Coach house & stable block at Gyrn Castle

Cadw's description

Location

On the W side of the house.

History

The present Gyrn Castle was built for John Douglas, a Holywell cotton manufacturer, in the period 1817-24, and was an enlargement of an earlier house. The house was subsequently bought by Sir Edward Bates, a Liverpool merchant and ship owner. The coach house and stable block, also incorporating offices and domestic lodgings, was erected in the third quarter of the C19 and first shown on the 1871 Ordnance Survey. It replaced an earlier large range shown here on the 1839 Tithe map. It is possibly by the Liverpool architects Culshaw & Sumners, who received other estate commissions at Gyrn.

Exterior

A long E-W central range with parallel ranges built to the L and R sides to create a symmetrical U-shaped S-facing front. Of rubble stone with slate roofs. The central range has a hipped roof with ball finials. Facing the front it retains arches of 2 openings for coaches, but beneath them a wide opening under a timber lintel has been inserted, while the former loft above has 3 inserted half dormers and stone stack to the R. The wings both have stone cupolas with swept caps to the outer ends of their roofs. The wing on the L side, facing the small courtyard, has 2 boarded doors and a horizontal-sliding sash window on the L side, all under segmental stone heads. In the upper storey is an octagonal window incorporating a casement to the L, and a polygonal-headed shuttered opening to the R. The outer (L) angle of the wing is rounded in the lower storey. Behind (W) this wing is an added stable lean-to. Facing S it has a stable door to the L, a horizontal-sliding sash to the centre and an inserted top-hung casement upper R. The rear has a stable door and is extended on the L (N) side in brick behind the central range.

The wing on the R side of the central range is similar. It has 2 boarded doors and horizontal sash window, above which is a polygonal-headed shuttered opening upper R and a small inserted similar opening upper L. Its S wall has 2 narrow vents below the eaves. Its added rear lean-to has, in the S wall, a stable door with horizontal-sliding sash to the L, while the E wall has a single segmental-headed sash window. Further R (N) is an integral higher 2-storey single-bay wing built partly against the end wall of the central range. It has a boarded door lower L, and L of the abutting courtyard wall, and a fixed small-pane iron-framed window upper centre. A stack rises from the eaves at the NE angle. The rear of the central range has 2 inserted half dormers, a sash window R of centre, while a similar window L of centre is replaced by a doorway in a half-glazed porch. A modern hay store projects from the R-hand (W) end.

Reason for designation

Listed, notwithstanding alteration to the central range, as a large outbuilding retaining considerable archhitectural character, and as an integral component of the well-preserved service buildings associated with Gyrn Castle.