Bryngwenallt

Cadw's description

Location

Located on the S edge of the built up area of Abergele. The house stands well back from the road in its own landscaped grounds.

History

Mansion house built in 1867 by Richard Owens, architect of Liverpool, for the Liverpool industrialist John Roberts, father of the first Lord Clwyd. Richard Owens was surveyor to John Roberts' father, David Roberts, before starting his own practice which specialised in chapel building. Bryngwenallt is a rare surviving example of a domestic building by this prolific architect.

Exterior

Gothic style small country house. Built of snecked limestone, now partly pebbledashed and painted, with slate roofs, banded with green fish-scale slates. The entrance is set under a tall 4-storey crenellated tower with double lancets at the top stage, and a taller circular stair turret in the N corner. The door is set behind a 4-centred arch on granite nook shafts with limestone capitals. Above a canted stone-framed oriel balcony. Mullioned and transomed timber windows with external staff mouldings throughout. The wing to the left of the entrance tower has been replaced with an arcaded yard; to the right, a 2 storey and attic range, terminating in a short wing with a 5-light canted oriel window overlooking the garden, set over cross windows on the ground floor. This, the SE garden elevation, has a canted window in the gabled second bay, and a recessed and raised open timber verandah of 4 bays with balcony to the first floor, at the NE end. The gable end facing NE, containing the main drawing room, has a 2-storey canted bay with cross plate glass windows, the top of which is crenellated under the gable. The wing on the NW contains the grand stair, which has stained glass in trefoil headed lights within the third gable, and an open verandah overlooking the garden.

Interior

Not accessible at time of inspection (1997) but said to retain a broad stone staircase.

Reason for designation

Included, despite the loss of one corner, as a notable example of a mid-Victorian industrialist's mansion and as a house designed by a significant chapel architect.