Bilingual street sign, Bute Street, Cardiff

Bute Street ( cy, Stryd Biwt) is a street in

Cardiff Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of Wales. It forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

. It links

Cardiff Bay Cardiff Bay ( cy, Bae Caerdydd; historically Tiger Bay; colloquially "The Bay") is an area and freshwater lake in Cardiff, Wales. The site of a former tidal bay and estuary, it serves as the river mouth of the River Taff and Ely. The body of wa ...

(previously

Tiger Bay Tiger Bay ( cy, Bae Teigr) was the local name for an area of Cardiff which covered Butetown and Cardiff Docks. Following the building of the Cardiff Barrage, which dams the tidal rivers, Ely and Taff, to create a body of water, it is refe ...

) and Butetown with

Cardiff city centre Cardiff city centre ( cy, Canol Dinas Caerdydd) is the city centre and central business district of Cardiff, Wales. The area is tightly bound by the River Taff to the west, the Civic Centre to the north and railway lines and two railway sta ...

. It now has no road number. It runs from the dockside of the

Mermaid Quay In folklore, a mermaid is an aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including Europe, Asia, and Africa. Mermaids are sometimes ass ...

complex in the south, which is now a

pedestrian zone Pedestrian zones (also known as auto-free zones and car-free zones, as pedestrian precincts in British English, and as pedestrian malls in the United States and Australia) are areas of a city or town reserved for pedestrian-only use and in whi ...

, to the junction of Bute Terrace (A4160) in the north.

History

What is today Bute Street was previously mostly meadow and marshland called Soudrey, the Cardiff south moors. The 2nd Marquess of Bute realised in the 1820s that the

Glamorganshire Canal The Glamorganshire Canal in South Wales, UK, was begun in 1790. It ran along the valley of the River Taff from Merthyr Tydfil to the sea at Cardiff. The final section of canal was closed in 1951. History Construction started in 1790; being wa ...

was not sufficient to cope with the demands of the iron trade and initiated a development plan. This plan included the construction of Bute Street as a main road in and out of the docks area and it was completed in 1830. Bute Street used to be part of the

A470 road The A470 (also named the Cardiff to Glan Conwy Trunk Road) is a trunk road in Wales. It is the country's longest road at and links the capital Cardiff on the south coast to Llandudno on the north coast. While previously one had to navigate t ...

, up until Lloyd George Avenue was opened on 4 October 2000, it is now an unclassified road.

Junctions on Bute Street

Former National Westminster Bank building, Bute Street

*Bute Terrace and Custom House Street * Callaghan Square *North Church Street *Maria Street *Loudon Place *Hodges Row *Hannah Street *West Close *Hemmingway Road *West Bute Street *James Street and Bute Place *Stuart Street

The notable and listed buildings on Bute Street

Mermaid Quay

The GB£25 million

shopping and leisure complex was opened in 1999, it was built on the site of the former

Welsh Industrial and Maritime Museum The Welsh Industrial and Maritime Museum was located in Butetown, Cardiff, Wales, prior to the Cardiff Bay regeneration in the late 1990s. The museum formed part of the National Museums and Galleries of Wales, now known as Amgueddfa Cymru – N ...

, which was opened in 1977 but closed in 1998 to make way for Mermaid Quay.

Cory’s Building (57 Bute Street)

Cory's Building, Bute Street, Cardiff Bay

Cory’s Building is a 5 storey grade II listed building situated at the corner of Bute Place and Bute Street. It was built in 1889 and it was built for Cory Brothers & Co. Ltd. The brothers were

John Cory John Cory (18 March 1828 – 27 January 1910) was a British philanthropist, coal-owner and ship-owner. Cory Way is named after him in the eastern area of Barry Docks, which he was involved with building in the 1880s. Family John Cory was born o ...

(1828–1910) and Richard Cory (1830–1914). The business included ship's chandlery, brokerage and the sale and export of coal. The company also owned several collieries in Wales. The brothers also became the largest private wagon-owners in the United Kingdom, with over 5,000 wagons. In July 2018 it was announced that the building is to be redeveloped into apartments and shops by Skyview Estates, who will receive loans of £6m to fund the work, of which £5m will be provided by the Development Bank of Wales and £1m by the Welsh Government's Town Centre Loans fund.

Cardiff Bay Railway Station

The Cardiff Bay Railway Station is a Grade II* Listed building, and was built for the historic

Taff Vale Railway The Taff Vale Railway (TVR) was a standard gauge railway in South Wales, built by the Taff Vale Railway Company to serve the iron and coal industries around Merthyr Tydfil and to connect them with docks in Cardiff. It was opened in stag ...

(TVR) in 1843 and extended in 1860. It was from near this site that the very first train in South Wales ran in October 1840, when the TVR opened the line to Abercynon. Around 1870, the TVR set up its Bute Road headquarters. The station was central to the coal export trade. In 1920,

Bute Docks Cardiff Docks ( cy, Dociau Caerdydd) is a port in southern Cardiff, Wales. At its peak, the port was one of the largest dock systems in the world with a total quayage of almost . Once the main port for the export of South Wales coal, the Port o ...

, the TVR and the Cardiff Railway were sold to the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 mill ...

, and for a short time made it the busiest and most important rail system in the world.

Church of St. Mary the Virgin and St. Stephen the Martyr

St. Mary the Virgin and St. Stephen the Martyr is a grade II listed building and was built in 1843.

97 Bute Street

Built in 1874 for Cory Bros coal exporters, the building was later converted to a bank and was occupied by

Midland Bank Midland Bank Plc was one of the Big Four banking groups in the United Kingdom for most of the 20th century. It is now part of HSBC. The bank was founded as the Birmingham and Midland Bank in Union Street, Birmingham, England in August 1836. It e ...

and later

HSBC HSBC Holdings plc is a British multinational universal bank and financial services holding company. It is the largest bank in Europe by total assets ahead of BNP Paribas, with US$2.953 trillion as of December 2021. In 2021, HSBC had $10.8 tri ...

. As of 2022, it has been converted into residential apartments.

Other grade II listed buildings

* 4 Dock Chambers, Bute Street * 54 Bute Street, formerly Pascoe House, built in 1875 for

Powell Duffryn Powell may refer to: People * Powell (surname) * Powell (given name) * Powell baronets, several baronetcies * Colonel Powell (disambiguation), several military officers * General Powell (disambiguation), several military leaders * Governor Powel ...

. * 54a Bute Street, Meandros House. * 54b–54c Bute Street. * 55 Bute Street, Seaway House * 56 Bute Street. The former Customs & Immigration office, built in 1889 * 113–116 Bute Street, previously the

National Westminster Bank National Westminster Bank, commonly known as NatWest, is a major retail and commercial bank in the United Kingdom based in London, England. It was established in 1968 by the merger of National Provincial Bank and Westminster Bank. In 2000, it ...

building, built in 1926–27. This is a Grade II* listed building * 117 Bute Street, was previously the Docks Non-Political Club and the Baltimore Hotel. * 122–124 Bute Street, built 1947. * 125 Bute Street, built in 1847 for

who later moved to 54 Bute Street. Now used by the

Royal Bank of Scotland The Royal Bank of Scotland plc (RBS; gd, Banca Rìoghail na h-Alba) is a major retail banking, retail and commercial bank in Scotland. It is one of the retail banking subsidiaries of NatWest Group, together with NatWest (in England and Wales) ...

* 126 Bute Street, Britannic Buildings. * Docks Chambers (Emlyn House) built in 1860.

Notes

External links

*
Plan of Bute Street showing the listed buildings
{{coord, 51.4707, -3.1694, type:landmark_region:GB-CRF, display=title Butetown Streets in Cardiff