Demolition of Penmorfa, Llandudno.
Letter to CADW and the Heritage Minister, Welsh Assembly Government. In response to their reasons given for not listing the building.
Llandudno, is without doubt, the finest example of an unspoilt mid-Victorian seaside watering place, unequalled in the UK. The fact that it is largely preserved is in no small part due to the control of the Mostyn family, who still are the largest leaseholders and a continuing influence in the town.
In Llandudno and its environs we have 402 listed buildings, as at 2001. This is the largest community of listed buildings in Wales. The general design of the buildings is Classical with few notable other styles, the Neo-Gothic Penmorfa being one of them. This was built well outside the then developing resort by a local architect. It has no match anywhere else in the locality. The fact that the Conservation Area was extended to encompass what was then the Gogarth Abbey Hotel, indicates that the local Planning Authority considered it worth protecting. The reason you give for not listing the building in 2001 is ‘because much of it’s original character had been obscured by inappropriate, modern alterations’ - it depends on how you define ‘modern’.
In the case of Penmorfa, what you describe as modern goes back a long way. The first extensions to the right were built in the early 1900’s. Later extended, possibly in the 1920’s, to connect to two semi-detached houses that then stood on an adjacent site. The dining room on the left was added in 1936. So we are talking about 100yrs, 80yrs and 72 years ago. Hardly modern! The extensions at the rear could be of the earlier date. Other alterations, such as to windows, are unfortunate but reversible. The upper parts of the frontal façade remain unaltered as does the roof line which gives Penmorfa its essential character.
Many of the listed buildings on Llandudno Promenade have been altered, mostly by the addition of verandas. Some are from the Edwardian era, some from the 1930’s while one notable one - fronting the Hydro hotel was added in the 1960’s. Alterations and extensions have recently been made to the veranda and entrance of the Imperial Hotel. All of these were buildings are listed. It could be said that these additions have destroyed the original uncluttered sweep of the Parades.
Your criteria for not listing because of ‘modern’ alterations seems to be selective. We would cite the example of Vaynol Hall, near Bangor. Here we have what was a charming original Georgian house until about 1930, when it was given a makeover and extensions by Clough Williams Ellis. He gave it the ‘Port Merion’ treatment which effectively destroyed the architectural merit of the (2). building.
Still it was subsequently listed! At the time of listing the alterations were only about 20 years old – ultra-modern by your standards!
Most of Llandudno’s buildings were constructed of limestone from the Great Orme quarries, bricks of poor quality being used for window and door casings, while better quality bricks were used for chimney stacks. Penmorfa by comparison, was the very first building in Llandudno to be constructed totally using Glazed Ruabon Terracotta Bricks. These were then an expensive luxury and are now hidden behind later rendering.
We recently noted that CADW is looking at World War two defences and pill boxes with a view to listing. It must surely be evident that there is no architectural merit in these structures and they were never used. Quite modern really! We would however support your listing of them.
Coming to the historical connections which have not been altered by time: despite the claims on the Alice Monument at the West Shore, it is now accepted that Professor Dodgson did not walk upon our shore with Alice Liddell in 1862, the year indicated on the plaque.
However, we can be sure that the story of Alice’s Adventure Underground was told to Alice and her two sisters whilst boating on the Thames at Oxford in 1862, with Dodgson and his friend the Rev. Robert Duckworth. It is only because Alice begged Dodgson to write the story down, that we have it to-day.
It took Dodgson two years to commit the story to paper, but it is known that he presented a complete manuscript, illustrated with his own drawings, to Alice in 1864.
Penmorfa was completed in 1862 and it is well documented that many famous people visited Dean Liddell there. They included the Prime Minister-William Gladstone, Matthew Arnold, Sir Henry Acland , Samuel Wilberforce (Bishop of Oxford), and Sir Charles Newton with his artist wife Mary.
The most authoritative examination of the connection of Penmorfa with Lewis Carroll, as Dodgson became to be known, was a study by our local historian, Michael Senior. In 2000 he looked at the work of biographers and other unpublished documents and has put forward a very convincing case for Dodgson’s having visited Llandudno some time after 1864. It could be described as a forensic examination of the evidence, leaving no document unturned. He published a book entitled ‘Did Lewis Carroll Visit Llandudno?’ on the result of his findings.
Dodgson was a meticulous diary keeper although there are gaps – some pages removed and periods when the pages are blank. This might indicate that there were things that he wished to keep to himself. We know that he had a fall out, over political differences, with Dean Liddell so he might not have been welcome at the Deanery.
The Dean had to spend most of his time in Oxford while his family stayed at Penmorfa for extended vacations of several months duration at Christmas, Easter and in the Summer. It was not uncommon for Dodgson to absent himself from Oxford after the start of term. The attraction for Dodgson of Penmorfa may have been that he could see the children while their father was in Oxford. In fact on the 19th. December 1863, while he was still writing Wonderland, he records that he dined happily with the Liddell family. The Dean, he pointedly remarks, was away!
The proposition that his visits to the West Shore at Llandudno may have provided some inspiration for ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’ is quite reasonable. The seashore, rabbit warrens, and the two upstanding rocks out at sea which have for generations been known as the Walrus and the (3). Carpenter may well have fired his imagination.
At one point in the book, Alice is described as climbing a zig-zag path up a hill. On reaching the top she looks down and sees a giant chess board.
There is just such a zig-zag path up the Great Orme behind Penmorfa and at the time Llandudno was just being laid out with the roads making a chequerboard layout below.
The clinching evidence comes from letters written by Alice, to her son, in 1932, the Centenary of Dodgson’s birth. He was dealing, on her behalf, with the press and other inquiries re the celebrations. When questioned by her son as to whether Dodgson had visited Llandudno in 1862 she replied that 1862 was too early. She did not, it is now clear, advise her son to tell them that Dodgson had never been there. In her letter to Llandudno Council in 1933 Alice Hargreaves (nee Liddell), then 81, excused her non-attendance at the unveiling of the monument on the West Shore on the grounds of age and infirmity. She said “I still have the happiest memories of Penmorfa, as my father’s house on the West Shore was then called, and of the rambles over the Great Orme and among the sandhills. I wish I could be present in person to express my gratitude for those joyous days and for the days I spent with Mr Dodgson”.
Michael Senior concludes that “On the basis of Alice’s final evidence and all of what we now know lies behind it, Lewis Carroll did visit Llandudno”.
The importance of the Alice stories to the English language is still manifest, like a golden thread that runs through our vocabulary, they are more often quoted than Shakespeare. Recently the Guardian carried a cartoon of the Cheshire Cat with Hilary Clintons face. Last week, references were made on the BBC Radio 4 to firstly Wonderland and secondly Looking Glass, this within a matter of a couple of hours. None of this would be so had not Alice Liddell asked Dodgson to commit the story to paper.
At Daresbury, in Cheshire, where Dodgson was born, the local Council estimates that they get 45,000 visitors per year due to the Lewis Carroll connection. We in Llandudno have probably attracted many thousands more than that, but our Tourism Department appears to be incapable of grasping the significance of our heritage! To quote the Caterpillar, addressing Alice “Who are you?”
The attraction is the house where Alice lived and the shore where she and Lewis Carroll strolled.
In view of the above, we request that Penmorfa should be immediately spot listed. |
