Hotel History

The earliest record of an Angel Inn in Cardiff dates back as far as 1666 and a thriving coaching business was carried on from the Inn in Castle street during the next two centuries, the site of the present day Wales Tourist Board.

 Here on site the present Angel Hotel stood the Cardiff Arms Hotel, which gave its name to the famous Rugby Ground – The Cardiff Arms Park.  This Hotel has been built on the site of a previous hotel known as the ‘Red House’ which was destroyed by fire in 1770 – thus there is a long tradition of Inns and Hostelries having stood at the corner of Castle Street and Westgate Street, giving the Angel a long and much varied lineage.

 In the early 1880’s, the Marquis of Bute gave permission for the Cardiff Arms Hotel to be pulled down and the present Angel Hotel to be built in its place.  A new and much larger hotel was required to cater for the ‘boom’ conditions existing in the City at that time which was to make it the largest coal port in the world.

 In the Summer of 1883, the Angel Hotel opened and weekly newspaper, the Cardiff Times, on July 8th, describes walls hung with olive and gold paper, rich velvet curtains and with the words… “altogether the new hostelry is one which we are sure will prove a comfortable and pleasant abiding place for those who seek the shelter of its roof”.

 The first proprietors were a Mr Bland and Mrs Savours, and from then on until well into the 1930’s, the majority of its management during this period was conducted by ladies.

 During the First World War, the American Navy took over the hotel.  This was followed by a period when the Ministry of Pensions became housed at the hotel, which became renamed the USS Chattanooga.

 In the mid-twenties, Lady Honywood of Honywood Hotels took control and ran the hotel very successfully until she sold the premises to the Watts of Lydney, who stayed here until being taken over by R E Jones.  Rhymney Breweries followed, and later Whitbread’s.

 The office of the Lord Chamberlain was situated at the hotel for 4 days during the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977, whilst the Queen toured Cardiff and South Wales.  In rooms 100 and 101 were the Corps of Gentlemen, Master of the Queen’s Horse, the Duke of Beaufort and the Duke of Northumberland.