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Tuesday, 22-May-2012 10:18:01 BST
Architectural Town Walk
The Old College History
On the castle headland stands the War Memorial unveiled on 14 September 1923. Designed by Mario Rutelli of Rome, the memorial is crowned by a winged Victory standing on a globe. On the seaward side a, for the time, risque portrayal of Humanity in the form of a naked female emerges from the foliage of war. She has been described by one eminent architectural historian as 'Brigit Bardot emerging from the undergrowth'.
The section of the Promenade from the Pier round to the castle dates from the very end of the 19th century. Prior to this the sea lapped the base of the cliffs; the public shelter is actually built in a former sea-cave.
Castle House: in the late 18th-century the Castle was owned by Thomas Johnes of Hafod. Uvedale Price, his friend and co-enthusiast for the Picturesque, was granted by the burgesses of Aberystwyth in 1788 a lease of a portion of common land for a summer retreat, next to the castle ruins and the sea - the first encroachment on the town common. The key texts of the Picturesque were being formulated by Price and Payne Knight, Johnes's cousin, at this time. Simultaneously, Nash was building Castle House for Uvedale Price in Aberystwyth: that "Fantastic house in the castellated form" on the edge of the shore, a three-sided villa and, as Uvedale Price wrote, 'The form of it is extremely varied from my having obliged him [Nash] to turn the rooms to different aspects'- the sea, the castle and the cliffs. A china model of the house survives, and Castle House is shown in drawn and photographic views of Aberystwyth but was demolished in 1897 to make way for expansion at the Old College.
The new owners from 1867 were the promoters of the University College of Wales
The Old College of the University began as a luxury hotel, built from 1864 in competition with the Queen's Hotel for a promoter of mass tourism and railways to north Cardiganshire, Thomas Savin. Until his bankruptcy in 1866 Savin employed John Pollard Seddon, restorer of Llandaff Cathedral, as his architect; planning and works were both rushed through, the latter at times preceding the former. A hundred-foot dining room was built south of Nash's Castle House and, as its walls were not strong, the bedroom storey above was built in timber frame, with flat roof and conical end tower. To the north of Castle House a massive Gothic pile rose, from two storeys at the Castle House end to an epic six storeys at the north end. This was again to Seddon's design and was again a rushed job, but with lavish public rooms on the American pattern. Something of the intended effect can still be seen in the building, but a view of the magnificent 1871 perspective in the Seddon room inside shows how much was not achieved.
The Old College of the University began as a luxury hotel, built from 1864
The new owners from 1867 were the promoters of the University College of Wales, a group high in hopes but with only £5000 in hand. They retained Seddon as architect and he produced a 1871 perspective drawing, more in hope than expectation; this envisaged complete rebuilding of Castle House and Seddon's own south hotel wing. He added, however, the roof-top gymnasium to the south range in 1871-2. In July 1885 the whole north range was gutted by fire. The results of the ensuing competition of 1886 for rebuilding on a new site were set aside in favour of Seddon's proposals that restoration would be cheaper. The restoration works were carried out by Seddon and Coates Carter from 1887-9, the south wing rebuilt as a plainer nine-bay Gothic front in stone, culminating in an end tower, adorned with C. F. A. Voysey's three mosaic panels of 1887-8, showing technology acknowledging pure learning. The burnt-out north wing was greatly simplified internally by removing the spine bedroom block for a broad hall with a grand stair. By 1890 Seddon had been ousted in a dispute over costs and replaced by C. J. Ferguson, who fitted out Seddon's library in 1891-2 and replaced John Nash's Castle House in 1896-8 with a four-storey Gothic range.
Turn right along the Promenade
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