A guided tour of Cardiff Masonic Hall.
Saturday 26th September 2025 marks a remarkable milestone in the life of the Cardiff Masonic Hall. On this day in 1895, some 130 years ago, the ‘New’ Masonic temple on what was Guildford Crescent in that day, opened its doors for the first time. This was the culmination of a vast amount of fundraising and hard work by the 3 founding lodges in the new building, Bute Lodge, Tennant Lodge and Glamorgan Lodge. The initial cost of £4,500 for the building equates to raising more than half a million pounds in today’s terms. A staggering achievement by those 3 lodges.

The site was a former Methodist church who had occupied the building for the previous 30 years but who had outgrown the site and were funding a much larger church on the junction of Four Elms Road.
With a further 30 guineas of funding sourced to deal with the internal renovation costs required, (Now approx. £3,500) with no kitchens, bars or even an organ in the Temple, work continued apace over the following years to bring the building to the point that we know and love today.

Over the 130 years that have passed, the Hall and the Lodges that are homed within its walls have faced many challenging times, with Brethren leaving the beauty of the South Wales area to do their duty in the Boar War as well as both the First and Second World wars. But despite these trials and many many years more, the Hall has continued to grow in its membership and its influence in supporting the local community in which it was founded.