87921

 

II  

Designated  

26/10/2023  

 

Education Offices at Pencadlys Gwynedd  

 

Gwynedd  

Caernarfon  

Caernarfon  

 

247825  

362770  

E  

On east side of Castle Street opposite the main offices of Pencadlys Gwynedd.  

Civil  

Modern  

Part of the new Council headquarters dated 1983 to designs by county architects Merfyn H Roberts and Terry Potter, in association with Wyn Thomas & Partners and their consultant Professor Dewi-Prys Thomas (1916-1985), originally for the Council’s Education department. The offices incorporate the C19 house at No.5 Castle Street, listed separately. The Local Government Act of 1972 consolidated local authorities in Wales with the thirteen counties remodelled into eight. Gwynedd, named after the last surviving medieval Welsh kingdom, was re-formed by merging Caernarvonshire, Anglesey, most of Merionethshire and parts of Denbighshire. The reorganisation brought about a new phase in the construction of County Headquarter buildings, with ambitious schemes reflecting the enlarged local areas and notional revival of ancient Welsh polities. Dewi-Prys Thomas was born into a Welsh-speaking family in Liverpool where he qualified as an architect in 1939. From 1947 onwards he combined a successful practice with teaching, until in 1960 he was appointed head of the Welsh School of Architecture, and for the most part stepped back from designing his own buildings to train many other Welsh architects. These included Merfyn Roberts and Wyn Thomas, two of his collaborators who invited him in 1980 to join them in designing Gwynedd’s new council headquarters. Thomas is credited with designing the exterior elevations largely by himself. The Pencadlys was intended to “sing a duet” with the Castle, with the latter representing “imperialism” and the former “democracy”. Thomas left his academic post in 1981 in part due to poor health but also to concentrate on the Pencadlys, and died shortly after its completion.  

C-shaped building forming three sides of a square opposite the main offices, incorporating the earlier large house at 5 Castle Street (3845) as its left side balanced by a similarly sized and proportioned three storey square block on the right, the two linked by a one and a half storey range. Right side block is a rendered squashed cube with three storeys and three bays to its two street facing sides. Hipped slate roof. At street level three wide arches form a short colonnade along Castle Street with two further arches after turning the corner, resting on concrete columns with a double column at the corner. Recessed stone walls beneath these arches. Small-paned windows (uPVC) to first and second floors, with continuous string courses. Right side first floor window in north side facing the square has a projecting balcony with iron mermaid, recovered by Dewi-Prys Thomas from a home for sailors in Liverpool. Link section including the main entrance is mainly glass with stone footings at street level, with strongly overhanging slate mansard roof above supported on paired steel pilotis. Dormer windows with raking slate roofs within the mansard.  

Original reception desk under timber staircase with paired steel balusters similar to the façade’s pilotis. First floor offices with dormer windows along one side of corridor.  

Included for special architectural interest as an integral part of the Pencadlys scheme, which is a key example of a C20 local government headquarters. Group value with main offices across Castle Street and the Cofeb Llywelyn between them.