The music and laughter have gone from Guildford Crescent. Once home to independent businesses including the beloved music venue Gwdihŵ, the site is now a wasteland of weeds and discarded cans. The occasional poppy pokes up between patches of overgrown grass and toppled safety barriers.
Staring up at the peeling, once-colourful frontage that shields the disused land from passers-by, Cardiff poet Cal Ellis sighed: "It looks like the set of a western film. For almost two years it's just been a sad graveyard reminder of what it was."
For Cal, the demolition of Guildford Crescent — a row of 19th-century buildings which housed Gwdihŵ and two family restaurants — for an incoming 30-storey block of luxury flats is emblematic of a wider malaise choking his home city. "It's not a case of taking this away and offering you something new," said the 26-year-old. "It's just: 'We're taking this away and building something you're not going to have access to.'"
