History
The Grade One listed building was built in 1897 and designed by English architect, William Frame. It was a replacement for the headquarters of the Bute Dock Company which burnt down in 1892. Frame's mentor was William Burges, with whom Frame worked on the rebuilding of Cardiff Castle and Castell Coch until Burges's death in 1881.
The Bute Dock Company was renamed the Cardiff Railway Company in 1897. A coat of arms on the building's façade bears the company's motto "wrth ddŵr a thân" (by fire and water) encapsulating the elements creating the steam power which transformed Wales.
The Pierhead became the administrative office for the Port of Cardiff in 1947.
The 1897 clock mechanism, by William Potts & Sons of Leeds, was removed, being replaced with an electronic motor, and auctioned off by British Rail and sold to an American collector in 1973. It was returned to Cardiff in 2005 and, in 2011 was restored by Smith of Derby Group and installed as a piece of contemporary art created by artist Marianne Forrest in Cardiff city centre.
Read more about this topic: Pierhead Building
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