Former Ship on Launch pub, Cardiff
Former Ship on Launch pub, Quay Street, Cardiff
This building was a pub named the Ship on Launch in the era when ships would tie up at the nearby quays. Quay Street was so named because it once led to the edge of the harbour, where Westgate Street now runs. Passengers could board ships here to cross the Bristol Channel to Bristol.
In 1871 a cattle driver from Ireland called John Jones was fined for breaking several panes of glass at the Ship on Launch after being refused beer because he was already drunk. In 1880 a Mary Ann O’Brian was fined for stealing two canaries from a cage in the tap room of the Ship on Launch. When a detective called at her house soon afterwards, she killed the birds and threw them out of her window.
The pub was later known as the Model Inn. One local tale has it that Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army camped in the vicinity during the Civil War.
In 1956 the Model Inn was bought by Cardiff-based brewery SA Brain. It was one of five properties in the city acquired together from local wine merchants Greenwood and Brown. One of the others was the Vulcan Hotel in Adamsdown, dismantled in summer 2012 for re-erection as an exhibit at the Welsh National History Museum in St Fagans.
The Model Inn continued as a pub until 2010, when it was closed for conversion to a bar and grill, named Greenwood and Brown after the building’s former owner. It’s now home to the Asador 44 restaurant and wine house.
Postcode: CF10 1EA