Bangor has perhaps the finest of all university buildings in Wales. The Main Building was built between 1907 and 1911 by the London architect Henry T. Hare after he beat J. Francis Doyle, A. Marshall Mackenzie, and Arnold Mitchell in an architectural competition run by the University after it had acquired the prominent sky-line site in 1903. The winning design drew on Hare's Beaux-Arts experience as a student in Paris, but was never fully realised as the original budget was halved and Hare had to reduce his plans.

The resulting building is in a "Collegiate Tudor" style based on the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Durham with Arts and Crafts influences. The buildings are grouped around a courtyard, the fulcrum being a massive square tower which has a bell stage on each face with two tall traceried windows and niches that contain statues of St David, Owain Gwynedd, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd and Owain Glyndw'r. The picturesque feeling is enhanced by the building's prominent site, its landscaping and the quality of the building materials, including fine sandstone facing, pale Preseli slates, and floors and stairs of Hopton Wood stone. The stone carving is by Lawrence Turner. The library range includes the Shankland Library, which has bare stone walls and a shallow timber barrel vault with plaster panels. High and deep bookcases project inwards between the windows and are linked across the aisle by archways in carved wood under luxurious scrolled pediments. There is a later twentieth century bust of John Morris-Owen by R. L. Gapper.

Source: Haslam, Orbach and Voelcker (2009), The Buildings of Wales: Gwynedd. Pevsner Architectural Guide, page 247-8.

RCAHMW, October 2009