No 1 Llandudno Library Information Board

Image: © David Hillas Taken: 21 Jun 2024

This information board is one of fifteen on the Llandudno Heritage Trail and is located outside the library at 48 Mostyn Street, LL30 2RS. It has the following wording in English: No 1 Llandudno Library Welcome to the heart of the Victorian resort of Llandudno, with its fine views up Mostyn Street to the Great Orme. Lower left column Get your bearings Llandudno Library moved here from its original home on Happy Valley Road in 1873. The pair of camperdown elms that shade the frontage date back to that era. This was a time when the Victorian resort of Llandudno was getting into its stride, with horsedrawn carriages hurrying to and fro along Mostyn Street. Motor cars arrived in the 20th century, and from 1907 to 1956, trams ran up the middle of the street, clanking as they went. The library was remodelled in the Edwardian Baroque style in 1910, and has since been updated several times. Today, it's fully accessible, with public computers and free Wi-fi. Why not drop in? Llandudno Tourist Information Centre is nearby too: it's in the Victorian Centre, right behind you. Lower middle column i) Prehistoric roots This region has been inhabited for thousands of years. The earliest known example of portable Welsh art - a decorated horse's jaw bone, over 13,500 years old - was found here in the 1870s and is displayed in the British Museum. The seaside resort of Llandudno was founded in the Victorian era and named after the sixth century Early Christian missionary Tudno, pronounced Tid-know. St Tudno's Church on the northern slopes of the Great Orme marks the spot where Tudno had his place of prayer. It's still an active place of worship. ii) The Mostyns, Llandudno's founding family This used to be all fields! In the early 1800s, the land between the Great Orme and the Little Orme was farmland and saltmarsh where Welsh-speaking fishermen, farmers and copper miners lived and worked. In the 1840s, local aristocrat Edward Lloyd-Mostyn decided it would be perfect for a resort. He acquired the common land in 1848 under the Enclosure Act, and began leasing building plots. From then until the early 1900s, Victorian Llandudno developed steadily. The Mostyns, Wales' oldest landowners besides the Crown, still own much of the town today. iii) The Queen of Welsh Resorts Victorian Llandudno was elegant through and through. Owen Williams and other architects designed its grand terraces using fashionable seaside styles: stucco-fronted, neoclassical or Italianate. The new buildings were laid out in a grid, on streets that were wider than the houses were high. Unlike the old cottages on the slopes above the bay, they had private indoor bathrooms instead of outside closets. Frightfully modern! Right column i) Image: The Great Orme, as it may have looked in the early 1800s (The National Library of Wales) ii) Image: Mostyn Street in 1908 (The Francis Frith Collection) iii) Image: A postcard of St Tudno's from the 1910s (Conwy archive) Published by Conwy County Borough Council (CCBC) December 2022 visitconwy.org.uk

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