Lampeter Town Hall () is a municipal structure in the High Street,

Lampeter Lampeter (; (formal); ''Llambed'' (colloquial)) is a town, community and electoral ward in Ceredigion, Wales, at the confluence of the Afon Dulas with the River Teifi. It is the third largest urban area in Ceredigion, after Aberystwyth and C ...

, Wales. The town hall, which was the meeting place of Lampeter Borough Council, is a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

History

The first town hall in Lampeter, which was commissioned by the

lord of the manor Lord of the manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England and Norman England, referred to the landholder of a historical rural estate. The titles date to the English Feudalism, feudal (specifically English feudal barony, baronial) system. The ...

and partner in Harford Bank of

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...

, Richard Hart Davis, was designed by

Peter Frederick Robinson Peter Frederick Robinson (1776–24 June 1858) was an English architect. Career Robinson began his career in Henry Holland's office and worked under William Porden at the Brighton Pavilion in 1801–02. In 1805 he designed Hans Town Assem ...

and completed in 1818. Davis got into financial difficulty in 1819 and sold his estate, which included the town hall, to his son-in-law,

John Scandrett Harford John Scandrett Harford, FRS (8 October 1785 – 16 April 1866) was a British banker, benefactor and abolitionist. Early life and background Harford was the son of John Scandrett Harford, a prominent banker in Bristol. By the end of the 18th c ...

, of Blaise Castle in 1820. In the late 1870s, after the first town hall became dilapidated, the trustees of a Harford descendent, John Battersby Harford, offered to demolish it and to replace it with a new building. The new building was designed by Robert Jewell Withers in the Queen Anne Revival style, built in grey brick with red brick

quoin Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th-century encyclopedia, ...

s at a cost of £4,000 and was completed in 1881. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with three bays facing onto the High Street; the ground floor was arcaded with the central bay forming a carriageway and the outer openings being glazed to form two shops. On the first floor, there were three large

mullion A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid sup ...

ed windows, each of which were flanked by quoins, and there was a central

wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.05%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4.5%), or 0.25 for low carbon "mild" steel. Wrought iron is manufactured by heating and melting high carbon cast iron in an ...

balcony A balcony (from , "scaffold") is a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade, usually above the ground floor. They are commonly found on multi-level houses, apartme ...

supported by stone

brackets A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. They come in four main pairs of shapes, as given in the box to the right, which also gives their n ...

. At roof level, there was a

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative Moulding (decorative), moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, ar ...

and a central

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, usually dome-like structure on top of a building often crowning a larger roof or dome. Cupolas often serve as a roof lantern to admit light and air or as a lookout. The word derives, via Ital ...

with a clock with an

ogee An ogee ( ) is an object, element, or curve—often seen in architecture and building trades—that has a serpentine- or extended S-shape (Sigmoid curve, sigmoid). Ogees consist of a "double curve", the combination of two semicircle, semicircula ...

-sharped

dome A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...

. The clock was designed and manufactured by Gillett and Bland of

Croydon Croydon is a large town in South London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a Districts of England, local government district of Greater London; it is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater Lond ...

. Internally, the principal room was the main hall. The borough council, which met in the town hall, was reformed under the

Municipal Corporations Act 1883 A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the gov ...

. Following the implementation of the

Local Government Act 1888 The Local Government Act 1888 (51 & 52 Vict. c. 41) was an Act of Parliament (United Kingdom), act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which established county councils and county borough councils in England and Wales. It came into effect ...

, which established county councils in every county, it became necessary to establish a meeting place for the newly formed Cardiganshire County Council; the new county council regularly met in the town hall although offices were established for the county officials at the former town hall in Aberaeron in 1910. The main hall was used once a year for the

quarter sessions The courts of quarter sessions or quarter sessions were local courts that were traditionally held at four set times each year in the Kingdom of England from 1388; they were extended to Wales following the Laws in Wales Act 1535. Scotland establ ...

: it was the venue for the trial of Captain William Killick who was accused and eventually acquitted of the attempted murder of the

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

Dylan Thomas Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer, whose works include the poems " Do not go gentle into that good night" and " And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Un ...

, in March 1945. The building continued to serve as the headquarters of the Lampeter Borough Council for much of the 20th century but ceased to be the local seat of government after Ceredigion District Council was formed in 1974. The

Lord Chancellor's Department The Lord Chancellor's Department was a United Kingdom government department answerable to the Lord Chancellor with jurisdiction over England and Wales. Created in 1885 as the Lord Chancellor's Office with a small staff to assist the Lord Chance ...

announced the closure of the building as a venue for magistrates' court hearings with effect from December 1994. Following a change of ownership and an extensive programme of refurbishment works, which involved conversion of the building into the Jen Jones Welsh Quilt Centre, the building was officially re-opened by the

Prince of Wales Prince of Wales (, ; ) is a title traditionally given to the male heir apparent to the History of the English monarchy, English, and later, the British throne. The title originated with the Welsh rulers of Kingdom of Gwynedd, Gwynedd who, from ...

and

Duchess of Cornwall The Duchess of Cornwall is a title held by the wife of the heir apparent to the British throne. The Duchess of Cornwall is usually also the Princess of Wales, and she uses that title. The current title-holder is Catherine, Princess of Wales, Ca ...

in July 2010. Although the Welsh Quilt Centre closed as a permanent feature in May 2018, the owners announced their intention to host temporary quilt exhibitions in the building.

References

{{Government buildings in Wales Government buildings completed in 1881 City and town halls in Wales Lampeter Grade II listed buildings in Ceredigion