A birthday present, a year late
On 15 July 1873, Viscount Castlereagh — Charles Stewart Vane-Tempest, son of the 5th Marquess of Londonderry of Plas Machynlleth — came of age, and the town resolved to mark the occasion in stone. Money was raised by public subscription, and the foundation stone of the new clock tower was laid exactly a year later, on 15 July 1874, the ceremony having been delayed by a family bereavement. It was a very Victorian gesture: a town's gift to the great family at the Plas, planted not in their parkland but at the busiest crossroads in Machynlleth, where everyone would see it every day. A century and a half on, everyone still does — the tower marked its 150th anniversary in 2024.
Henry Kennedy's 23.7-metre design
The tower was designed by the architect Henry Kennedy and rises 23.7 metres above the junction of Maengwyn Street and Penrallt Street — a soaring height for a town of this size, which is precisely the point. It is now Grade II listed, and it utterly dominates the townscape: as the old guidebooks liked to say, it is a prominent landmark from whichever direction you travel. Machynlleth has been known ever since as “the town with the clock”, and the tower has become the shorthand image of the town, appearing on everything from postcards to festival posters. For the story of the family that inspired it — and the mansion and free park they left to the town in 1948 — see our Y Plas page; for the town's longer story, start with the history page.
The sums were briskly Victorian: the tower cost around £800, the subscription raised nearer £1,000, and the surplus went on planting trees along the town's streets. Kennedy came from Bangor, and the vertical, faintly ecclesiastical lines betray a busy church architect. One oddity: the plaque records 1873, the year of the birthday, not 1874, when the stonework went up.
Market day at its feet
The tower is at its liveliest on a Wednesday, when the weekly market spreads along Maengwyn Street below it. Around 50 traders set up from morning until roughly mid-afternoon, continuing a tradition that goes back to the charter of 1291, by which Edward I granted Owen de la Pole “a market at Machynlleth every Wednesday for ever”. The combination — a Victorian tower presiding over a medieval market — sums the town up in a single view, and it is the classic Machynlleth photograph. The surrounding streets hold a fine run of independent shops, cafés and pubs, so the clock makes a natural meeting point for a day exploring the town.
Photographing the tower
The tower rewards a slow circuit. The long, straight run of Maengwyn Street gives the classic head-on view, with the tower closing the vista at the end of the street — especially effective on market day, when stalls and awnings lead the eye towards it. From Penrallt Street you get the tighter, more dramatic upward angle, and because the tower stands at an open junction rather than hemmed in by buildings, you can walk right around it and watch the light move across its faces through the day. Early and late light tends to flatter the stonework; after dark, the lit clock faces glow above the quiet junction.
Two notes: there is traffic on three sides, so shoot from the pavements a little way back up each street; and those Victorian street trees are mature now, so late autumn to early spring gives the cleanest lines.
What else stands at the crossroads
The tower is the exclamation mark on one of the best-preserved small-town streetscapes in Mid Wales. Machynlleth has around 113 listed buildings — one Grade I, six Grade II*, the rest Grade II — most strung along Heol Maengwyn and Heol Penrallt within a few minutes of the clock. Immediately south is the listed White Lion Hotel (see our pubs page); two former bank buildings are listed nearby, one down Maengwyn Street and one on the Penrallt Street corner; and the listed war memorial marks the Penrallt Street junction. Round the corner, where Penrallt meets the Garsiwn, stands the Grade II* Royal House, and a short walk east brings you to Owain Glyndŵr's Parliament House. A town hall built on Penrallt Street in 1872 was declared unsafe and demolished in 1968.
The Londonderry mark on Machynlleth
The clock is the most visible trace of a family that shaped the town for two generations. It began with a marriage: in 1846 Mary Cornelia Edwards, heiress of the Plas, married Viscount Seaham, later 5th Marquess of Londonderry. Her father Sir John Edwards had from about 1840 begun creating a grand landscape park around the house, and the Londonderrys carried it on — 40 acres of park, four acres of formal gardens, a cruciform rose garden, ponds and an ice-house, all now Grade II on the Cadw register. Royal visitors planted trees in the grounds in 1896 and 1911. The family's last act was the generous one: in December 1948 the 7th Marquess handed the mansion and grounds to the townspeople, the Town Council taking ownership of the buildings in 2008. That is why the park at Y Plas is free to walk in today; more of the era is on our history page.
Practical Information
The clock tower stands at the junction of Maengwyn Street and Penrallt Street in the centre of Machynlleth, and can of course be viewed at any time, free. The railway station is around five minutes' walk away, and the Maengwyn Street pay-and-display car park (long stay, with disabled bays) is close by — on Wednesdays the market fills the street, so allow extra time and consider arriving by train or bus. The Parliament House, a few minutes' walk along Maengwyn Street, is open Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, 10.30am–3.30pm, and makes the obvious pairing for a historic hour in town.
Day trips