5752

 

II  

Designated  

16/06/1989  

16/10/1998  

Shire Hall  

 

Isle of Anglesey  

Llangefni  

Llangefni  

Llangefni  

245911  

375514  

E  

Set back, behind a railed forecourt encompassing the war memorial, from the E side of the A5114 Glanhwfa Road; c.450m SSE of the church of St. Cyngar.  

Civil  

 

The main part of the hall was built in 1899 by O.M. Roberts & Sons of Porthmadog, to a design by Lloyd Williams of Denbigh, at a contracted cost of £4,453. This was later extended by the addition of a similarly styled wing to the right, designed by Joseph Owen, County Architect, Menai Bridge, 1912; modern office accommodation has been built to the rear.  

Large 2-storey civic building in decorative Jacobethan style with Classical detail. Faced with snecked rubble masonry with freestone dressings and quoins to the advanced gabled bays. Slate roofs with red clay ridge tiles, stone copings and kneelers, and tall, rectangular stone stacks. The main, older, part of the hall is 2-storeyed and has a symmetrically planned front elevation of 5 gabled bays; the central and outer bays are wider and slightly advanced, the central bay housing the main entrance. The later wing to the right is linked to the main building by a 2-storey passage; the front elevation has 2 gabled bays, that to the left wider and slightly advanced. Much of the rear elevation has been obscured by the addition of modern prefabricated office accommodation. The main entrance is in the central bay of the older part of the building. Approached by 5 stone steps with side walls, the entrance has a moulded, round-headed, keystoned arch on plain pilasters, and 16-panelled double doors under a segmental and radiating fanlight. The entrance bay has similarly detailed surrounds to the narrow lights flanking the doorway and its first floor Venetian window. In the gable apex is a moulded roundel bearing the county arms and the date 1899. The recessed bays have a single window to each floor; the outer bays have 3 windows to the ground floor, the central window wider, and venetian-derived first floor windows with pediments over the central light. Windows throughout are horned sliding sashes with small panes to most of the upper lights, most have lugged architraves with chamfered reveals though 1st floor windows in the recessed intermediate bays are round-arched in moulded architraves. The added wing to the right has 2 gabled bays; that to the left has tripartite windows with linked, lugged architraves, similarly detailed paired windows to the shorter gabled bay to the right. The forecourt of the hall has a low rubble wall with moulded cap and spear-pointed railings and gates hung on chamfered ashlar gatepiers with moulded capitals.  

 

Listed as a good example of a late C19 civic building, employing the mix of vernacular and renaissance elements favoured at the time in civic architecture, lending a quasi-domestic character to the building. The Shire Hall forms part of an excellent group of civic and religious buildings built at the turn of the century, reflecting the development of Llangefni as the county town. As an essay in civic design it provides a particularly interesting contrast with the earlier Town Hall.