Erskine Lodge

Cadw's description

Location

On the west side of upper Pwllycrochan Avenue, Colwyn Bay. North-east of and facing Pwllycrochan House.

History

Interwar period motor garage built to serve guests at Pwllycrochan House, which operated as a hotel from 1866 to 1938. Pwllycrochan Hotel was the first hotel in Colwyn Bay, run initially by John Porter (1826-1899), described in his 1899 obituary as “the father of Colwyn Bay” for his role in developing the town as a tourist destination.

Motor cars were imported to Britain in the last years of the nineteenth century as a luxury item for the aristocracy mainly used for touring. The competitor Colwyn Bay Hotel was the first in the resort to provide a motor garage for guests in 1905, followed in 1906 by the Hotel Metropole, but the Pwllycrochan Hotel still had no garage in 1914. During the First World War many people learnt to drive while on war-time service and afterwards car and motorcycle ownership came within the reach of the upper middle class. Accommodation in Erskine Lodge was likely intended for the hotel’s chauffeurs.

The Pwllycrochan hotel was advertised for many years as ‘the late residence of Lady Erskine’ so the Lodge is most likely named after Lady Silence Erskine (nee Williams), the locally born dowager of Pwllycrochan, though the name may also refer to her husband or her son, who had sold the house to developers in 1866.

During World War 2 this was one of many sites in Colwyn Bay taken over by the UK government Ministry of Food. Since then the building has been used by Rydal Penrhos Preparatory School, for janitorial services and storage, and periodically as a residence for teachers, sometimes referred to as Erskine Cottage.

Exterior

Motor garage with associated accommodation in Edwardian domestic style; roughcast over brick with brick and stone dressings, clay tiled pitched roofs. Single storeyed, but ground slopes away to rear where there is a basement level. Symmetrically composed and articulated as a series of blocks comprising main garage block with advanced entrance feature and flanking domestic units. Each element of the plan has a hipped roof, such that the roofs are architecturally dominant.

Front faces Pwllycrochan house across a field and uphill and has original vehicle entrance in central hipped gable advanced from garage block, with double doors in shallow brick arch with stone springers and keystone, and shallow curved pediment projecting above eaves. 3-light casement windows flank the doorway on both sides. Main roof over garage has two five-pane lights in the front pitch and large roof-light to rear comprising twenty vertical panes.

Domestic wings project to either side of the garage entrance. Each has a canted bay window and single-light casement to the front, and single and 2-light casement windows to the side elevations, which have projecting porch block with doorway; on left side this steps on to exterior staircase down to the rear basement rooms. One UPVC window in right side tucked in behind projecting domestic wing is a postwar insertion. Beyond the domestic wings, the main garage block which was unseen by hotel guests is less polite with blind lower level under row of eight wide horizontal small pane windows, with ground rising in a slope to the rear right corner. Single window into basement store to rear on left side with one basement door in the rear projection of the left domestic wing and another on far left of rear wall. Post war steel extractor fan unit built against rear window associated with use as a carpentry workshop.

Interior

It seems likely that as built the two domestic wings offered only a couple of rooms each, appropriate to unmarried chauffeurs and mechanics eating out of the hotel kitchens, with most of the building dominated by a wide and tall garage space lit by the large rooflights. This has now been heavily altered with a mezzanine level inserted with workshops below swallowing up much of the original floorspace. The right-side accommodation has been much expanded into a single storey flat with modernised interior extending underneath the mezzanine level.

The exposed roof structure has an unusual double frame with steel beams running in parallel but separated just below the main timbers. A large pulley wheel is suspended from the apex of the roof for hoisting engines and other parts, and the secondary steel frame may have been retrofitted shortly after construction, reflecting a lack of confidence in the timber frame supporting the roof and these heavy additional loads at the same time.

Just in front of the paired sliding doors of the entrance is a circular vehicle turntable made of timber and steel with maker’s plaque at the centre reading: ‘H & C DAVIS & Co. Ltd. ENGINEERS & FOUNDERS. CLAPHAM. LONDON.’ Not fully accessible during inspection but the turntable is reportedly still in working order so that a car parked on it can be turned by hand.

Reason for designation

Listed for special historic interest for the development of motoring in Wales and the economic development of tourism in Colwyn Bay. The design is an interesting balance of practical needs (such as generous space and provision of daylight) and concern with visual impact on the well-heeled clientele of the hotel, expressing in architecture the emerging culture of the motor car. Despite alterations the interior is still of interest for the double-roof structure and the extremely rare survival of a vehicle turntable. Group value with Pwllycrochan House.