CofGâr's story began long before a county museums service existed. Two museums in our care have been welcoming visitors for over a century. But all CofGâr museums are strongly embedded in their communities throughout Carmarthenshire.

The core of the CofGâr collection dates back to the foundation of the Carmarthenshire Antiquarian Society in Carmarthen in 1905. Local antiquarians such as George Eyre Evans and E.V. Collier were very active in collecting objects with significance to Carmarthenshire's history (and to histories elsewhere) that they displayed in the society rooms in Quay Street until the 1920s. Storage space quickly became a problem, with collections later being housed in 9 Bridge Street, as well as in 4 and 5 Quay Street. Eventually, in 1940, the collection was transferred to the ownership of Carmarthenshire County Council in 1940. 

However, by the 1970s, the Museum building in Quay Street was deemed too small to store such a large and diverse collection that had continued to grow since becoming a local authority museum. Therefore, a new home for the museum was found in the Old Bishop's Palace of St David's, just outside of Carmarthen in the little village of Abergwili. This large, Grade II listed building has been the home of Carmarthenshire Museum ever since, which now cares for the vast majority of the county's cultural heritage.

During the same period (in 1911), Bryncaerau Castle in Llanelli was purchased from the local Buckley family by Sir Stafford and Lady Howard, who gifted the mansion and the grounds to the town as a museum and public park. They opened to the public a year later, in September 1912, on the occasion of Sir Stafford and Lady Howard's first wedding anniversary. The founding collection consisted of paintings from their private collection that established the renamed Parc Howard Museum as a home of fine art from Wales. Donations to the museum expanded the collection to include other objects, especially ceramics from Llanelly Pottery, which closed in 1921. The museum and grounds were eventually purchased by Llanelli Borough Council in 1965.

The museum only joined the newly re-formed Carmarthenshire County Council museums service in 1996 following a local authority reorganisation. Now, the museum showcases the world's largest collection of Llanelly Pottery, as well as a superb collection of paintings and objects that illustrate the social history of the town.