Saturday, January 10, 2026
From ruins to a cultural centre
As the centre's website relates, the Old Guildhall (as it was known) looked quite different to today:
Built by Thomas Bowen, between 1825-1829, from designs by architect John Collingwood, the building originally had sweeping grand staircases either side of the main entrance and the building housed court rooms and smaller offices.
Beautiful as the structure was, the doubling in size of the borough through the Municipal Corporations Act (1835) meant that the building could not function to the capacity needed. Thus the decision was made to enlarge the site in 1848, with the newer version of the Guildhall completed in 1852 by William Richards to plans by architect Thomas Taylor.
As well as a more spacious building, the façade was embellished and the courtyard to the front contained a statue of the MP and industrialist John Henry Vivian, as well as two Russian canons captured during the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War.
The building functioned as the Guildhall until 1934 when the decision was taken to build an entirely new civic centre (which includes the Brangwyn Hall) near Sandfields and St Helen’s cricket ground.
In the late 1930s, following this move, the Old Guildhall became a place of education and training:
Its first role was as a juvenile employment centre; briefly interrupted when the building was requisitioned by the army for recruitment purposes during the Second World War.
From 1949 to 1969 the building returned to its former role in education: one section of the Old Guildhall was occupied by the Youth Employment Bureau and another part of the building became Swansea Technical School. Later, the space would house the College of Further Education (1960-1971) and was finally the annexe to Dynevor School (1970-1982) until the building closed in 1982.
I first came across it in the mid-1990s, when Swansea was bidding to become the city of literature. I was a non-voting member of the company board set up to organise this festival, and one of our first tasks was to establish a literature centre. When it became clear that a new build was not possible, the then West Glamorgan County Council offered us the old Guildhall.
By then the building had been uninhabited for over a decade. It was covered in graffiti and was being used as a shelter by a number of homeless people. It was also listed, so the renovation had to be carried out very carefully, essentially keeping the facade and demolishing and rebuilding everything behind it.
It re-opened in 1995 as Tŷ Llên (‘the house of literature’), the major venue for the UK Year of Literature with the ceremony being performed by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter – himself a fan of Dylan Thomas’s work.
In October 2014, the Centre launched the permanent "Love the Words" exhibition which explores Dylan's life and work through a variety of media and including letters, books, worksheets and photographs, made possible with support of nearly £1 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The Dylan Thomas Centre was also home to a year-round programme of literary events, including book launches, plays, poetry evenings, changing exhibitions and science talks and hosted the annual Dylan Thomas Festival held between Dylan’s birth and death dates, 27 October to 9 November.
