Laugharne Corporation - Laugharne, Carmarthenshire, Wales.
N 51° 46.207 W 004° 27.739
30U E 399100 N 5736482
Laugharne's town hall & clock tower dated 1896, stands in the centre of this pretty Georgian town. The Town Hall is still used for meetings of the Laugharne Corporation, one of the last remaining medieval corporations in the World.
Waymark Code: WMQBZ9
Location: South Wales, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 02/01/2016
Views: 1
Laugharne Town Hall is a fine 18th century building on the main street of Laugharne. The clock tower dominates the town skyline, The tower is whitewashed to make it waterproof, but the rest of the building is painted with pastel colours.
The Laugharne Corporation plaque is mounted just to right of the front entrance of the Town Hall. The Plaque reads;
"LAUGHARNE CORPORATION /
The Town Hall is the home of / Laugharne Corporation / Founded in 1297 with a charter granted by / Sir Guy de Brion the Younger / The Corporation is presided over by a Portreeve & a Grand jury of Twenty
-One Burgesses / which meets here every fortnight. /
The Corporation is a registered Charity / It owns property in and around the Township / the income from which is given / to good causes in Laugharne."
"In 1290 this West Wales township became the best place in Britain for an ordinary person to live. These benefits shape its history even today.
When Laugharne Corporation was created way back in 1290 it must have seemed like Christmas for the ordinary people of the place. They were now free men, they could elect their own leader – hundreds of years before this happened in the rest of Britain – and they shared in the use and ownership of the Corporation’s lands and properties." Text Source; (
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"Laugharne is a small town on the estuary of the River Taf which joins the estuaries of the Towy and Gwendraeth before entering Carmarthen Bay. It is probably best known today as the home of the poet Dylan Thomas who lived in the town from 1949 until his death in New York in 1953. His grave can be seen in the churchyard. The boat house where he wrote much of his later work can be seen and many believe that Llaregub, the town in Under Milk Wood was based on Lauugharne. Brown's Hotel contains one of the bars where Dylan drank on a daily basis.' Text source; (
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"Laugharne is one of only two places in Britain to still have an open field system, a system once common in Europe where large fields were farmed in strips by the 76 most senior burgesses. This is governed by Laugharne Corporation, set up by Sir Guy de Brian in 1291 and the office of Portreeve is equivalent to a mayor and his chain of office is made up of gold cockleshells reflecting the village's past cockle picking industry. The Portreeve is elected annually and each incumbent adds another solid gold cockleshell to the chain". Great Photos & Text Source: (
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