Town Hall & Market Buildings

Cadw's description

Location

Prominently sited at centre of town, on former market place at junction with Castle Street.

History

Dated 1892, designed by David Jenkins of Llandeilo.

Exterior

Market hall with public hall above and attached office wing. Grey rubble stone with ashlar dressings and steel slate roofs. L-plan, 2 storeys, in mixed style combining Jacobean main gable with round-arched and segmental-arched windows and a pyramid roofed S end tower with outsize ogee-domed lantern.

Main range has market and public library below with hall above. Coped W gable with carved square shoulder blocks with ball finials, kneelers below apex which has concave curved sides and semicircular shell pediment with finial. Apex date plaque 1892. Triplet of arched first floor windows with 2-light timber tracery and 2 arched ground floor doorways, now windows, ashlar quoins. At N end, a one-window projection with hipped roof and apex red brick stack. Main roof is half-hipped to rear with outside stairs to arched upper door. Sides have 3 plain cambered-head sashes above and various openings below, some altered. N side has slate-roofed shelter on thin iron columns and S side angle to S wing was formerly similarly roofed.

S wing has 3-window range to street and then square S end tower with steep pyramid roof, arch-headed dormers with cusped timber single lights, and timber square lantern with louvres below clock-faces with overhanging arched timber hoods and octagonal leaded ogee cap. Upper windows are segmental-headed 4-pane sashes on W side, 3 and then one to tower, ground floor has 4 blocked windows and arched doorway to tower with small window to right. S end has 4-pane window below and 8-pane above, broken through ashlar sill band. Ashlar quoins. Chamfered SE angle.

Old photographs show a considerable amount of ornamental applied timber decoration to tower dormers and lower part of clock tower, now plainly louvred.

Reason for designation

Group value