Victoria Terrace, Beaumaris
This prominent building facing the Menai Strait was designed by Edward Welch and Joseph Hansom. The latter achieved fame with his Hansom cab, one of the most popular horse-drawn vehicles of the Victorian era. Please respect the residents’ privacy as you view the terrace.
Victoria Terrace was built by the Corporation of Beaumaris in 1830-33 to attract wealthier people to the town. It comprised 10 houses, each with three storeys, an attic and a basement. The upper image, courtesy of the National Library of Wales, is from an engraving titled “The View of Beaumaris and of the New Terrace Buildings on the Green”, indicating that it dates from the 1830s.
One Victorian resident was Lt-Col William Hugh Thomas, chief constable of Anglesey for c.20 years. He died in 1896. No.10 was once the second home of Peter Allen (d.1892), a proprietor of the Manchester Evening News and Manchester Guardian. His daughter Margaret founded, with the help of friends, the Allen Library in Beaumaris in 1889, a free library in the Cocoa House with an initial 200 books.
After the First World War the houses here were larger than people wanted and slowly fell into disrepair. Businessman Thomas Tattersall, who had moved to Beaumaris, wanted to save the building and bought it from the corporation. At his request, architect Sidney Colwyn Foulkes drew up plans to double the number of residential units in the terrace by building a raised walkway at the rear and leaving the frontage unchanged.
The alterations were completed in 1937. The lower 10 units are accessed through the original front entrances. In the rear half of the terrace, the floor splits into two, bedrooms on an upper, mezzanine level. At the lower level are a kitchen and bathroom and access to the shared open space behind the rear terrace.
The upper 10 units are accessed from the rear walkway and occupy the second, third and attic storeys. Beyond the communal garden, Sidney provided a long mews building: garages at the lower level, stores and washhouses above. A walkway linked each end of this to the raised walkway serving the upper units. His radical designs weren’t cheap to build but they saved the landmark building – now listed Grade 1 – from demolition.
With thanks to Adam Voelcker
Postcode: LL58 8BU View Location Map
 |
  |