Sidney Colwyn Foulkes

[1] In 1900, aged 16, he became the family bread winner, as his father's business was declared bankrupt due to a failed speculative building development in Station Road, Colwyn Bay.

[1] His first commission after his father's bankruptcy was for a demountable pierrot stand owned by a Will Catlin, which he was initially asked to just paint, however Foulkes presented a new design and this was accepted.

[1][5] Foulkes returned to Colwyn Bay after his military service, and found work hard to come by as most development land was managed by the Pwllycrochan Estate, which exclusively employed the firm Porter and Chadwick.

During World War II, he designed a factory for the Ministry of Aircraft Production in Llandudno Junction for Radcliffe Engineering.

Foulkes argued that the lower height made the rooms better proportioned, cheaper to heat and saved several courses of bricks (which were in short supply).

[19] Clough Williams-Ellis wrote in his autobiography of Foulkes' design:[19] ...his sense of background and meticulous care for apt materials and appropriate detailing set a standard that has not been without its effect in raising those of others less sensitive than himself.His design at Beaumaris won a Ministry of Housing Bronze Medal in 1950,[20] and Elwy Estate in Rhos on Sea in 1962 won a Civic Trust Award.

[21] Further architectural work after the war included the replacement for the Aberystwyth Town Hall, which had burnt down, and The Brecon Beacons Mountain Centre.

[4] Foulkes was recommended to the British Electricity Authority by Sir Patrick Abercrombie to be the landscape consultant for the extension of the Dolgarrog power station.

Their son Ralph was also an architect, and his wife Elizabeth Colwyn Foulkes was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her work in architecture.

[24][25] On his death Clough Williams-Ellis wrote:[26][27] Whenever I could I would take distinguished visiting architects and critics (Frank Lloyd Wright and Lewis Mumford amongst them) to see both him and examples of his work – sure of their warm approval and admiration of both, in support of my own.Colwyn Foulkes is commemorated by one of a series of 12 granite "postcards" embedded into the promenade at Colwyn Bay.

[29][30] A planning application reported in October 2021 that a Foulkes-designed house on the corner of Marine Drive and College Avenue in Rhos on Sea should be demolished to make way for an apartment building and car parking resulted in calls for its preservation.