If you've ever been on the lookout for a drink or a bite to eat when strolling around Cardiff Bay, chances are that you've paid a visit to the Waterguard pub.
Offering spectacular views across the water, as well as a wide selection of food and drink, the pub has been a popular choice among visitors to the Bay since it opened in 2001.
But even with its impressive stone walls and battlements, there is more to the Waterguard than meets the eye. You can read more surprising stories behind some of Cardiff's most historic pubs here.
The two-storey Victorian building at the north end of the pub is thought to have been built in Roath Dock in the 1850s, where it would later serve as the local Customs and Excise office. It was from here that the Preventive Men of Customs and Excise would walk out to the docks and search incoming vessels for contraband.
While the docks had developed rapidly after the Bute West Dock in opened in 1839, customs payments still had to be made to the canal-side offices for many decades, to the annoyance of merchants, shipowners and shipbrokers.
But after redevelopment of the docklands area got underway, in 1993, the whole building was placed onto the back of a low-loader lorry and moved about 100 metres to its current location on what is now Harbour Drive.
Eight years later, in 2001, it came to form the frontage of a new pub, The Waterguard, which lends its name to what was previously the sea-based arm of UK revenue enforcement, before the name ceased to exist in 1972 following a reorganisation of HM Customs and Excise.
While the offices would have been cosy, the original building was not big enough for a pub by itself, and so a large extension was built onto its rear. Today, a large, airy room forms the back of the pub, with a huge glass back wall offering views looking out over the docks.
If you visit the pub today, it is still possible to see photos of the Custom House in its original location and on the back of a Pickford's removal lorry, while a drawing by Mary Traynor, released by the Glamorgan Archives, shows the removal underway, with the lorry passing by the Pierhead building in the Bay with flags still flying from the office building.
Taxes on goods imported and exported were originally controlled from a building on what is now St Mary Street in the city centre, the site of which is now being transformed into a huge 248-bed Premier Inn hotel, bar and restaurant.
In the 1890s, Cardiff council petitioned for the Custom House to be relocated to the docks, and it opened in its new location in 1898 - two years after Cardiff overtook New York to top the world rankings for the tonnage of registered ships dispatched overseas, with 6.9 million tonnes.
The Waterguard is one of three Samuel Smith's pubs in Wales - together with Ye Olde Murenger House in Newport and The Sir Gawain and The Green Knight in Connah's Quay - and one of more than 200 across the UK.
In 2019, the chain controversially banned customers from using mobile phones, laptops and tablets inside and outside its pubs, after previously banning music, televisions and swearing.
