AS featured last week, two of Llandrindod’s finest buildings are celebrating their 100th birthdays this year with a milestone coming up in 2012 for another famous Llandrindod landmark.
Alongside the Radnorshire Museum, which is also commemorating its 100th birthday this year, the visually stunning Automobile Palace is still a major attraction in the spa town of Llandrindod Wells and stands out as a fine example of 20th century architecture.
Now in its centenary year, the name of its creator, Tom Norton, is still emblazoned on its frontage, facing out onto the modern-day Fiveways roundabout.
Discussed in a feature which appeared in the Motorsport magazine in July 1963, Tom Norton was born in Newtown in 1870, one of 14 children.
A keen cyclist, Tom frequently rode from Newtown to Llandrindod Wells and was impressed by the large buildings that were going up in the fashionable spa town.
He opened a cycle retail outlet in the Old Market Hall in the High Street in 1899, not far from the railway station.
By 1904 Tom guaranteed repairs and puncture repairs free for a year for all bicycles sold in the first three years of business.
Not only that, he gave return rail fare to nay customer living within a 100 mile radius.
He turned his attention to motorcycles and automobiles at the turn of the century, becoming an agent for companies such as Singer, Swift, Sunbeam, Daimler, Ariel and Excelsior.
But as his business expanded he found he needed more room and so acquired land on Temple Street in 1906 at the high price of £1 per square yard.
Tom went on to be appointed a Ford distributor and sold the first ‘Model T’ in Wales.
In 1911, Norton built what we now know as the Autopalace, but was then called The Palace of Sports. The cost was in the region of £11,000.
The building was designed by architect Wellington Thomas and trading under the name of Tom Norton Ltd, it had a capacity for 80 cars over 11,056-square-feet.
Originally built in two halves, the right-hand side was completed in 1919.
Tom ran the Austin agency for the whole of Wales in 1919 including that of Ferguson Tractors. He had the building enlarged to three times its previous size in the same style, constructed in reinforced concrete by Hobourgh and Co, contractors of Gloucester.
The two-storey building had nine bays, art deco fronting, 22 lion sedants, shields and egg-and-dart moulded cornices - a stunning piece of architecture for the town to this day.
It also had some of the earliest petrol tanks in Wales below the forecourt pumps.
The Motorsport article queries why the word ‘aircraft’ is still written on the front of the building.
Well, in 1913/14 Tom Norton invited the great Gustav Hamel down to give aeronautical demonstrations from the Ddole field or the old race course, below the Rock Park Hotel.
In 1933 the Automobile Palace sponsored interest in flying by arranging for Sir Alan Cobham’s Circus to give air displays from the same field.
Universal Air Services Ltd hoped to run regular air services, the article says, including their 275-horse power Rolls Royce Falcon-engined Bristol Fighter - a company also celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. The last flying display was held in 1937.
Wholly integral to the automotive industry in the area, the Automobile Palace started one of the first bus services in Wales in 1906, between Llandrindod Wells and Newtown.
It also operated the ‘Colonel Bogey’ which took golfers up to the golf club, an open-bodied Model T Ford later replaced by an early Chevrolet. The service operated until 1945.
Alongside the Museum and the Automobile Palace, the Pavilion is fast approaching its 100th birthday, coming up in 2012.