Tan-yr-Ogof Farmhouse including adjoining arch and walls to E

Cadw's description

Location

Located on the roadside approximately 100m E of the junction with Rhyd-y-Foel Road.

History

Castellated lodge conceived as a Gothic farm complex to serve Gwrych Castle. Begun for Lloyd Bamford Hesketh c1819, Gwrych Castle ranks as one of the most important castellated houses of the Picturesque in Britain. The castle and its associated lodges and park walls were designed collaboratively by the client and Thomas Rickman, the architect and architectural theorist. A castellated scheme was prepared by the architect C A Busby as early as 1814, though this was abandoned by the owner in favour of his own designs. Rickman was consulted from 1816 onwards, producing a full scheme in 1817. The foundation stone was finally laid 1819. Cast iron Perpendicular-style windows from John Cragg's Mersey Iron Foundry (where Rickman had collaborated on his iron churches at Liverpool), were incorporated in the scheme. Hesketh was still producing designs as late as the 1850s, though the main work at the castle was complete by 1822; it is likely, therefore, that the main lodges also belong to this primary phase and were included in the original overall conception. The walls in particular, are however, not of one period and represent three or more different campaigns. It is consequently probable that many of the lesser turrets and bastions were still being added well into the second half of the C19.

The farm complex probably belongs to the 1820s or 1830s and originally formed a C-shaped agricultural complex with some domestic accommodation incorporated; the farmhouse proper was the adjacent Plas Tan-yr-Ogof. The farm buildings appear to have been converted to domestic use (at least in part) already in the late C19 and have been used as the farmhouse for most of this century.

Exterior

C-shaped farmhouse of local limestone rubble with slate roofs. The house consists of a main 2-storeyed, rectangular castellated block, with mono-pitched roof to rear behind a battlemented, road-facing front. Lower gabled wings adjoin to the N enclosing a small garden area with the farmyard to the E. The main section has crenellations to the long road side and both crenellations and corbelling to the shorter E side. In the centre of the main face is a parapetted, open porch projection with blocked Tudor-arched entrance to the front and pointed-arched window to the R return; cusped head and small-pane glazing. The porch projection has a flat roof with pointed-arched opening giving onto it. At the R corner, extruded in the angle between porch and main block, is a projecting chimney in the form of a turret; sham-machicolated upper section with louvre holes. Further pointed-arched first-floor window to E return of main block, with flat-arched window below. The farmhouse entrance is presently to the rear, via a single-storey, hipped-roofed stone porch, extruded between the main block and the lower wing at L; segmental entrance and modern boarded inner door. Three 4-pane late Victorian sashes to the first floor, under the eaves. Cambered-headed modern glazed door (small pane) to R of porch with Tudor-arched brick openings beyond, the first with modern window, that beyond blocked. Further entrances to lower storeyed wing to R. The wing to the L is single storey and has a corbelled-out upper gable with modern bargeboards; modern window below. Arched windows to sides, contained within former entrances.

Adjoining the main block to the E and set back slightly from the roadside, a stepped-down section of sham-machicolated and crenellated wall. This has a large Tudor-arched entrance below, the main access to the farmyard; modern boarded half-gates. Beyond this the wall steps-down again and advances for some 6m southwards towards the road as a plain rubble wall; this terminates in a cylindrical turret with corbelled-out, though un-crenellated upper section. From the gateway the wall also continues eastwards for some 25m before returning northwards to enclose the farmyard on the E side. This section is crenellated, this has large crenellations, the merlons of which project forwards and are corbelled out.

Interior

Plain, modernised interiors.

Reason for designation

Listed Grade II* as a fine Picturesque lodge composition associated with Hesketh and Rickman's nationally important works at Gwrych Castle.