A Pevsner perambulation The new Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion volume in the famous Pevsner series is something to celebrate. Julian Orbach, one of the authors, does that by following The Oxbridge-inspired quadrangle at the University a walk through one of the two of Wales, Lampeter counties’ smaller towns … H E R I TAG E I N WA L E S • S P R I N G 2 0 0 7 A P E V S N E R P E R A M B U L AT I O N 11
ne of the special features building boom, but the town took Oof the Pevsner until the next century to fill two architectural guides is the of its three main streets, College treatment of towns, with Street and Bridge Street. churches, chapels and public High Street was the site of the buildings to the fore, followed by town’s celebrated horse fair and a quaintly named ‘perambulation’ the Common (Y Cwmins) the that further explores the site of the market, a reminder that Spout from the Harford Fountain architecture and townscape. A agriculture was the life-blood of
closer look at Lampeter illustrates Lampeter, which was associated A482 g STRYD Y FELIN how these guided walks can turn with three landed estates. MILL STREET HEOL Y GOGLEDD up new information for local A substantial house stood at NORTH ROAD Llanbedr Pont Steffan people and visitors alike ... the heart of each of those Lampeter 2 Lampeter grew up at a estates, but only the youngest, 16 T E E R HEOL YR ORSAF crossing of ancient routes. The old Falcondale, still survives. Once the T STRYD YR EGLWYS S STATION TERRACE CHURCH STREET E G
E
road along the northern bank of Harford House, it is now an 15 L BRYN ROAD L
14 YN O C PONTFAE HEOL Y BR L N HEO RO 1 the Teifi met the road up from elegant Victorian hotel. The ruins AD
G E L A O 13 f Carmarthen, after it had crossed of the second house, Peterwell, 3 C o Pontfaen S T n 10 Y R 12 Y D D D 9 Y F u the bridge (pont) enshrined in the can be seen just east of the town. AW R R T l
a
HIGH STRE S 4 E s 11 8 T town’s Welsh name — Llanbedr This extraordinary house with 7 Na S T Pont Steffan. The Steffan corner towers was built for Sir n R t Cr Y D
Y (Stephen) also immortalized Herbert Lloyd after 1755 and euddyn B 5 O N T there was probably a Norman abandoned after the suicide in Y CWMINS
6 B THE COMMON R I lord, very likely the one who 1769 of its violent owner. He had D G E
S STRYD NEWYDD T Pont raised the castle mound that still terrorized the county from his 0 Metrau 200 Metres R NEW STREET E E T Brongest survives in the grounds of the position as JP, MP and baronet. 0 Llathau 200 Yards university. Harford Square marks The third house, Maesyfelin, the intersection of the two routes had been home to earlier The Town Hall of 1880 — an early example of Queen Anne revival The Roman Catholic church, which the donations of Irish schoolchildren The Lampeter ‘perambulation’ and it bears the name of the generations of the Lloyds. architecture in Wales helped to build Bristol banking family who Peterwell was built from its stones contributed so much to the town, and only a few garden walls remembered in folk tales that are rural stronghold of this sect, University Library at Cambridge, town and gave it its water- pretty timber cupola. It was partner of Sir George Gilbert bringing the university here in remain behind Station Road. The still repeated today. normally associated with the is based on Oxbridge examples. supply, commemorated on the another Harford gift of 1880–01, Scott, the most eminent of 1819, at first as a college for the earlier Lloyds were equally Sited at a meeting of roads urban Enlightenment. Visit the dining-hall, still as square by the grey stone by the London architect R. J. Victorian architects. training of Anglican clergy. notorious and were cursed by the Lampeter became a focal point The university is a thread in Cockerell designed it, and be Harford Fountain (4) of 1862. Withers who designed the Facing the school at the top of The railway came through in saintly Vicar Prichard of for Nonconformists and has the story of education in the surprised by the chapel. The Beyond the square, up Gothic Guildhall at Cardigan. But a green slope is the pretty 1866–67, part of the unachieved Llandovery in the early chapels of the four main town. Lampeter was attractive as Oxford architect, T. G. Jackson narrow Drovers Road, is the this is an early example of the whitewashed group of the project of David Davies of seventeenth century: ‘May God denominations and also, on the a site for the new college because remodelled it in 1878–79. He Common — Y Cwmins (5) — Queen Anne revival, perhaps the Roman Catholic church (14) and Llandinam to link Manchester to with heavy curses chase / All outskirts, a Unitarian chapel — a it already had a renowned dropped the floor into the cellar now a car park but once home first public building in the style in its presbytery. Designed in 1940 the Atlantic through Milford Maesyfelin’s villain race’. The reminder that this upper Teifi grammar school. The new to increase the height and fitted to the open market. Rearing Wales. Try not to see the plastic by Thomas Scott, it is a delightful Haven. This promoted a little cruelty of the family is valley was part of a remarkable primary school just being built, the it with dark green, red and gold over the little terraced houses windows. example of achieving much with
© University of Wales, Lampeter secondary school being Gothic pews, startling in an age like a church in Italy is the Further up High Street, is a little, with a flash of colour from modernized and the new grown used to pitch pine and Independents’ Capel Soar (6), of three-house stone terrace of the the Italian Della Robbia-style buildings of the university show dark stain. Just behind the 1874, the Renaissance design by 1830s (10), while an alley ceramic over the door. Go inside that the story continues. quadrangle is the grassy mound, an architect as yet unknown. opposite leads to the disused or motte, of the Norman fort. Another narrow passage Tabernacle Chapel (11), of 1806, The walk around At the northern end of the leads back to High Street, one of the oldest chapel Lampeter campus is the town’s war formerly site of the Ffair Dalis, buildings in the two counties and memorial with its bronze soldier the horse fair. Old photographs a reminder of the small It is at the university (1) that the (2), a work by Wales’s finest early show the street full of horses, beginnings of Nonconformity. It new Pevsner’s ‘perambulation’ twentieth-century sculptor, Sir sellers, buyers and bystanders. was abandoned in 1874 for the starts. This is the third oldest William Goscombe John. From Going left and southwards much grander Capel Seilo (12) university in England and Wales, here, College Street, one of the along the long, broad curve of further on, a minor work by the after Oxford and Cambridge three main thoroughfares, leads High Street, pick out on the left prolific chapel architect, Richard and just pre-dating London, in back to the T-shaped meeting of the late Georgian Lloyd’s Bank (7) Owens of Liverpool. the smallest university town in roads in Harford Square, passing and the Black Lion (8), the hotel Almost opposite, the Gothic England and Wales. the elegant Post Office building of for the carriage trade, a particularly National School of 1850 (13) is The quadrangle of 1819–22 1933 (3) on the right. nice design of about 1835. a careful essay in neo-medieval by C. R. Cockerell, who went on The Harfords, bankers of But it is the Town Hall (9) on asymmetric design. Early for this The sumptuous decoration of the university’s chapel after its remodelling by T. G. Jackson in 1878–79 (left): to design the Ashmolean Blaise Castle, Bristol, were the right that sails over the town, part of Wales, it was designed by The Black Lion — ‘a particularly Sir William Goscombe John’s war memorial (middle); the 1830s terrace on High Street (right) Museum at Oxford and benevolent landlords of the its great hipped roof topped by a by W. B. Moffatt, the former nice design of about 1835’ H E R I TAG E I N WA L E S • S P R I N G 2 0 0 7 A P E V S N E R P E R A M B U L AT I O N 11 ne of the special features building boom, but the town took Oof the Pevsner until the next century to fill two architectural guides is the of its three main streets, College treatment of towns, with Street and Bridge Street. churches, chapels and public High Street was the site of the buildings to the fore, followed by town’s celebrated horse fair and a quaintly named ‘perambulation’ the Common (Y Cwmins) the that further explores the site of the market, a reminder that Spout from the Harford Fountain architecture and townscape. A agriculture was the life-blood of closer look at Lampeter illustrates Lampeter, which was associated A482 g STRYD Y FELIN how these guided walks can turn with three landed estates. MILL STREET HEOL Y GOGLEDD up new information for local A substantial house stood at NORTH ROAD Llanbedr Pont Steffan people and visitors alike ... the heart of each of those Lampeter 2 Lampeter grew up at a estates, but only the youngest, 16 T E E R HEOL YR ORSAF crossing of ancient routes. The old Falcondale, still survives. Once the T STRYD YR EGLWYS S STATION TERRACE CHURCH STREET E G
E road along the northern bank of Harford House, it is now an 15 L BRYN ROAD L
14 YN O C PONTFAE HEOL Y BR L N HEO RO 1 the Teifi met the road up from elegant Victorian hotel. The ruins AD
G E L A O 13 f Carmarthen, after it had crossed of the second house, Peterwell, 3 C o Pontfaen S T n 10 Y R 12 Y D D D 9 Y F u the bridge (pont) enshrined in the can be seen just east of the town. AW R R T l
a
HIGH STRE S 4 E s 11 8 T town’s Welsh name — Llanbedr This extraordinary house with 7 Na S T Pont Steffan. The Steffan corner towers was built for Sir n R t Cr Y D
Y (Stephen) also immortalized Herbert Lloyd after 1755 and euddyn B 5 O N T there was probably a Norman abandoned after the suicide in Y CWMINS
6 B THE COMMON R I lord, very likely the one who 1769 of its violent owner. He had D G E
S STRYD NEWYDD T Pont raised the castle mound that still terrorized the county from his 0 Metrau 200 Metres R NEW STREET E E T Brongest survives in the grounds of the position as JP, MP and baronet. 0 Llathau 200 Yards university. Harford Square marks The third house, Maesyfelin, the intersection of the two routes had been home to earlier The Town Hall of 1880 — an early example of Queen Anne revival The Roman Catholic church, which the donations of Irish schoolchildren The Lampeter ‘perambulation’ and it bears the name of the generations of the Lloyds. architecture in Wales helped to build Bristol banking family who Peterwell was built from its stones contributed so much to the town, and only a few garden walls remembered in folk tales that are rural stronghold of this sect, University Library at Cambridge, town and gave it its water- pretty timber cupola. It was partner of Sir George Gilbert bringing the university here in remain behind Station Road. The still repeated today. normally associated with the is based on Oxbridge examples. supply, commemorated on the another Harford gift of 1880–01, Scott, the most eminent of 1819, at first as a college for the earlier Lloyds were equally Sited at a meeting of roads urban Enlightenment. Visit the dining-hall, still as square by the grey stone by the London architect R. J. Victorian architects. training of Anglican clergy. notorious and were cursed by the Lampeter became a focal point The university is a thread in Cockerell designed it, and be Harford Fountain (4) of 1862. Withers who designed the Facing the school at the top of The railway came through in saintly Vicar Prichard of for Nonconformists and has the story of education in the surprised by the chapel. The Beyond the square, up Gothic Guildhall at Cardigan. But a green slope is the pretty 1866–67, part of the unachieved Llandovery in the early chapels of the four main town. Lampeter was attractive as Oxford architect, T. G. Jackson narrow Drovers Road, is the this is an early example of the whitewashed group of the project of David Davies of seventeenth century: ‘May God denominations and also, on the a site for the new college because remodelled it in 1878–79. He Common — Y Cwmins (5) — Queen Anne revival, perhaps the Roman Catholic church (14) and Llandinam to link Manchester to with heavy curses chase / All outskirts, a Unitarian chapel — a it already had a renowned dropped the floor into the cellar now a car park but once home first public building in the style in its presbytery. Designed in 1940 the Atlantic through Milford Maesyfelin’s villain race’. The reminder that this upper Teifi grammar school. The new to increase the height and fitted to the open market. Rearing Wales. Try not to see the plastic by Thomas Scott, it is a delightful Haven. This promoted a little cruelty of the family is valley was part of a remarkable primary school just being built, the it with dark green, red and gold over the little terraced houses windows. example of achieving much with
© University of Wales, Lampeter secondary school being Gothic pews, startling in an age like a church in Italy is the Further up High Street, is a little, with a flash of colour from modernized and the new grown used to pitch pine and Independents’ Capel Soar (6), of three-house stone terrace of the the Italian Della Robbia-style buildings of the university show dark stain. Just behind the 1874, the Renaissance design by 1830s (10), while an alley ceramic over the door. Go inside that the story continues. quadrangle is the grassy mound, an architect as yet unknown. opposite leads to the disused or motte, of the Norman fort. Another narrow passage Tabernacle Chapel (11), of 1806, The walk around At the northern end of the leads back to High Street, one of the oldest chapel Lampeter campus is the town’s war formerly site of the Ffair Dalis, buildings in the two counties and memorial with its bronze soldier the horse fair. Old photographs a reminder of the small It is at the university (1) that the (2), a work by Wales’s finest early show the street full of horses, beginnings of Nonconformity. It new Pevsner’s ‘perambulation’ twentieth-century sculptor, Sir sellers, buyers and bystanders. was abandoned in 1874 for the starts. This is the third oldest William Goscombe John. From Going left and southwards much grander Capel Seilo (12) university in England and Wales, here, College Street, one of the along the long, broad curve of further on, a minor work by the after Oxford and Cambridge three main thoroughfares, leads High Street, pick out on the left prolific chapel architect, Richard and just pre-dating London, in back to the T-shaped meeting of the late Georgian Lloyd’s Bank (7) Owens of Liverpool. the smallest university town in roads in Harford Square, passing and the Black Lion (8), the hotel Almost opposite, the Gothic England and Wales. the elegant Post Office building of for the carriage trade, a particularly National School of 1850 (13) is The quadrangle of 1819–22 1933 (3) on the right. nice design of about 1835. a careful essay in neo-medieval by C. R. Cockerell, who went on The Harfords, bankers of But it is the Town Hall (9) on asymmetric design. Early for this The sumptuous decoration of the university’s chapel after its remodelling by T. G. Jackson in 1878–79 (left): to design the Ashmolean Blaise Castle, Bristol, were the right that sails over the town, part of Wales, it was designed by The Black Lion — ‘a particularly Sir William Goscombe John’s war memorial (middle); the 1830s terrace on High Street (right) Museum at Oxford and benevolent landlords of the its great hipped roof topped by a by W. B. Moffatt, the former nice design of about 1835’ H E R I TAG E I N WA L E S • S P R I N G 2 0 0 7
© Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales Pevsner — almost complete This Pevsner volume is the unexpected links. E. Trefor sixth in the Buildings of Wales Owen, who designed a clock series since Powys in 1979. tower in Aberystwyth in 1857, The seventh, for Gwynedd turns up in Dublin in 1864 and Anglesey, will complete designing the Public Record the set in 2008-9. Office. Edward Haycock of The Welsh series is one of Shropshire was the principal four covering the British Isles in designer of the planned town what must be the most at Aberaeron in Ceredigion. ambitious ongoing architectural The Scots peer, Earl Cawdor, guide project in the world. had a country house built near Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion Carmarthen by the English follows Dublin and Shropshire architect Sir Jeffry Wyatville. and will be followed shortly by The design was similar to one Perth and Kinross in the sister Wyatville was building in series for Scotland. Shropshire for the heir of the The international scope of wealthiest Scots noble, the the project makes for duke of Sutherland.
The stained glass by Wilhelmina Geddes in the west window of St The National School of 1850 Peter’s Church is one of the best pieces of its date in Britain
and the subtle complexity of the good Victorian work by R. J. Ypres Cathedral of 1938, and one of the churchyard, note the interior delights: arches with Withers, built with Harford of the best pieces of its date in baldly initialled headstones of arches above, and two colours money. Stand and admire the Britain. It shows Christ between St the paupers who died in of brick. The founder, Fr Malachy powerful tower and the row of Peter and St Andrew, three figures Lampeter workhouse. Lynch, built it against great odds, wheel windows over the aisle. on a heroic scale, contrasted with A short walk leads back to appealing for money to the The interior is beautifully light, tiny figures under their feet. the war memorial and the schoolchildren of Ireland. The having long windows to the In the north-western corner university. fittings are all handmade, in the north and good revived Gothic Arts and Crafts tradition. stained glass of the 1870s in the Behind is the parish church. chancel. The massively circular Special offer On your way there, you pass the font and pulpit are in the High Heritage in Wales readers can buy the latest volume of The famous little single-storey Victorian manner, placing Buildings of Wales series at a reduced price. grammar school of 1823 (15). geometry over decoration. Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion by Thomas Lloyd, Julian Orbach This school was so noted that In the west window is the and Robert Scourfield is published by Yale University Press at Sir Walter Scott sent his son glory of the church — the stained £29.95, or the discounted price of £26.95 for our readers from Edinburgh to be taught by glass of 1938–45 by Wilhelmina (including postage and packaging within the United Kingdom). John Williams, whom he called Geddes, a member of the famous Quote the Heritage in Wales/Etifeddiaeth y Cymry offer when you the finest schoolteacher in Dublin An Tur Gloine (The Tower call the Yale University Press Sales Department on 020 7079 4900, Europe. Williams was later of Glass) studio, who had moved or when writing (enclosing a cheque for £26.95 made payable to rector of Edinburgh Academy. to London in 1925. This is one of Yale University Press) to: The Sales Department, Yale University The parish church of St Peter her finest works, made just after Press, 47 Bedford Square, LONDON WC1B 3DP. (16) is all of 1867–70, a very the great Te Deum window at