Founded in 1902, the Mostyn Art Gallery in Llandudno has had a somewhat chequered history. It was originally the offspring of an idiosyncratic, aristocratic, quasi-feminist initiative. Peeved by the refusal of the nearby Royal Cambrian Academy to admit female members, Lady Augusta Mostyn had the place built purely so that works by members of the Gwynedd Ladies’ Art Society could be exhibited in public. But the First World War soon put a stop to their artistic activities and the gallery itself was requisitioned as a drill hall.

Its use changed many times over the next fifty years or so. It served, variously, as a Post Office, a showroom for pianos and organs and a novelty goods shop. But by the mid-1970s it had been turned once again into a public art gallery, albeit one with a considerably broader remit than that of its earliest incarnation. As “Oriel Mostyn” it quietly established a reputation as one of the few truly enterprising galleries showing contemporary art in North Wales.

In 2007 it was closed again, this time for reasons not of war but of increased civic ambition. Having secured a lottery award from the Arts Council of Wales, as well as additional funding from Llandudno Town Council and a number of other benefactors, director Martin Barlow and his team set out not only to refurbish the gallery but, in effect, to reinvent it.

Last week “The Mostyn”, as it is henceforth to be known, opened its doors to the public once more. A little over five million pounds has been spent on the redevelopment, carried out with flair and sensitivity by Ellis Williams Architects, whose track record also includes the conversion of a disused flour mill into Gateshead’s now-flourishing Baltic Centre.

In Llandudno, the Edwardian facade of Lady Augusta Mostyn’s building has...

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