Or’eira, Llanfacherth, Dolgellau, 9th May 2007
A rainy day in Aberystyth. I came here with Phil Barradell in 1971 after we had finished our finals; and with David Taylor in 1975 for the RTPI Summer School held at the University, a long trudge uphill along Penglais Road. The only impressions I retained of the town were of a promenade curving around the beach ending in a great ornate gothic building and a pier, which in 1975 was home to a roost of starlings that swirled in murmurations over the sea. And a detail, an extravagant green tiled shop or pub front. How sad is the huge breadth of our experience that we forget.
If I had remembered more I might have thought that Aberystyth seems remarkably unchanged, apart from one small redevelopment on the front and the creation of a retail park south of the station. So, it feels remarkably intact as a town of its time – late Georgian building followed by the expansion as a resort fed by the arrival of the railways in the 1860s. This perhaps exemplified by Marine Terrace – Victoria Terrace, which is a remarkably complete classic seaside backdrop to a beach and promenade – only the poor redevelopment on the corner of Terrace Road breaks its harmony. It is not perfect: the southern end towards the pier is much run down (though restoration seems to be moving in that direction); there are some very gaudily painted hotels; and the impression is of a transient student/benefit population, not a stable resident family one. Elsewhere, the railway station has been taken over by Weatherspoons (thought a station still functions) and St Paul’s Methodist Chapel (1880) is now The Academy pub.
Oh yes, those half-formed memories. The gothic pile on the front is the University of Aberystwyth Old College, designed by John Pollard Seddon and built from 1864 as a hotel and purchased for the University of Wales in 1867. The green glazed frontage is Rea’s Bar; the Art Nouveau design was commissioned by Colonel John Rea, the then owner of the White Horse, around 1900.