Amgueddfa Cymru-Museum Wales, an organisation comprising seven museum sites across the country, has hit upon a novel way to raise funds and keep visitors in good spirits—open a historic pub at its St Fagans site, which will serve alcohol to visitors.
The pub, known as the Vulcan Hotel, is due to open its doors on 11 May after being dismantled and reconstructed brick-by-brick at Wales’s national museum of history, just outside Cardiff.
The Vulcan Hotel was built on Adam Street in Cardiff in 1853 and served the predominantly Irish community of what was then called Newtown. “During its long history it saw major changes as Cardiff grew to become an industrial powerhouse and then the nation’s capital, finally closing its doors for the last time in 2012,” says a museum statement.
In 2012, the owners of The Vulcan, Marcol Asset Management, formally offered the building to Amgueddfa Cymru. In May of that year, curators from Amgueddfa Cymru and its historic Buildings Unit began the process of recording The Vulcan Hotel before starting the dismantling process. Rebuilding work began in 2020 at St Fagans. The Vulcan Hotel will be displayed as it used to look in 1915, however, rather than in 2012.
Jane Richardson, the chief executive of Amgueddfa Cymru-Museum Wales, told The Sunday Times: “At St Fagans, we have done a brick-by-brick reconstruction of the Vulcan, Cardiff’s most famous pub. When it opens in May it will operate as a real pub inside the museum and generate new income for us.” The Vulcan will serve beer brewed by Glamorgan Brewing Co.
The Simon Gibson Charitable Trust, the Swire Charitable Trust and the Radcliffe Trust have all sponsored the pub project.