The National Library of Wales (nprn 23293) is situated below the south end of the University’s Penglais campus, on the same hillside overlooking the town. It was built in stages from 1911.

The approach drive and the grounds below the main west front of the library have been landscaped in a way similar to the university campus (7000000), with shrub borders on steep slopes. The main access is by a drive off the A487. The drive gently climbs the slope below the library, curving round eastwards to car parks on its south side. A short distance from the entrance is a former lodge on a platform cut into the rock face on the east side of the drive.

The immediate setting of the main front of the library is architectural and formal. Below the central steps of the west front is an upper terrace running the width of the building. A tarmac path runs along it, flanked at intervals by clipped euonymus bushes. A central flight of steps leads down to a lower terrace, used for car parking. Below is a sloping lawn and a wide, central flight of steps leading down to the drive.

The slope above the drive is planted with mixed evergreen shrubs. Below it is a grass verge planted with clipped euonymus shrubs at intervals. Below that is a steep drop down to a beech hedge on the site boundary. Further down the drive, to the north, the border above it is gently terraced, using natural stones. Plants include heather, hebe, variegated eleagnus, euonymus, holly, dwarf conifers and rock plants. The north end of the bed extends all the way up the bank, the steep slope terraced with stone walling. Narrow paths wind up through the planting. Further north, behind mixed viburnum, mahonia and berberis shrubs, is a cliff face.

Source:

Cadw 2002: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire, 86, 91 (ref: PGW Dy47(CER)).

RCAHMW, 4 February 2022