A freshwater bay ringed by a red brick Victorian dock building, a glass fronted parliament and the bronze shelled Wales Millennium Centre, whose foyer Doctor Who used as a futuristic hospital.
What Cardiff Bay looks like
is a paved square flanked by the and the , open on one side to the water. A stainless steel water tower stands near its north end, about seventy feet tall, with water running down its curved sides.
The Senedd fronts the square in glass beneath a swooping roof canopy raised on slender white columns, with a plinth of Welsh slate at its base. A rotating steel cowl sits on the roof. Inside, the ceiling is Canadian red cedar, visible through the glass.
Next to it the Wales Millennium Centre's main entrance sits under a bronze toned steel dome, with recycled Welsh slate cladding below. A line of illuminated lettering in English and Welsh runs across the glass front above the doors.
The stands in red brick and terracotta on the waterfront south of the square, a clock tower rising above a stepped gable roofline and pointed dormers. Boats moor at pontoons in the bay in front of it, and farther along the promenade the old s keep a preserved blue portal crane.
Lloyd George Avenue brings traffic in from the north as a wide boulevard lined with glass fronted apartment towers ten to fifteen storeys tall. Closer to the water, Bute Crescent keeps a row of three and four storey Victorian buildings in painted stucco, their ground floors now hotels and bars.
Shot in Cardiff Bay
Doctor Who and Torchwood have both used the buildings around Roald Dahl Plass. The Wales Millennium Centre's foyer became a futuristic hospital and the Senedd's foyer stood in for a London genetics lab, while the water tower at the centre of the square marks the entrance to Torchwood's hidden base.
Doctor Who and Torchwood
Roald Dahl Plass and the buildings around it. Doctor Who used the interiors as a future hospital and a London institute, while Torchwood used the square itself as its team's way in and out of their base.
Doctor Who, New Earth (2006) and The Sound of Drums (2007)
The Wales Millennium Centre
Played a futuristic hospital, New New York, the future
The building became a futuristic hospital in the 2006 episode New Earth. Its entrance doors, foyer, stairs and reception desks were all dressed for the scene. The same glass fronted lobby reappeared as a government backdrop the following year in The Sound of Drums, when the new Prime Minister of the UK is revealed there. Street View
Doctor Who, The Lazarus Experiment (2007)
The Senedd
Played the Lazarus Institute, London, present day
The Senedd's foyer stood in for a London genetics laboratory in The Lazarus Experiment, where the Lazarus monster appears in the hall as the Doctor meets Martha's family. The building's exterior also appeared in the Torchwood episodes Meat in 2008 and Children of Earth's Day Two in 2009. Street View
Torchwood, recurring from 2006 to 2011, and the Doctor Who episode Boom Town (2005)
Roald Dahl Plass and the water tower
Torchwood's team used the water tower and the square around it as the entrance to their hidden base beneath the bay, a location the series returned to across its whole run, from the 2006 opener Everything Changes to Children of Earth in 2009. The same water tower appears two years earlier in the Doctor Who episode Boom Town, when the TARDIS dematerialises from the square. Street View
What Cardiff Bay can double for
Titanic Quarter in Belfast, Northern Ireland
Titanic Belfast's aluminium shard clad museum building gives a similarly dramatic modern shape on a working waterfront, built in 2012 on the site of the old shipyard. Its slipways and open plaza read close to Roald Dahl Plass in a wide shot. The cladding is silver aluminium rather than bronze and the surrounding dock is larger, so a tighter frame on the entrance sells the match better than a wide establishing shot. Try searching modern waterfront museum building now.
The Pierhead Building's red brick and clock tower have a Victorian dockland counterpart in the Royal Albert Dock's brick warehouses and cast iron columns, completed in 1846. Both stand on a working dock with boats moored in front. Liverpool's warehouse blocks run low and long rather than rising into one tower, so a single building frame holds the match better than a wide dock shot. Try searching Victorian brick dock warehouse now.
MediaCityUK in Salford, Greater Manchester
MediaCityUK's modern glass fronted office buildings sit around a series of basins on a redeveloped waterfront, much as the Senedd and the Millennium Centre front Roald Dahl Plass. Both were built from the 2000s onward on former dockland. The glass towers are more uniform and corporate than Cardiff Bay's mix of shapes, so a single building or a tight two shot holds the illusion better than a wide skyline. Try searching modern waterfront office buildings now.
