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Cardiff's 19th Century Vulcan pub to be rebuilt at museum

PA The Vulcan how it used to look before being demolishedPA
The Vulcan's distinctive exterior tiles will feature in the rebuild

One of Cardiff's oldest Victorian pubs is being rebuilt at a museum brick by brick over the next three years.

The Vulcan Hotel was built on Adam Street in 1853 to serve mainly the Irish community and closed in 2012.

National Museum Wales dismantled the pub the same year before moving it to St Fagans National Museum of History, where it is being pieced back together.

Some of the financial support for the £1m project has been given by the Simon Gibson charitable trust.

Bethan Lewis, head of the museum, said: "This is an important part of Cardiff's heritage and gives us the opportunity to tell some of the area's rich history."

Rebuilding plans include using the original exterior tiles bearing the hotel's name. Other original features will also include a set of ceramic urinals dating back to about 1914.

National Museum Wales Workers will spend the next three years piecing the old pub back togetherNational Museum Wales
Workers will spend the next three years piecing the old pub back together

The museum hopes the pub will help tell the story of an expanding and changing Cardiff at the end of the 19th and start of the 20th Centuries.

It was dismantled as part of redevelopments in the area, despite a campaign to save it.

Principal curator Jennifer Protheroe-Jones said the Vulcan would be displayed as it was in 1915.

She added: "At this time, it had just undergone a major refurbishment that saw its distinctive green and brown tiles added to the frontage, as well as a redesign of its interior.

"Our curators have already been out and about conducting oral histories with former customers and landlords of the former Adamsdown pub, recording and filming their experiences and memories."