On the ground floor, each of the two facades of these buildings has a central grand entrance, with the buildings’ names above.

And on each side of these entrances are more pilasters, these topped with sculptures of sailing ships and more nautical-themed details.

This area of Cardiff was immediately adjacent to the port, an extremely busy place in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and most of the commercial buildings in this area were built to house the major shipping and mining magnates, and the importing and exporting companies. The Cambrian Buildings were built to house the offices of the Cambrian Coal Combine, the most powerful mining group in south Wales’s Rhondda coal-mining valleys.

Now that I’ve realised what treasures there are amongst the historic buildings in the older parts of Cardiff, I’ll be looking up (and down and around) much more often.