Old Sea Lock Hotel, Harrowby Place, Cardiff

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NPRN91435
Map ReferenceST17SE
Grid ReferenceST1875674424
Unitary (Local) AuthorityCardiff
Old CountyGlamorgan
CommunityButetown
Type Of SiteHOTEL
Period19th Century
Description
The Sea Lock Hotel (later the Old Sea Lock Hotel) was built in 1819 very near the sea lock at the end of the Glamorganshire Canal (Nprn 34425), a situation, an advertisement for the new-built hotel boasted, `at once replete with every advantage for carrying on a most lucrative trade, as every passing vessel coming in and going out of the port of Cardiff must pass, and frequently stay a considerable time close to the door?. Internally, the hotel was comprised of `spacious and well furnished bedrooms, parlour, kitchen, tap-room, bar, cellar, &c.? The building, which faced the lock, was of two storeys with a hipped roof and large chimneys. There was a central arched entrance, two large, shuttered first-storey sash windows, and three second storey sash windows. The name of the hotel was painted on the building under the second storey windows.

Later, the hotel became the home of the lock-keeper. By the late 1990s, the hotel had fallen into a state of marked dereliction and has since been demolished as a part of wider development in the area.

(Sources: `Brawling Sailors in a Battle Royal by the Canal?, Wales Online, 6.7.2012; Welsh Newspapers Online: The Cambrian, 21.08.1819; NMR Site File: Glam/IND/ST17SE)
A.N. Coward, RCAHMW, 31.05.2018