Prince of Wales Theatre, Cardiff

The theatre was built in 1878 to a Venetian Gothic design by the architects W. D. Blessley and T. Waring,[4] during a period when Cardiff, then a prosperous coal-exporting port, was rapidly expanding.

The building was a prompt replacement of Cardiff's old Theatre Royal in Queen Street (built 1827, which had burnt down in December) doubling the audience capacity to almost 2000, and was opened on 7 October 1878.

Interior decoration was in gold and white and the building was illuminated after dark using 800 gas lamps.

An additional entrance on St Mary Street was added with two large fluted Doric columns flanking a neoclassical statue of a young woman holding a cup.

The proscenium arch is flanked by massive Ionic columns carrying a large triangular pediment with an elaborate Grecian bas-relief frieze above.