{"id":16900,"date":"2015-12-30T10:00:37","date_gmt":"2015-12-30T10:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/?p=16900"},"modified":"2015-12-30T10:12:41","modified_gmt":"2015-12-30T10:12:41","slug":"butetown-barrage-and-a-breezy-afternoon-a-winter-trip-to-cardiff-bay-in-photos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/butetown-barrage-and-a-breezy-afternoon-a-winter-trip-to-cardiff-bay-in-photos\/","title":{"rendered":"Butetown, barrage and a breezy afternoon: a winter trip to Cardiff Bay in photos"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Here’s a selection of photos taken around Cardiff Bay over the festive season.<\/p>\n

Despite raining for almost the entire duration of my Christmas visit (welcome home!), the sky thankfully cleared up for my walk down to the\u00a0old Cardiff Docks.<\/p>\n

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The short railway line to Cardiff Bay station is flanked by Bute Street to the west and Lloyd George Avenue to the east.<\/p>\n

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Old telegraph pole by the railway is now covered in ivy.<\/p>\n

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By 1880, Cardiff possessed one of the\u00a0world’s greatest ports, with Barry and Cardiff docks transporting more coal than any other port in the world.<\/p>\n

At the turn of the century, Cardiff’s docks were handling more traffic than New York.<\/p>\n

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The port’s decline started in the 1920s, with the coal exports ending in 1964 and the closure of the\u00a0 East Moors Steelworks in 1978 almost finishing off the once-thriving port.<\/p>\n

Just two docks, the Roath and the Queen Alexandra, are still in use today.<\/p>\n

Read more of the rise and fall of Cardiff Docks here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Scenes around Butetown.<\/p>\n

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Remains of a Christmas drink.<\/p>\n

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The Wales Millennium Centre hosts\u00a0one large theatre and two smaller halls with shops, bars and restaurants.<\/p>\n

The Centre houses the national orchestra and opera, dance, theatre and literature companies, a total of eight arts organisations in residence and is home to the Cardiff Bay Visitor Centre.<\/p>\n

Constructed in two phases,\u00a0spanning November\u00a02004 and\u00a0January 2009, the main theatre, the Donald Gordon Theatre, has 1,897 seats, the BBC Hoddinott Hall 350 and the Weston Studio Theatre 250.<\/p>\n

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The exterior of the building is clad in multi-coloured slate collected from Welsh slate quarries, depicting the different stone layers in sea cliffs.<\/p>\n

The purple slate came from the Penrhyn Quarry, the blue from Cwt y Bugail Quarry, the green from the Nantlle Valley, the grey from Llechwedd quarry, and the black from the Corris Quarry.<\/p>\n

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Architect Jonathan Adams explained his choice of slate for the building:<\/p>\n

I always loved going to Ogmore<\/a> and Southerndown<\/a>. I thought the cliffs there looked like a building anyway. A building capable of withstanding the roughest weather for hundreds of years. The older they get, the better they look. I wondered if it would be possible to make a building which had the same qualities as these magnificent cliffs. To do that I needed a lot of stone.<\/p>\n

Normal stone for buildings has to be specially cut into blocks; it takes a long time to make and costs a fortune. But in north Wales the historic slate industry has left behind whole mountains of waste stone that no-one wants.<\/p>\n

This was stone cut from the mountainside for nearly two hundred years but which wasn\u2019t good enough to make roof slates. Over 90% was thrown away. But it was ideal for making walls like the one I had in mind… [—<\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Roald Dahl Plass<\/a> (formerly the Oval Basin of the docks’ system).<\/p>\n

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Reflections in the 70 feet (21m) high water tower.<\/p>\n

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Built in 1897 as the headquarters for the Bute Dock Company,\u00a0The listed Pierhead Building (Adeilad y Pierhead) is one of the city of Cardiff’s most familiar landmarks.<\/p>\n

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The building is sensational to look at, with its French-Gothic Renaissance theme incorporating\u00a0details such as hexagonal chimneys, carved friezes, gargoyles, and a highly ornamental and distinctive clock tower.<\/p>\n

Its exterior is finished in glazed terracotta blocks supplied at the end of the nineteenth century by JC Edwards & Co of Acrefair near Ruabon in Wrexham \u2013 once described as one of the most successful producers of terracotta in the world. [—<\/a>]<\/p>\n

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Created by the initially-controversial Cardiff Barrage, Cardiff Bay is now widely regarded as one of the most successful regeneration projects in the UK.<\/p>\n

Supplied by two rivers (Taff and Ely), the bay forms a 500-acre (2.0 km2) freshwater lake around the former dockland area south of the city centre.<\/p>\n

The Bay was formerly tidal, with access to the sea limited to a couple of hours each side of high water but now provides 24-hour access through three locks. [—<\/a>]<\/p>\n

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These unusual\u00a0semaphore signals stuck in the middle of Cardiff Bay aren’t a relic from a flooded railway, but were used to control shipping coming into the busy dock system.<\/p>\n

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PERYGL! I’ve always liked that word.<\/p>\n

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Dock detail.<\/p>\n

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Bronze covered exterior to the Millennium Centre.<\/p>\n

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“In These Stones Horizons Sing.”<\/p>\n

More about Cardiff Bay:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00bb \u00a0History of Cardiff Bay\/Cardiff Docks\/Tiger Bay<\/a>
\n\u00bb Photos of the Millennium Centre, Pierhead and Senedd building, 2014<\/a>
\n\u00bb Cardiff Bay \u2013 photos around the old Tiger Bay and Cardiff Docks<\/a>
\n\u00bb\u00a0Cardiff Bay history<\/a>
\n\u00bb\u00a0Cardiff Bay 2004<\/a>
\n\u00bb\u00a0Norwegian Ch.<\/a>
\n\u00bb\u00a0Cardiff Barrage<\/a>
\n\u00bb\u00a0Millennium Centre<\/a>
\n\u00bb\u00a0Senedd\/Assembly<\/a>
\n\u00bb\u00a0Cardiff Bay feature, 2009<\/a>
\n\u00bb More Cardiff Bay photos<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s a selection of photos taken around Cardiff Bay over the festive season. Despite raining for almost the entire duration of my Christmas visit (welcome home!), the sky thankfully cleared … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16904,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20,17,193,198,16],"tags":[1346,1196,425,845,847,416,1194,846],"class_list":["post-16900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cardiff","category-photos","category-places","category-wales-places","category-wales","tag-butetown","tag-cardiff","tag-cardiff-bay","tag-cardiff-docks","tag-senedd","tag-tiger-bay","tag-wales","tag-wales-millennium-centre"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/cardiff-bay-dec-2015-01-1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQI7P-4oA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16900"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16920,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16900\/revisions\/16920"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}