HAVERFORDWEST’S old County Library building features in a list of twentieth-century heritage buildings at risk prepared by the Royal Commission of Ancient and Historical Monuments for Wales (RCAHMW).

Public libraries, as important places of free and accessible education for adults and schoolchildren alike, were highlighted by several post-war studies including the Education Act of 1944, the Ministry of Education report ‘The structure of the public library service in England and Wales and The Robbins and Newson Reports on Education of 1964.

The Public Libraries and Museums Act, also of 1964, made it a statutory duty for local authorities to provide a library service that was ‘comprehensive and efficient’ as well as encouraging cultural activities within communities.

The Pembrokeshire County Library of 1967-69, designed by Pembrokeshire county architect, Gilbert Ray, was part of the building programme that followed the Act’s passage.

Externally the facade is dominated by a sculpture by artist David Tinker designed to represent the pages of open books, the last of his Fibonacci Sequence inspired series, while the interior is characterised by large, well-lit, open-plan spaces. To the left, a round theatre is curtained by a curved stone wall, the slit lights evoking a sense of the origin of the medieval town.

The function of the building was replaced by the Glan-yr-Afon cultural centre built in 2018 and it is currently for sale.

RCAHMW is challenging the idea of what springs to mind when you think of ‘a historic building’.

Castles, medieval churches, timber-framed houses? Maybe nineteenth-century industrial complexes, nonconformist chapels and Victorian mansions?

The chances are that post-war theatre, civic centres or schools are not the first buildings that most people think of, or would consider, as being ‘of historic interest’ at all!

The twentieth century in Wales was one of major economic, social, political, technological, religious, and cultural change, and the built environment had to change and diversify drastically over the course of 100 years in response to this.

These buildings and planned landscapes have equally shaped our lives from our day-to-day experiences of transport, work, home and leisure to landmark civic and political structures.

The twentieth-century heritage, particularly of the post-war period, is increasingly under threat of demolition and redevelopment and the Commission urges planners and the public to think urgently about what this means for Wales’s heritage.

It is important that disappearing buildings and landscapes from this period are recorded for future understanding alongside those of earlier periods, but we also want to recognise and celebrate the achievements of twentieth-century developments in design, architecture and technological innovation and ensure that its importance as the latest chapter in our long history can be understood and appreciated.

While some of these buildings, because of their scale, materials or complex history, may not always be easy to love at first sight, they play a vital role as a visible marker of our society’s more recent past.

To this end, the Royal Commission is recording C20 heritage at risk and formulating strategic programmes of thematic research to take forward.

RCAHMW has also been involved in the formation of C20 Cymru; the Twentieth Century Society in Wales and are looking forward to co-ordinating the twentieth-century period for the forthcoming revision of the Research Framework for the Archaeology of Wales.

Whatever your view of the County Library’s appearance, it is a marker of a period in our shared history. The library building and its sculpture represent how the architect and planners behind it saw both their time and the future.

The 2012-2017 Council, under Jamie Adams’ leadership, found the cost of redeveloping it as a cultural centre too heavy a burden only after it closed the library and shunted it into temporary accommodation.

Facilities which that administration promised to house in the building, including a community centre for young people, remain unprovided.

Since its closure, the building has remained empty; the façade slowly mouldering away. It is now up for demolition and redevelopment.

The modernist sculpture has been offered for installation elsewhere in Haverfordwest.

It remains to be seen whether anyone will accept it as a valuable reminder of Haverfordwest’s 20th-century heritage and give it the home it deserves.