C20 Society has submitted a listing application for the Welsh Wildlife Centre in Pembrokeshire, following new proposals that would have a detrimental impact on the thoughtfully composed and extremely high quality example of early eco-modernism.

Designed by architect Niall Phillips in 1993-94, the Centre was featured in our recent Coming of Age campaign, highlighting 10 outstanding buildings from across the UK that turned 30 years old in 2024, and in doing so passed the age threshold whereby they’re eligible for national listing consideration at Grade II.

‘Sustainable use of natural resources’

The idea of a Welsh Wildlife Centre was conceived in 1992 when the Dyfed Wildlife Trust purchased a 39 acre parcel of land close to the Afon (river) Teifi and the Teifi Marshes Nature Reserve. The site was once a partly industrial landscape, with the Cilgerran area a major centre for slate quarrying in the late 18th and 19th centuries.

The Dyfed Wildlife Trust set a brief for the project and requested a visitor centre that would accommodate exhibition areas, a restaurant, shop, classroom and field laboratory, along with staff and ancillary facilities. The Trust wanted an “all-purpose, all-weather main visitor building” that would be “site-sensitive in appearance, energy-efficient in operation and a working example of [the] sustainable use of natural resources.”

A number of architects were invited to tender for the job and to present concept designs to the Trust. This led to Niall Phillips Architects, a Bristol-based practice, being selected for the project. The project team included Niall Phillips as partner in charge, Peter Roberts as project architect and Gavin Birt as architect.

Bird hides and branches

Work began on site at Cilgerran in July 1993 and the Centre was completed in March 1994. Building to a curved plan which follows the topography of the escarpment, and upwards rather than outwards to reduce the building’s footprint, it appears to nestle into the landscape. The Centre’s north range is built entirely from timber, with a Douglas-fir structure clad in untreated-oak lapped boarding and covered with a curved shingle roof. The materials and detailing referencing the simple bird hide structures found on the nature reserve, with this elevation largely concealed from view.

Strongly contrasting with this, the south range is a large glazed volume which sits on a battered slate plinth, offering unrestricted views across the valley and visually opening the building up to this landscape. The plinth level accommodates the inward-looking teaching spaces and offices, while the two glazed storeys clad in flush Pilkington Planar™ glass, contain the sociable exhibition area, shop and café. The structure comprises tree-like timber columns that are braced by pairs of struts akin to branches, supporting radiating timber trusses and curved purlins.

The main approach and way of entering the building from the north is deliberately understated. The idea being that upon entering via a low-key doorway, the visitor is surprised and delighted by the expansive, elevated views over the gentle, enclosed meadow valley to the east and south.

‘The health and beauty of Wales’

It was described in the AJ at the time of opening as “a triumph, heightening the experience of a landscape of exceptional richness, and worthy of becoming part of the heritage it is designed to serve.” Writing for the Independent, Jonathan Glancey also praised the Wildlife Centre: “Niall Phillips […] has shown how modest new buildings can fit snugly into the landscape without the slightest pretence of being olde worlde…[he] has designed a building rooted in the landscape that borrows from no local style, yet seems right for its remote setting. Here old and new building technologies meet in easy comradeship: rough timber construction alongside a glass wall held together with silicone joints.”

The local Llanelli Star proclaimed the Centre “a living representation of the health and beauty of Wales…[it] is one of the most significant reclamation works of this decade, breathing life into choking reedbeds, creating new habitats out of industrial soil, resurrecting traditions on the verge of extinction, developing nurseries and a spawning ground for the conservationists of tomorrow.”

It went on to be awarded The Royal Society of Architects in Wales Building of the Year.

Eligible for national listing

In 2024 new proposals to expand and significantly alter the Centre were submitted by the Wildlife Trust of South & West Wales and their architects Child Sulzmann, and conditionally approved by by Pembrokeshire County Council. The scheme would be funded by by National Lottery Heritage Fund, with additional crowfdfunding so far generated £1,400 towards a £10,000 total.

The plans include an extension at lower ground level to the west, with stairs to an open terrace and new public entrance beneath a timber canopy at ground floor level; the demolition and reconstruction of the footbridge at first floor level on the north elevation; the insertion of two new sets of double timber-framed doors to the south elevation; and the introduction of a ‘brise soleil’ to the south and west elevations comprising horizontal timber ‘fins’ or slats and steel columns attached to the building’s elevations. It is the Society’s view that these alterations, particularly the ‘brise soleil’ to the south, will have a seriously detrimental impact on the building and their need is questionable.

This is an exceptionally high quality building which intelligently and sensitively responds to the historic and ecologically rich landscape it is located within. The Centre survives in excellent condition, having undergone very little change since it was completed. We urge Cadw to assess the building and to designate it at Grade II.