Entrance range of Conwy Public Library

Cadw's description

Location

On the corner of Castle Street and Lower High Street.

History

Built in the late C19 as the town hall and shown on the 1889 Ordnance Survey. It was badly damaged by fire and the main section of the building was much rebuilt in the 1960s, leaving only the entrance front in its original condition.

Exterior

A Gothic style 2-storey entrance range of the former town hall, of snecked rubble with freestone dressings and quoins, with a swept steep hipped slate roof on a moulded stone cornice, and with prominent ironwork cresting. The Castle Street elevation has angle buttresses in the lower storey. The entrance is a wide pointed arch with hood mould, into which have been inserted modern glazed doors and panels. To its R is a 2-light mullioned window with round-headed lights, and to the L a similar but single-light window. In the upper storey a 5-light mullioned and transomed window also has round-headed lights, the central of which is raised, under a hood mould. A central coped dormer has a boarded-up round window.
A 1st-floor square corner turret is corbelled out on a freestone arcaded frieze, with additional corbels at the angles below a string course continuous with the eaves cornice of the main building. It has narrow louvres under a steep swept pyramidal roof. It has a string course carried over the adjacent window in the Castle Street elevation as a hood mould.
The High Street elevation has a 1-light window in the lower storey, 2 similar 1st-floor windows and a larger 2-light mullioned window upper L. An angle buttress to the L is beneath a corbelled former 1st-floor stack reduced to eaves level. Further behind is a 6-bay range that survives in its original form in the lower storey, above which is a concrete upper storey.

Interior

The entrance hall has 2 double-chamfer arches, between which are joist-beam ceilings with ovolo-moulded cross beams. Otherwise modernised.

Reason for designation

Listed, notwithstanding unsympathetic addition at the rear, as a public building retaining definite C19 character and original detail, making an important contribution to the historical townscape in a prominent position opposite the junction of the town's main streets.