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This magnificent example of good 1960's architecture was the old Shire Hall or county hall building for the then new county of Clwyd in the 1974 local governemnt reorganisation. It really must have been something to work here in the late '60's and 1970's. Now it houses Flintshire's local governemnt administration - but the building is massive, this being just the front block, with a further arrangement of wings and attached blocks behind. Furthermore it forms just a part of a complex with the magistrates or law courts and the theatre on the hill, the whole forming a huge civic centre type 'ghetto' - totally detached from the town of Mold. Geographically detached anyway.

There is something distinctly Soviet about this brutalist block towering over open countryside just outside Mold. Originally called the Shire Hall, it was very much a product of 1960s architectural thinking designed by county architect Robert Harvey and formally opened in 1968 by Princess Margaret. It brought together all the functions of the old Flintshire County Council under one roof and was no doubt seen as a vast improvement at the time by council employees. Subsequent local government reorganisation turned it into the headquarters of Clwyd County Council until Flintshire was recreated (with new boundaries and a smaller area) in 1994. Other buildings were erected on the site creating a 'county civic centre complex' - a campus comprising law courts, a library and theatre. More recently, with reduced staff numbers, consideration has been given to moving the council's administrative offices elsewhere - the cost of maintaining such a large and old fashioned building being seen as excessive for a relatively small local authority.

A faceless bureaucracy.gov.uk? Part of the massive county hall of Clwyd, now housing Flintshire County Council. I don't think it is a coincidence that you get a good 1960's block housing government. I don't know if this place has 'sick building syndrome' but it looks wonderful from the exterior.

The administrative centre of Flintshire.

The court building here just outside Mold opened in October 1969 - one of the buildings forming the County Civic Centre Complex, a campus comprising council offices, courts, a library and a theatre.

This used to be the Shire Hall for Clwyd before that county was broken up into Denbighshire and Flintshire

Aerial view taken from light aircraft.

Eye-catching brutalism in North Wales.

Classic 1970s architecture, originally built to house the local government offices of the former county of Clwyd when it was created in 1974.