Bryn Taff, 67 Cardiff Road

Cadw's description

Location

Opposite Howell’s School on east side of Cardiff Road, overlooking Llandaff Fields to the rear.

History

Built 1886 as home of Charles Sankey (1834-1892) by local architects Halliday and Anderson, the firm of George Eley Halliday (1857-1922) who was also surveyor for the Archdeaconry of Llandaff. Sold in 1892 to the draper David Morgan (1833-1919).

Charles Sankey was a Cardiff grocer specialising in Italian imports. After his brother’s early death, he sponsored the education of his nephew Viscount John Sankey (1866-1948) who became Lord Chancellor in the second Ramsay Macdonald government and drafted the constitution of the Church in Wales. Halliday and Anderson also built the larger Oaklands next door at 69 as a property for Sankey to rent out. The approved plans for Bryn Taff had the coach house and service wing on the right and the main body of the house on the left, but these were completely reversed as built. After Sankey’s death both 67 and 69 were sold at auction and advertised as ‘most substantially built, fitted throughout with plate glass windows, commodious and well-arranged and form very desirable high-class residences’.

David Morgan was born in Battle, Breconshire, on a hill farm named Cae Crwn from which his family was later evicted. He became a draper’s apprentice in Newport in 1847 and worked as a shop assistant in London and Birmingham before starting his own first shop in Rhymney in 1858 in competition with the company shop of the Rhymney Iron Company. He opened further draper’s shops in Pontlottyn later in 1858 and Abertillery in 1875. He was unusual in his industry for strict use of fixed prices and fixed opening hours, believing customers needed to be trained out of haggling and late-night shopping. He was also a fastidious businessman known for aphorisms such as ‘a pin saved is money made’. Besides his drapery business he was an early and heavy investor in local gas infrastructure. In 1874 he bought Llanbrynean Farm where his elderly father was the tenant and later rebuilt it as a model farm for his brother William and family (see Listed Building 87711).

David Morgan’s commercial empire arrived in Cardiff in 1879 when he purchased a shop at 23 The Hayes. With the rising fortunes of Cardiff this steadily expanded along the Hayes and to the rear, clearing out an area of slum housing and brothels. The premises were rebuilt in phases developing into the large David Morgan Department Store and the Morgan Arcade connecting the Hayes to St Mary Street, both largely complete by 1912. His chief rival in Cardiff was James Howell (1835-1909) just to the north whose store began on St Mary Street and expanded towards the Hayes in a similar timeframe.

Morgan lived on the premises of his shops from his teenage apprenticeship until he moved into Bryn Taff aged 59. He initially lived with his son, a nephew and a niece, May Morgan of Llanbrynean, who attended Howell’s school over the road where David Morgan became a governor. David Morgan made alterations to Bryn Taff including the addition of a mezzanine floor containing a billiard room, these works completed before 1898. In 1913 Morgan was drawn into a conflict over the practice of ‘living in’ with the National Amalgamated Union of Shop Assistants, who eventually won the option for shop workers to ‘live out’ and receive their whole salary in cash rather than partly in food and lodgings above the shop.

David Morgan died at Bryn Taff aged 85. His journey from rags to riches was also one from Welsh-speaking Calvinistic Methodism to English-speaking Anglicanism and he is buried in Llandaff cemetery. The tower and bells of St Meugan’s Llanfeugan were restored in his honour in 1921.

Bryn Taff was requisitioned for use by the Post Office during World War 2 and shortly after the Morgan family sold it to Howell’s School, which used it for both teaching and boarding until the 21st century. David Morgan’s Department Store on the Hayes closed in 2005.

Exterior

Large Domestic Revival style three storey house in Flemish bond red brick with slate roofs with some half-timber facings and hanging tiles. Original plate glass sash windows with blind boxes. Originally single storey service wing with coach house and scullery on left, modified by the addition of a mezzanine billiard room over this service wing. Main house has pitched roof with open gable to front and rear on right, crosswing with open gable to left overlooking service wing and slide down to north corner with shallower pitch from second floor level to the mezzanine. Attached coach house with pitched roof and hayloft with open gable to front and shallower pitch to sides. Valley roof between main house and coach house concealed by parapet. Tall chimney stacks to four corners of the main house and middle stack at roof apex.

Front elevation to main house three bays. Right bay has projecting bay window to ground floor with parapeted balcony to first floor room. Central porch in brick and timber with pitched slate roof and open front gable with half timbering. Left bay recessed at first floor level with monopitch slate roof in front. Clay hanging tiles with fish scale bands to open upper gable. To left coach house doors are now fixed timber and ribbon glazing. Shallow brick arches with drip moulds over first floor windows.

Right elevation with projecting chimney breasts and glazing restricted to central bay. Rear right projection with monopitch slate roof to dining room. Modern exterior fire escape staircase across rear elevation descends from open upper gable via landings at first floor and mezzanine levels.

Mezzanine at rear left corner covers half of the service wing and projects out to rear of building. Mezzanine has hipped roof at front corners and two open gables projecting out on either side to rear. Middle section of mezzanine roof has large lantern with pitched slate roof open to short sides. Mezzanine sides to upper floor faced in Tudor-style half timbering with lower brick band in common bond below windowsill height. Overhang rests on expressed horizontal steel joists supported by four Corinthian styled steel columns with middle banding atop brick piers.

London style blue plaque commemorating David Morgan added to front by his descendants in 2013.

Interior

Internal layout is as in Halliday and Anderson’s plans with five bedrooms to first floor and three servants’ rooms above, with a remarkable amount of late-Victorian detailing still in place. Entrance hall has fine stone fireplace with Tudor arch opening with mantle in form of a crenelated parapet and hipped roof with central shield engraved ‘CS’ for Charles Sankey the first owner. Dining room to rear in the east corner of the building has square oak wall panelling with central panel over fireplace carved with Morgan coat of arms of three boars heads, a sword and five lozenges, crest of claw holding a severed hand and motto ‘Dyfalbarhad’ (‘perseverance’). Tudor arch fireplace below has small shields at corners with initials ‘DMB’ and ‘EWM’. Geometric tracery plaster ceiling. Similar oak wainscoting and door and fireplace frames to morning room in front west corner. Panelled walls to drawing room and fireplace.

Mezzanine billiard room has oak wainscoting and fireplace surround, lead framed small pane glazing with stained panels with initials of the Morgan family. Lantern stained glass incorporates a quotation from George Herbert (1593-1633): ‘Play not for gain, but sport. Who plays for more than he can lose with pleasure stakes his heart.’

Oak staircase interrupted by modern doors inserted on landings, with wine cellar below. Double floor height coal store extending below the ground floor at rear north corner, coal chute intact internally. Deep Tudor arch doorways to the two largest bedrooms on first floor. Former coach house partitioned internally to create a side boiler room. David Morgan’s Turkish bath sadly lost.

Reason for designation

Bryn Taff is of special interest and Listed at Grade II for the following principle reasons:

Architectural Interest – A well preserved example of George Halliday’s domestic architecture in Llandaff in the late Victorian Domestic Revival style, notable for its unusual mezzanine billiard room addition and the lavish interior detailing.
Historic Interest- The functions and relations of the rooms (as recorded in Halliday’s plans and biographical sources about David Morgan) remain highly legible, and so the building illustrates the domestic arrangements and tastes of successful entrepreneurs within the late-Victorian and Edwardian coal economy, an important aspect of Wales’ cultural history.

Close Historical Associations – David Morgan remains a well-known name in the cityscape of Wales’ capital. His movements from rural Breconshire to Cardiff via the iron and coal towns of the Valleys mark him out as a domestically produced entrepreneur of national rather than only local interest. The association is directly illustrated by decorative details such as the family crest in the dining room and the stained glass of the billiard room interior. The association with the Sankey family is also notable and illustrated in the preserved hall fireplace.