A room with a view

I read recently that Cardiff was one of only a few major cities not to get its own railway company hotel, when they were in vogue. By chance, we found ourselves last week at the Clayton with a grandstand view over the approach to Cardiff Central station that any railway hotel of the Victorian era would have been proud of.

A Grade II listed building, Cardiff Central station was rebuilt in the 1930s and is now undergoing further refurbishment, as the scaffolding testifies. Flanking the station approach road, now a pedestrianised area, are a series of mosaics by Rob Turner based on railway themes. They occupy four panels of the outside wall of the former Dragon’s Bar. The mosaics were commissioned by Network Rail to highlight Cardiff’s long association with the railways as part of the station’s regeneration programme.