The Montgomeryshire County Offices ( cy, Neuadd Maldwyn) is a municipal building in Severn Street, Welshpool,

Powys Powys (; ) is a county and preserved county in Wales. It is named after the Kingdom of Powys which was a Welsh successor state, petty kingdom and principality that emerged during the Middle Ages following the end of Roman rule in Britain. Geog ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

. The structure, which was the headquarters of Montgomeryshire County Council, is a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

History

Following the implementation of the

Local Government Act 1888 Local may refer to: Geography and transportation * Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand * Local, Missouri, a community in the United States * Local government, a form of public administration, usually the lowest tier of administr ...

, which established county councils in every county, Montgomeryshire County Council initially held its meetings in Montgomery, which was the traditional county town and the venue for the assizes. By the 1920s, with the increasing responsibilities of council councils, council leaders decided to establish dedicated offices: the site they selected was open land on the north side of Severn Road. The new building was designed by Frank Gatley Briggs and Sir Arnold Thornely in the Neo-Georgian style, built in red brick with stone dressings and was completed in 1931. The original design involved a symmetrical main frontage with seven bays facing onto Severn Road. The central bay featured a doorway with a stone

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; from it, architrave "chief beam", also called an epistyle; from Greek ἐπίστυλον ''epistylon'' "door frame") is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can ...

flanked by

brackets A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...

supporting a

canopy Canopy may refer to: Plants * Canopy (biology), aboveground portion of plant community or crop (including forests) * Canopy (grape), aboveground portion of grapes Religion and ceremonies * Baldachin or canopy of state, typically placed over an ...

; there was a stone panel and a

sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History ...

on the first floor and a

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). Wh ...

with two urns above. The other bays were fenestrated with sash windows. The building was considerably extended to the rear in the late 1930s and then again in 1959. Internally, the principal room was the council chamber at the rear of the building. Following local government re-organisation in 1974, the building became the offices of Montgomeryshire District Council. However, following the creation of unitary authorities in 1996, it was relegated to the role of regional office for

Powys County Council Powys County Council ( cy, Cyngor Sir Powys) is the local authority for Powys, one of the administrative areas of Wales. The County Hall is in Llandrindod Wells. History The county of Powys was created on 1 April 1974 under the Local Govern ...

, the headquarters of which was based in Llandrindod Wells. In December 2018, Powys County Council decided that the building had become too expensive to maintain and that it was surplus to requirements, and, in May 2019, the council decided to sell it to Clwyd Alyn Housing Association for conversion into flats for older people. Following a local consultation, during which some residents expressed concern that the project only catered for a single age group, the housing association secured planning consent for the creation of a 65-room residential care facility on the site in spring 2021. Contractors started on site with a programme of works to restore, convert and extend the building in summer 2021.

References

{{reflist Welshpool Grade II listed buildings in Powys Government buildings completed in 1931 Welshpool