Sorry - but I felt that the Esplanade Hotel required more coverage. Telephone Penarth 18 to make a reservation as this card suggests guests should do. These were placed at reception within hotels of the Edwardian Era to ensure that guests had a reminder of the hotel or to send to friends and family. [029] The lower image is a colourised version.

An excellent book in my collection called ' Ports of the Bristol Channel' [316] was published in 1893 but mentions very little of Penarth except a number of traders such as the business of T. Emlyn-Jones, Furnishing, Manufacturing, and General Ironmonger, Plumber, Gasfitter, Bellhanger, and Hot-water Engineer in Glebe Street and Ludlow Street, Penarth. Also listed is the 'Esplanade Hotel' and I include the listing in full:

Esplanade Hotel, Penarth (near Cardiff). - 'This hotel is charmingly situated , near to the sea, which it faces, and in close proximity to the Windsor Gardens, which, extending for some distance along the cliffs, afford a pleasant resort to the hotel visitors, who have at all times free access. The building was erected in 1887. It possesses a handsomely furnished coffee-room, of noble proportions (one hundred feet in length and forty feet in width), opening upon an ornamental terrace, which commands an extensive view of the Bristol Channel with its ever changing scenes, a well appointed drawing-room and cosy reading-room (also facing the sea and communicating with the coffee-room), a comfortable smoking-room, and a large and commodious billiard room. The last-named room contains a superb table by Burroughes & Watts, furnished with all that firm's latest improvements.

On the upper floors are sitting-rooms and bedrooms fitted up with every regard to comfort and elegance, while the bathrooms, lavatories, and sanitary arrangements are deserving of unqualified praise. Mr. J. L. Kerpen, the lessee, has had a life-long experience , and spares no effort to ensure the comfort of his guests. The menu is all that can be desired for a first-class hotel. Breakfasts, luncheons, dinners, and teas are provided at a fixed tariff, and arrangements can be made for board by the week, including all table d'hôte meals, from £2 10s., with special terms for a longer stay. To the stranger who has never visited this lovely spot, it may be told that it is only four miles distant from Cardiff, and accessible by omnibus from the Great Western and Taff Vale Railway stations every fifteen minutes.

In scenery and climate it is totally different from Cardiff. The winter is bright and mild ; myrtles grow luxuriously in the open, and roses bloom all the year round. The country has quiet a Devonian appearance, and the salubrity of the climate is such that the death rate is second only to that of Malvern. The neighbourhood too, abounds in places of interest and picturesque attractiveness. The patrons of the "Esplanade" include many of the influential families in Cardiff and the Principality, and as a resort for pleasure and for recruiting health it has no equal.' [001] [316]

I think the local death rate didn't regard those souls lost at sea or those who were drowned, maimed and killed at the Penarth Dock. Another observation is that they fail to mention the Cardiff ferry service which ran in the summer months from the beach close by the hotel to the pier head at Cardiff - interesting!