The Bryn

Cadw's description

Location

Set back from New Street and reached by a short drive with entrance lodge.

History

Sited on Brittons Hill, where an encampment was built during the Civil War in 1642-3, although John Speed's 1610 plan of Beaumaris shows an earlier house on the site. The present house was probably built in 1712, the date on a re-set tablet on the nearby Bryn Lodge, reading 'RB Mar 17 1712'. The proportions of the building and the stair support an early C18 date. Improvement in the C19 included the addition of a veranda and enlarged sash windows, which afforded commanding views of Menai Strait and the N Wales mountains. Originally the house was single-depth with projecting rear stair turret. Rear wings were added in the C19, one of which is shown on the 1829 town plan, which have obscured the original form of the building when viewed from the rear. These additional wings were all converted to separate dwellings in the second half of the C20.

Exterior

A 2½-storey 3-bay Queen Anne house with later Georgian remodelling, of pebble-dashed stone walls, painted white to the front, steep slate roof and pebble-dashed end stacks. The central doorway has replacement French doors with wooden shutters. It is flanked by tripartite windows with replacement 2-pane sashes. A hipped veranda across the entire front has renewed polygonal wooden posts, slate roof to the sides and glazed roof in the centre. The upper storey has 12-pane sash windows, hornless in the centre, and tripartite hornless sashes in the outer bays. A broad central gable has a small-pane round-headed attic window, flanked by 3-light roof dormers added in the 1940s. On the L side is a 1-storey projection, partly built into the veranda, and in the L gable end is a replacement attic window on the L side.

The veranda is wrapped around the R angle, to a C19 pebble-dashed porch, which has a replacement panel door. Above it is a 12-pane hornless sash window. Further R is Little Bryn and on the opposite side of the rear is Bryn Canol, both formerly service wings but now separate dwellings. Between them is the stair turret, which has a 12-pane horizontal-sliding sash to the upper landing, and a fixed 6-pane window to the lower landing.

Interior

The plan of the house was altered in the C19 but the original plan can be conjectured. The main entrance probably opened to the larger R-hand room, which had a stair at the rear, and parlour to the L, therefore still in the vernacular tradition. The well-preserved broad, full-height dog-leg stair has moulded newels and plain balusters. The ground floor was altered in the C19 when a corridor was created from the entrance in the gable end, with elliptical arch leading into the R-hand room. A narrow corridor led from the original entrance and both corridors converged at the stair. Most windows have C19 panelled reveals. Of 3 roof trusses visible, one has a dovetailed collar beam.

Reason for designation

Listed for its special architectural interest as an early C18 house retaining original form and detail with added C19 detail.