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Wednesday, 07-Jan-2009 00:48:07 GMT
Walk Around Aberystwyth
These notes originally written to accompany a tour of Aberystwyth by the Victorian Society. They were compiled by David Percival, with additional information from David Browne, Geoff Ward, Olwen Jenkins and Julian Orbach, W.J.Lewis (Born on a Perilous Rock) and the National Monuments Record of Wales.
Architectural Walk
Aberystwyth still retains evidence of its medieval castle and town walls, dating from 1277; this foundation was preceded by an earlier castle on a different site, by a Celtic Christian clas at Llanbadarn Fawr and by prehistoric settlement, which had included the neighbouring hillfort of Pen Dinas, originating ca. 400 BC, and from the summit of which a mid-19th-century memorial column to the Duke of Wellington now rises.
The first Aberystwyth Castle was situated about 2 miles south of the present one at, as the name implies, the mouth of the River Ystwyth. When the present castle and town were established the name was transferred to them even though they were situated at the mouth of the River Rheidol. The diversion of the Ystwyth northwards to join the Rheidol at the harbour is an 18th-century development.
The development of the harbour at Aberystwyth facilitated lead and silver extraction in the hinterland; in 1763 the Customs House was moved there from Aberdyfi. Under the influence of local landowners Aberystwyth by 1800 had become a bathing place and a resort for fashionable seekers of the Picturesque. Aberystwyth was thus an early developer as a seaside town; both its origins and the subsequent nature of its development were distinctive.
In the mid-18th century the town of Aberystwyth was still confined within the walls of the 13th-century borough and to the former Welsh township of Trefechan across the river. The 19th and early 20th centuries saw not only the expansion of the town across the intervening marshy lands towards Penglais Hill, but the shift of the commercial axis from the area immediately outside the castle gate, down Great Darkgate Street, and later along Terrace Road, and also the almost complete rebuilding and infilling of the area within the old walls. George Eyre Evans, who, incidentally, worked for the Royal Commission, maintained that by the end of the 19th century practically every building standing in 1800 had disappeared. The great stimulus from the 1860s onwards was the railway, which enabled Aberystwyth to develop into a seaside town of wider appeal. Today, partly within the built environment of the 19th century, a university has developed. Aberystwyth is still a meeting place between north and south Wales, a market town and an administrative and retail centre. The population of Aberystwyth with its outlying suburban settlements is about 20,000, including 7,000 students.
School of Art building, built in 1905-7
Our walk around Aberystwyth commences at Crown Building, Plas Crug, a combined government office and telephone exchange complex built in 1964. Proceeding along the car park, the buildings above and to the right were formerly the university chemical laboratories. The newer building is now a student hostel; the older building is the School of Art building. Built in 1905-7 to the designs of A. W. S. Cross as the Edward Davies Memorial Laboratories, this Wren-influenced building with its big segmental pediment and cupola is prominent on the hillside in views across the town.
Proceed straight ahead into Stanley Road
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