Plans to rebuild Cardiff's Vulcan pub at St Fagans submitted

The Vulcan's distinctive exterior tiles will be re-used

Plans have been submitted to rebuild one of Cardiff's oldest pubs at St Fagans National History Museum.

The Vulcan Hotel, which opened in 1853, was dismantled brick by brick last year, and is in storage.

St Fagans hopes to recreate the building as it would have looked in 1915, and ground works could start this year if permission is granted.

Museum officials are appealing for anyone with old pictures of the pub to get in touch.

Gerallt Nash, senior curator of historic buildings, said: "We don't have many early pictures.

"If anyone remembers going there and can describe it, or have early photographs of the Vulcan, we would like to see them."

Mr Nash said plans were submitted to Cardiff council last week.

He said: "We have decided on the date we're going to represent when we rebuild it, which is 1915.

"It dates back to 1853, but it was substantially altered in 1914 and that's the period that's of greatest interest to us.

"We have got copies of plans prepared in 1914 for the building."

Rebuilding plans include using the original tiles on the outside of the building, bearing the hotel's name.

Original features will also include a set of gents' ceramic urinals dating back to 1914 or further.

Mr Nash said running the pub as a working exhibit was an option.

It was once part of Cardiff's Newtown area and popular with the Irish community. The old suburb was cleared during post-war redevelopment.

The museum hope 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.

The pub was bought by compulsory purchase order five years ago as part of redevelopments and last orders were called for the final time in May 2012.