Laugharne Town Hall
Laugharne Town Hall, in Market Street, Laugharne, Carmarthenshire, Wales, is called Neuadd y Dref Talacharn in Welsh. It is a Grade II* listed building and the meeting place of Laugharne Corporation.
The town’s first municipal building was an old guildhall from the late 13th century. By the mid-1700s the tower was ruined, so a new town hall was built and finished in 1747. It was designed in an Italianate style with rubble masonry covered in whitewash.
The front is uneven on purpose. The main part facing Market Street has two bays, with a tower attached. On the ground floor there are two arched openings with iron grills; on the first floor there are two windows. The tower has clock faces on the north and south sides and a pyramid-shaped roof.
Inside, the ground floor houses the market hall and the first floor holds the courtroom. A lean-to on the east side added in 1774 provided a lock-up for petty criminals. A bellcote with a bell by Rudhall of Gloucester and a peacock-weather vane were added in 1786. In 1814 the first-floor windows were changed to Gothic-style sash windows.
After the Municipal Corporations Act of 1883, the borough council was abolished, but fortnightly meetings of the court baron continued under a Grand Jury, led by the portreeve (the town’s chief magistrate), to manage the town’s properties.
The clock was replaced in the late 19th century, and a gabled porch was added in 1910.
In the early 1950s, the poet Dylan Thomas, who lived in Laugharne, described the town as timeless and joked that the town hall’s clock tells the time backwards.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 02:50 (CET).