History

1894-6 town hall by Williams Griffiths of Llanelli

Exterior

Italianate style with 2-storey and basement elevations plus tall centre clock tower with cupola. Brown squared rubble stone with Bath stone dressings and hipped slate roofs behind balustraded parapets. Roughly square plan, but with recessed centres to east front and west rear elevations, and side elections stepped out in plan. Taller centre spine roof over council chamber.

Generally there is a high rubble plinth all around, cornice over ground floor and larger cornice over first floor with balustrades over. Each floor has channelled angle pilasters and ashlar walling below sill-course, incorporating balustrade panels beneath window sills, or plain panels in subsidiary elevations. Windows are plate glass sashes with rusticated surrounds to ground floor and ashlar recessed pilaster jambs to first floor where intermediate walling is treated as piers with ashlar cornice under main entablature.
2-3-2 bay east front, the lower wings projected, the centrepiece with tall first floor of 3 tripartite windows with lunette heads, pilasters between and cornice broken forward over centre ground floor has window each side of door in big projecting porch, arched on 3 sides with fluted angle piers, enriched entablature, front pediment and side balustrades. Over pediment is statue of Justice flanked by lions. Lion mask in tympanum.

Tower is square with channelled angle piers, clock faces and 1895 date in cartouche below east clock. Cornice, balustrades and corner urns. Cupola above is arcaded, octagonal with angle pilasters, cornice, pediments to cardinal faces, short upper ashlar stage to minor cornice under leaded octagonal bell-cast dome with finial.

Side elevations are stepped out twice from front angle: first a one-window bay, then a bay with similar paired window each floor, then 3-bay centrepiece, then single 2-bay set-back with matching paired window and single window. South side centrepiece is more ornate containing the former mayor's entrance and proclamation balcony above. Balcony is over arched doorway, now blocked, and is on heavy curved ashlar brackets. First floor centre is pilastered with arched c centre. French window and pediment over. Outer bays have single window, of usual type to ground floor, Venetian to first floor.

North front centrepiece has 3 paired windows below and 3 tripartite windows above, to similar pattern as elsewhere.

Rear has more utilitarian recessed centrepiece, with big ashlar mullion and transom council chamber windows. Ground floor plaque recording opening 31 March 1896.

Interior has tiled floors, lateral entrance hall to N and S staircases. Council chamber largely altered circa 1970 when all furnishings and most of galleries were lost. Some wall piers and coved panelled ceiling survive.

Reasons for Listing

Group value.

External Links

• Cadwr Listing
• The Town Hall at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q29490303

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  The green guide for historic buildings: how to improve the environmental performance of listed and historic buildings
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014
• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Drawing up a Local Listed Building Consent Order: Historic England Advice Note 6