Laura Place

William Edward Powell was a landowner and Conservative politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Cardiganshire from 1816 until shortly before his death in 1854. He was made High Sheriff in 1810 and Lord Lieutenant of Cardiganshire in 1817. He lived at Nanteos and developed Laura Place in the 1820s; No. 11 being the Powell townhouse in Aberystwyth and No. 12 serving as the estate office. The remainder was speculative building development. Powell engaged George Stanley Repton to design the Assembly Rooms, intended as a gathering place for the fashionable visitors to Regency Aberystwyth. The town was developed throughout the 19th century as a seaside resort, and was publicised…

Thomas Lloyd, Julian Orbach and Robert Scourfield, in their Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion volume in the Pevsner Buildings of Wales series, describe Laura Place as comprising "the finest Georgian houses of the town." Cadw considers it a "striking and unusual example of sophisticated urban Georgian building". The houses are of two storeys, with attics and basements, and with roofs of Welsh slate. No.s 1-9, and No.s 11 and 12 Laura Place are each separately designated by Cadw, the statutory body with responsibility for the listing of buildings in Wales, as a Grade II* listed building. The Assembly Rooms are also listed at Grade II*.