BALLIE BALLERSON
Brewery Quarter
Thankfully this branch of a London-based chain lasted a mere 12 months before going into administration in 2024. To Cardiff’s credit, there wasn’t enough demand for its myriad delights: sickly, overpriced cocktails; sickly, overpriced processed food; and a sickly, overpriced ‘adult ball pit’ for people who need to have their ‘fun’ organised for them.

THE KINGS CASTLE
Cowbridge Road East
The original Kings Castle was a 14th century Norman manor, built on the site of a Welsh defensive mound by the banks of the Nant Canna after southern Glamorgan had been violently overwhelmed. By the 19th century it was a farmworkers’ tavern with a smithy attached before in 1892 the ancient building was demolished as Canton urbanised and a new Kings Castle was built a little to the east on the other side of newly laid-out Kings Road. Long years as a chirpy, easy-going bolt-hole ensued, the pub becoming an integral constituent of the ‘Canton Mile’ pub crawl which, at its zenith, was a procession of 23 pubs from one end of Cowbridge Road East to the other. Increasingly menaced by gentrification, hyper-individualism and the collapse of society, the Kings Castle struggled, out of synch with the transformation of pubs into ersatz theme-parks for juveniles clutching smart phones as if their life depended on it. Closure came early in 2025 and although there’s talk of a possible rescue the future looks bleak. If it really is all over for the Kings Castle, the Canton Mile will be down to a measly eight pubs: not so much a pub crawl, more a gargle…

THE LIBERTINE
High Street
This ‘cocktail bar’ for conformist kidults deluding themselves that they’re bohemian and sophisticated lasted six years, which makes it a veritable veteran in Cardiff terms. Hardly had the shutters gone up before Italian restaurant Terra Mare moved into the prime location Presumably this was permitted in order to help rectify Cardiff’s urgent shortage of restaurants; after all, at a rough count, there are only 950…More! More!

THE PINEAPPLE
Station Road
The Pineapple opened in 1865, when ironworkers from the nearby Eagle Foundry and boatmen on the Glamorganshire Canal at the rear of the pub were its first customers. It was one of many pubs serving what was then called Llandaff Yard (renamed Llandaff North at the start of the 20th century). Sadly, after 135 years as a classic working-class Cardiff boozer it closed for no good reason in 2024 to join the Collier’s Arms, the Gardener’s Arms, the Red Cow (later the Cow & Snuffers), the Roller’s Arms and the Three Cups on the list of Llandaff North’s departed pubs. Only the Railway and the Royal Exchange now remain. The Pineapple had ticked over comfortably for years but was finally undone by the rapid emergence of an anti-social, atomised population tragically hypnotised by their screens, by the profiteering and monetisation imposed on every aspect of life, and by Cardiff Council’s insane ideology of endless growth that mutilated adjacent Hailey Park with a private housing estate, sewage works and swathes of concrete (erasing the pub’s garden and skittle alley in the process) and allowed an overbearing and hideous branch of Lidl to be built next door, diminishing the Pineapple and tarnishing what had been one of Cardiff’s most pleasant and thriving areas. To rub salt in the wounds, the Pineapple was one of 71 Cardiff pubs earmarked by the Council for ‘local heritage’ protection. Fat good that did – it was all just the usual empty tokenism.

TWENTYSIX
Paper Mill Road
Bar, coffee shop, street food outlet, event space – TwentySix had everything. Well, everything except enough customers to keep it going for more than two years. Chalk it up as yet another failure at the ‘Shipping Container Studios’ in Canton’s ‘Bone Yard’. The thrusting entrepreneurs behind it fail to grasp that their pipe dream of a hot house for ‘artists, makers and creators’ is untenable. Why? Let me break it to them gently: this is Cardiff not Montmartre, you daft buggers.

MISCELLANEOUS
■There was much excitement in 2023 when it was announced that the Westgate, closed in 2016 (see Pubocalypse 6), was soon going to re-open as a pub. New owner Adrian Hibbert talked of live music, karaoke, quiz nights, bingo and a rooftop terrace. 18 months later we’re still waiting.
■ Wetherspoon have put the Ivor Davies on Cowbridge Road East up for sale. I’m caught between two stools: on the one hand, the loss of another Canton Mile pub would be terrible; but on the other, reducing the number of Wetherspoons in Cardiff from eight to seven would be marvellous!
■Brains’ pubs in Cardiff are now down to 29, with a further 10 outsourced to various other operators.
■Finally, some genuinely good news. Having been chucked out of Harlech Court on Bute Terrace in 2023 because property speculators The Draycott Group intend to demolish the building and replace it with a 35-storey tower of 350 ‘build-to-rent’ apartments, the irreplaceable Porter’s bar, plus pub theatre The Other Room, have successfully settled into their new home in Barrack Lane.

Pictures: Jaggery/Creative Commons; CAMRA