Wynnstay Arms

Cadw's description

Location

In the village of Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant at the north-east side of the B4580, close to the junction with Park Street.

History

A large hotel built for the Wynnstay Estate c.1850. George Borrow described a visit in 1854 to this 'structure built in the modern Gothic style'.

The hotel has been much enlarged at the north and east, and there is a low-pitched single-storey lean-to at the east side and a flat-roofed single storey extension at the west side.

Exterior

A large two-storey hotel of carefully balanced irregular design in domestic Tudor gothic, with prominent gables and with its eaves lines broken by pseudo-dormers. The masonry (probably of local stone) is roughcast and painted white, except for later red-brick additions at rear. Slate roofs with laced slating in the valleys, tile ridges. Yellow-brick chimneys with octagonal shafts, heavily moulded, the shafts in groups of two or three. There are deep and boldly projecting open-carved bargeboards, some with apex finials.

The front of the hotel faces south to the village street. This consists of a large gable to the left matched by a eaves-fronted bay to the right, separated by an advancing two-storey gabled porch. The west side elevation is of four windows, with an advancing gable offcentre to the right. The east side elevation is of two windows, with an advancing gable to the left, and a later additional red-brick bay and an additional low red-brick wing to the north. The windows are all of two or three lights with timber mullions and transoms painted black. Low modern extensions at left and right of the front elevation, rendered and painted white. The porch has similar three-light side windows and a boarded Tudor door at front. Hanging sign (Wynnstay Arms) in the porch gable.

Reason for designation

A C19 Tudor style hotel for the Wynnstay Estate which notwithstanding some alteration at rear exhibits a marked picturesqueness in both planning and detail characteristic of the buildings of this estate.