Stansty Park with attached Garden Gateway

Cadw's description

Location

At the northern end of the triangular enclosure of parkland immediately W of Mold Road.

History

An estate at Stansty was assembled during the C16 by the Edwardes family, and the present house, then apparently known as Plas Issa, was built by David Edwardes in 1577 (Palmer refers to dated wainscotting). This house formed the principal seat of the estate until the early C19, when the parkland in which it sits was laid out, and a new house, Stansty Park, built 1830-2 by the then owner of the estate, Richard Thompson, ironmaster and colliery owner. This C19 house was demolished c1920, and its name is now used by the present building, which has been divided into 6 flats.

Exterior

Possibly originally H-plan, though with one wing rebuilt or encased c1800. Rubble (well coursed and squared to porch, which may therefore be a later addition) with some brick in the first floor to the rear, the apex of the cross wing, and the later range); slate roof, with axial stack to rear of main range, and side wall stack to cross wing, both with massive ribbed brick shafts; axial stack to later wing, raised in height in later C19. Entrance front faces S: comprises main range with high cross wing to left, and lower later range to right. Main range has storeyed porch to its right. Roll moulded lintel over doorway with moulded architrave, and 4-pane window in moulded stone architrave above it. Windows in main range are large insertions (wood mullioned and transomed lights with concrete rendered quoins), and there are similar windows in the gabled cross wing (which is not advanced) to the left. Lower W wing forms a symmetrical pavilion facing E, with advanced pedimented central block and flanking bays: hipped roof, with blind windows to E elevation, and inserted windows elsewhere, though using earlier openings with flat-arched brick heads. Rear elevation has later extensions obscuring part of the main range and cross wing (the earliest of which may be early C19), but in its angle with the later E wing (and therefore aligned with the storeyed porch to the S) is a hollow chamfered segmentally arched doorway. A 2-light ovolo moulded mullioned window in the rear of the cross wing is probably re-cut or re-sited.

Adjoining the house to the SW is the garden gateway, possibly previously associated with the early C19 house of Stansty Park: fluted Doric piers with bases and enriched capitals carry a heavy entablature.

Reason for designation

Although altered, the house retains much of the character of a large sub-medieval house built on an ambitious scale and of some quality.