Landsea House was constructed in the 1880s as the offices of the Mount Stuart Shipbuilding Graving Docks & Engineering Company Ltd, who had acquired the nearby graving docks (NPRN 34267) and shipbuilding yard (NPRN 300173) in 1882.

The original building was a two-storey red-brick structure with round-headed windows, topped with a shallow cornice and a central pyramidal roof topped with a platform surrounded by cast-iron railings. It has since become a restaurant and later a public house and has been expanded with glass and steel front, rear, and eastern additions topped with V- and W-shaped butterfly roofs. The rear extension has a large roof-top balcony largely covered by a wood and steel W-shaped canopy carried on wooden beams

Refurbishment of the building took place along with modern extensions as the building was repurposed as Harry Ramsden Fish and Chip restaurant in 1995 as part of the Mermaid Quay redevelopmet of the old dockland. Modern extensions were built to the designs of John Lyall Architects; two floors, glass panelled, with canopy and terrace on first floor. The building was acquired by JD Wetherspoon in 2013.


A.N. Coward, RCAHMW, 26.07.2018

Updated by Meilyr Powel, RCAHMW. October 2021.

Sources

'JD Wetherspoon to open new pub in Cardiff', WalesOnline, 3 July 2013
Jonathan Vining and Malcolm Parry, Wales 1901-2000, p.32
Victorian Society Tour Notes, VS01/16; Hutton, An Illustrated History of Cardiff Docks, Vol 2 (2008), p. 136