Coach-house and adjoining Entrance Arch to Plas Brondanw Gardens

Cadw's description

Location

Located 100m S of Plas Brondanw at the eastern boundary of its garden and facing the lane to the W; partly-cobbled and partly-flagged court to NE.

History

C19 or earlier coach-house altered and enlarged by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, architect and owner of the Brondanw estate; currently in use as a gardeners' office and tool shed. The gardens were laid out to the owner's designs in various stages between his inheritance of the estate in 1908 and his death in 1978. He created here one of Wales' most impressive gardens distinctive for its interlinked terraces, compartments and axial vistas that are aligned on the surrounding mountains of Moel Hebog, Moelwyn, Cnicht and Snowdon.

Exterior

L-shaped coachhouse of rubble construction, with steeply-pitched, graded small-slate roof and tiled ridge; feathered eaves. 2-stage wooden cupola to centre of main block, its boarded lower half with lozenge-glazed rectangular panels and painted clockfaces; octagonal open arched lantern to upper stage with sloped copper roof and surmounting ball finial. The main section has 2 round-arched entrances to the SE (lane-facing) side, with deeply-recessed boarded double doors. The garden side has an arched entrance with steps up to a recessed, part-glazed door and a tall, 10-pane window to the L; the SW gable has a tall arched loading bay with boarded oak doors and a CWE eagle cartouche (for Clough Williams-Ellis), in reconstituted stone, above; 9-pane recessed window to L. The subsidiary section is lower and partly overlaps the NE gable of the main block to form a gabled cross-wing advanced to the lane side. Round-arched entrance as before to its lane-facing gable, with cement-stone lion mask above; to the R a small, square light. The long NE side has a deeply-recessed oak boarded door to a round-arched entrance and an 8-pane casement to the R; beyond, a wide, plain opening with boarded double doors. The upper gable of the main block is slated and feathered onto the NE pitch of the lower wing's roof; within is a segmental window with intersecting tracery.

Adjoining flush with the lower wing's front, lane-facing gable is a high rubble wall; this hides the R roof pitch of the advanced wing and continues to the R to form an arch; projecting rubble keystone, plain rivetted iron gates with shaped top.

Interior

Plain interior.

Reason for designation

Listed as an integral feature of the nationally important gardens laid out at Plas Brondanw by Clough Williams-Ellis.