Talgarth Town Hall
| Talgarth Town Hall | |
|---|---|
| Native name Neuadd y Dref Talgarth (Welsh) | |
 Talgarth Town Hall | |
| Location | The Bank, Talgarth |
| Coordinates | 51°59′45″N 3°13′56″W / 51.9958°N 3.2321°W |
| Built | 1878 |
| Architect | Thomas Lawrence Lewis |
| Architectural style(s) | Neoclassical style |
Listed Building – Grade II | |
| Official name | Town Hall |
| Designated | 24 September 1985 |
| Reference no. | 7480 |
  Shown in Powys | |
Talgarth Town Hall (Welsh: Neuadd y Dref Talgarth), is a municipal building on The Bank, Talgarth, Powys, Wales. The structure, which is the meeting place of Talgarth Town Council, is a Grade II listed building.[1]
History
In the mid-1870s, a group of local landowners led by Francis William Alexander Roche, whose seat was at Tregunter Park and who had led various initiatives to promote Talgarth as a market town, decided to commission a market hall for the town. The site they selected was made available by Bertram Ashburnham, 4th Earl of Ashburnham, whose seat was at Pembrey House, on a 99-year lease at a nominal rent.[2][3]
The foundation stone for the new building was laid by Roche on 17 July 1877.[4] It was designed by Thomas Lawrence Lewis of Swansea in the neoclassical style, built by James Webb of Hay-on-Wye in rubble masonry at a cost of £700 and was completed in 1878.[3][5] The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with three bays facing onto the corner of Hay Road and The Bank; there was a round headed opening with voussoirs and a wrought iron gate in the central bay on the ground floor, three segmental headed windows with voussoirs on the first floor and a central oculus in the gable above. The structure was surmounted by a quarter-hipped roof. Internally, the principal rooms were the market hall on the ground floor and the assembly room on the first floor.[1]
A central clock turret with an ogee-shaped dome and a finial was installed as part of the celebrations for the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887.[1] Following implementation of the Local Government Act 1894, which established parish councils in rural areas, a parish council was formed in Talgarth with its offices in the town hall.[6] In August 1918, at the start of the First World War, a recruiting event was held in the town hall: 20 young men immediately enlisted.[7] In the early 1920s, a brass plaque commemorating the lives of local service personnel who had died in the war was unveiled in the town hall; in 1957, in a "gesture of reverence" the brass plaque was buried under the town's stone war memorial in Bronllys Road.[8]
In August 1958, the town hall was the venue for a lecture given by the nuclear physicist, John H. Fremlin, about the level of contamination by Strontium-90 in the area, during which he encouraged farmers to check the level of radioactivity in their cattle.[9] Following implementation of the Local Government Act 1972, the parish council evolved to become Talgarth Town Council but continued to use the building as its meeting place.[10]
Service wings, which had been added to the east side of the building, were remodelled in 1994,[1] and the brass war memorial plaque, which had been buried under the stone war memorial in Bronllys Road was recovered and returned to the town hall in 2016.[8] Another plaque, intended to commemorate the gold medal won by the locally-born table tennis player, Rob Davies, at the 2016 Summer Paralympics, was unveiled in the town hall in November 2016.[11]
References
- ^ a b c d Cadw. "Town Hall (7480)". National Historic Assets of Wales. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
- ^ "The Rise and Fall of the Tregunter Park Estate". Wye Local. 1 May 2016. p. 53. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
- ^ a b Poole, Edwin (1886). The Illustrated History and Biography of Brecknockshire From the Earliest Times to the Present Day. Edwin Poole. p. 193.
- ^ "Talgarth Town Hall". History Points. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
- ^ "Historic Landscape Characterisation: The Middle Wye Valley". Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
- ^ "Welcome". Talgarth Town Council. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
- ^ "World War I walk around Talgarth near Brecon (Powys)". Grow in Powys. 8 October 2017. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
- ^ a b "Talgarth War Memorial". History Points. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
- ^ Higuchi, Toshihiro (2020). Political Fallout Nuclear Weapons Testing and the Making of a Global Environmental Crisis. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-1503612907.
- ^ "Council Meeting" (PDF). Talgarth Town Council. 4 December 2019. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
- ^ "Talgarth Town Council celebrates Rob Davies Gold Medal achievement at Rio 2016". Talgarth FYI Network. 28 November 2016. Retrieved 11 June 2022.