This public house dates from early in the second half of the nineteenth century. In an appeal for the renewal of the public house in 1900, it was argued that `The house had been in existence since 1864? and, with the exception of the previous manager having been recently charged with permitting drunkenness, `there was a clean sheet?. However, the Packet may have been in operation prior to this as the `Packet Hotel? was described as the site of a serious assault over a matter which had occurred in Whitmore Lane (later Custom House Street, some distance to the north) in the Cardiff Police Intelligence in November 1859.

The building is three stories, the second and third stories of coursed rubble. The first-storey has large windows with insets of blue coloured glass which display names of the brewery (Brains) and public house (Packet Hotel) and `Bar?. The entrance to the bar is a single doorway under an arched light to the right of centre, reached by two steps. To the right of it is a large curved corner window of clear and blue glass to the right of which is another door, reached by five steps. The second storey has three canted oriel windows above which are three third-storey double windows with stone pilaster mullions. The building is topped with a frieze decorated with quatrefoils above which are four evenly-spaced crocketed finials. The pub sign displays a three-mast sailing ship on a blue sea and names the establishment as `THE PACKET'.

(Sources: Welsh Newspapers Online: Cardiff and Merthyr Guardian, 12.11.1859; Western Mail, 22.08.1900)
A.N. Coward, RCAHMW, 31.05.2018