Cardiff tower plan for demolished Guildford Crescent venues

[Bobby Dandruff]

Re: Cardiff tower plan for demolished Guildford Crescent venues

I remember CentrePlan 70. I was working for the Council at the time and I remember the huge publicity. The other big thing at the time was the Hook Road which involved improving Cardiff's road links by driving a major trunk road through the City. Hundreds of properties were acquired for demolition or blighted in advance of this proposal before it was abandoned. That was madness.

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/w...drawn-15738028

I remember this so clearly even though I must have only been 6 years old at the time and in particular the CentrePlan 70 ‘shop front’ in Queens Street (as shown in the Wales On Line story)

Can you imagine if it has gone ahead? :-/

[JamesWales]

Re: Cardiff tower plan for demolished Guildford Crescent venues

Developers knock down facade of historic Cardiff buildings in Guildford Crescent without planning permission

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/w...-city-27656387

This is an extraordinary turn of events. The facades have been kept up for several years.

[Bobby Dandruff]

Re: Cardiff tower plan for demolished Guildford Crescent venues

They'd need ten different pools now!

I always thought that that there were three pools as well! I think that I always went in the mixed one.

I learnt to swim there but it always has an ominous feel to it for some reason….

It is hard to believe that they fitted 3 separate pools into what felt like such a confined space.

[North Cardiff Blue]

Re: Cardiff tower plan for demolished Guildford Crescent venues

I always thought that that there were three pools as well! I think that I always went in the mixed one.

I learnt to swim there but it always has an ominous feel to it for some reason….

It is hard to believe that they fitted 3 separate pools into what felt like such a confined space.

Vending machines with OXO crisps

[PontBlue]

Re: Cardiff tower plan for demolished Guildford Crescent venues

The developers probably made them unsafe so they could claim they were unsafe.

I hope someone senior at the developers get's locked up for this

[splott parker]

Re: Cardiff tower plan for demolished Guildford Crescent venues

The developers probably made them unsafe so they could claim they were unsafe.

I hope someone senior at the developers get's locked up for this

That’s exactly what happened, facades akin to stage scenery left open to the elements for a few years. Nature took its course, no need for a fire. The plan worked.

[IanD]

Re: Cardiff tower plan for demolished Guildford Crescent venues

Vending machines with OXO crisps

Vending machine that sold something green and wet. Possibly some sort of chemical soup concoction. Those were the days when you could have a day out for 10p. A swim was 3p and the soup stuff 3p. 2p each way into town and back. Pocket money spent and had to wait a week before doing it all again.

[Bobby Dandruff]

Re: Cardiff tower plan for demolished Guildford Crescent venues

Vending machines with OXO crisps

Yes! In the rubbish entrance.

(Or chips from a chippy off Albany Road on the way home after swimming lessons if we were lucky)

[The Bloop]

Re: Cardiff tower plan for demolished Guildford Crescent venues

Maybe they're the same builders who thought they create a shortcut to their site,by knocking down part of the Great Wall.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-66714547

[Tuerto]

Re: Cardiff tower plan for demolished Guildford Crescent venues

Yes! In the rubbish entrance.

(Or chips from a chippy off Albany Road on the way home after swimming lessons if we were lucky)

The AFB (Albany Fish Bar) been knocking out good food for a long time. Can you remember the Chippie a few doors down from the AFB? Must've closed down late eighties, early nineties.

[Bobby Dandruff]

Re: Cardiff tower plan for demolished Guildford Crescent venues

The AFB (Albany Fish Bar) been knocking out good food for a long time. Can you remember the Chippie a few doors down from the AFB? Must've closed down late eighties, early nineties.

Dennis, the XL on Crwys Road was my Dad’s chippy of choice but the one that we used to go to after swimming when we were young was on a side street off Albany Road (Donald Street or Arabella Street maybe?) and the corner with Moy Roy maybe?

AFB was always decent though.

It WAS a long time ago now…… :-/

My parents also used to take us to The Albany Grill which I loved and was across the road from their stationery shop called Studio Graphic.

[Robin Friday's Ghost]

Re: Cardiff tower plan for demolished Guildford Crescent venues

Incorporating the old facades is not a problem. In King William St in London they did it with a façade half the length of the street, it can look very attractive.
Car parking would be 3 levels down probably, and that is easily achievable now without disturbing adjacent buildings foundations at all. No need for a batter to excavate the ground.

When the campaign to save these buildings, of which there are few examples in the city centre, it was to save the buildings. Once they were demolished leaving just the facades it became a pointless exercise. They're not of great architectural interest in themselves, they were just examples of a type of building which has all but disappeared in the city centre. On that basis I don't think demolishing the facades would be any loss. It was the initial demolition which was the criminal act, albeit maybe not literally.

I've no idea, what King William Street look like but we have examples where architecturally interesting facades have been retained at the Custom House and Altholusso. IMO they look daft but at least those facades are quite attractive. Guildford Crescent will look awful with high rise flats fronted by bog-standard terracing. This whole thing stinks.

[North Cardiff Blue]

Re: Cardiff tower plan for demolished Guildford Crescent venues

The Empire pool was better, straight off the bus annoy the people in the lotus garage by asking to sit in the cars, dive in backwards off top board, swim a width underwater and throw coins to the bottom of the pool in the deep end and try and dive down to pick them up!

[Bobby Dandruff]

Re: Cardiff tower plan for demolished Guildford Crescent venues

The Empire pool was better, straight off the bus annoy the people in the lotus garage by asking to sit in the cars, dive in backwards off top board, swim a width underwater and throw coins to the bottom of the pool in the deep end and try and dive down to pick them up!

Goldblatt and Webb

[Former Labour leader]

Re: Cardiff tower plan for demolished Guildford Crescent venues

Yes, happy memories of teaching daughter to swim at Guildford Cresc. Long time ago mind you.
Empire pool very handy when I worked almost next door. Able to slip in for a quick couple of lengths dinner time.