Llanelli Library has been celebrating 100 years as the town’s public library, with a teddy bears’ picnic and a murder mystery for visitors to solve.
The picnic and games marked Winnie-the-Pooh’s 100th birthday. The whodunnit trail around the library nodded to The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha Christie’s third Hercule Poirot novel, which also came out 100 years ago.
Displays of photographs traced the library’s story from its early days to now.
From Victorian Athenaeum to Carnegie library: the 1857 building on Church Street
The building is older than the library. The Athenaeum was built in 1857 and paid for by public subscription, according to Carmarthenshire Council.
It stands on the corner of Church Street and Vaughan Street, and was designed in an Italian palazzo style by James Wilson of Bath, according to its listing by Cadw.
The Nevill Memorial Hall, with its campanile tower, was added in 1864 in a matching style. It was built as a memorial to R J Nevill, and his family’s arms are still carved on the tower.
It became a free public library in 1898. As demand grew, money from the Carnegie Trust paid to transform the Athenaeum and Nevill Memorial buildings, and the library reopened in 1926.
The 1926 conversion, by H A Gold, changed much of the inside. Old photographs show a Roman Doric portico on the Church Street front before then, Cadw says.
Two big first-floor reading rooms, one facing each street, still have their coved ceilings and large skylights from the conversion.
The large modern extension to the west was added in 1972 by borough architect R B Mowbray.
That was Ron Mowbray, from a family of architects that also included his father, Clyde.
Ron’s son Huw, a Swansea Council officer who helped deliver Swansea Arena, died in 2023. Last month a city centre garden, Mowbray Yard, opened in his memory.
His daughter Elyse called the yard “a real celebration of the Mowbray legacy in Swansea”.
Much of the Llanelli extension is now covered by a living wall of plants, installed by ANS Global.
Libraries Wales featured the wall during Green Libraries Week in 2023. It said walls like this bring wildlife value through native planting, help clean the air and provide nectar and food.
Over the years the building has hosted lectures, concerts, classes, social events and public gatherings, the council says.
A 2012 refurbishment and one of Wales’ biggest local history collections
A major refurbishment, finished in 2012, brought in modern facilities while keeping the building’s heritage, the council says.
The library also holds one of Wales’ most significant local history collections, with thousands of documents, photographs and records telling the story of Llanelli and its people.
In 2023 it was one of 22 Welsh libraries on Children’s Laureate Joseph Coelho’s Library Marathon.
‘Much more than a place to borrow books’, says Cllr Hazel Evans
Cllr Hazel Evans, the council’s cabinet member for regeneration, leisure, culture and tourism, said the centenary was a chance to celebrate “a remarkable historic building” and the people who have made it part of the town.
She said: “Llanelli Library has been at the heart of community life for generations.”
She said the library was “much more than a place to borrow books”, offering “digital access, learning opportunities, creative activities, family history resources, exhibitions, events, support services and community programmes for people of all ages”.
Elsewhere in the county, Llwynhendy’s old library building reopened last November as a community hub, Canolfan Llwynhendy, with an automated library service.
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