About the Gallery
Craft in the Bay is located on the “Flourish” at the south end of Lloyd George Avenue. The Gallery consists of the refurbished “D” Shed, a Grade II listed maritime warehouse together with a modern extension. The gallery is opposite the Wales Millennium Centre and close to the iconic Senedd Welsh Assembly Building.
The building opened to the public in June 2002 and is now used as an exhibition and craft retail area. It is sheer-glazed on two sides to provide views into the exhibition space. The extension was designed as a contrasting element and accommodates demonstration studios, conference space, office and a café with a dramatic pointed roof projecting over an outside seating space. The Makers Guild in Wales was previously based in the Cory’s Buildings in Bute Street from 1998 to May 2002. It was during this time that The Makers Guild in Wales started negotiations and the raising of £1.4 million to move, construct and refurbish the “D” shed. The project took over five years to plan and was funded by a myriad of sponsors both large and small who each made a vital contribution to the project in some way, they include Arts and Heritage Lottery Boards; the European Regional Development Fund; Wales Tourist Board; various Charitable Trusts, including The Wright Trust and Garfield Weston Foundation; and members of the public and of The Makers Guild in Wales.
Originally on the west side of the Bute East Basin, Cardiff Docks, the building was occupied by: Belfast – Greenock – Glasgow Steam Packet Line owned by William Sloan of Glasgow from 1889 until the dock was filled in during the 1960s. Their ships were named after Scottish rivers – the Bauly, the Orchy, etc. The building was used as a transit maritime warehouse holding perishable goods – coffee, tea, sugar, flour, potatoes. It was also served by rail. The “D” shed appeared on the first edition Ordnance Survey map from surveys carried out in the 1880s. The structure is five 20 foot bays long and two 20 foot bays wide.
The “D Shed” is one of the last remaining mid nineteenth century buildings in Cardiff Bay and has a grade II listing. The use of iron frames ceased around 1880 with the introduction of steel rolling processes. Of particular interest are the wholly cast iron cruciform columns and the manner in which the eaves beams have been constructed out of simple available sections, riveted together to provide the strength required. Of particular interest is the roof truss design. The grade II listed structural elements were taken down in 1999 and stored in Cardiff Docks to be re-erected in 2001/02 on the present site on the Flourish in the heart of Cardiff Bay. 
The rebuilding of the tripartite window on the north side of the building is also of interest. A “trade route trail” of bricks on the exterior at the base of the planer glazing on the north and east side that depicts the duty levied by Customs & Excise on goods which were moved through the warehouses of Cardiff Docks in 1882. Unusual additions are a glazed soffit around the “D” shed and a glazed corridor attached to its contemporary extension. On the west of the “D” shed the architects have re-created the original sliding doors by using kiln dried oak panels sourced from a mid Wales forest as part of the external cladding. The roof is clad in a Welsh slate called heather, which was obtained from the Penryn Quarry in Bethesda, North Wales.
The present building incorporating the structural metal elements of the ”D” shed with a contemporary extension was designed by Noel Architects and built by Mowlem South Wales. The building was awarded a RIBA “highly commended” British Archaeological award for industrial archaeology in 2004.
