Brogyntyn Hall

Brogyntyn Hall is a country house in the Greek Revival style, located in Selattyn and Gobowen. The building comprises a remodelling of 1814 by Benjamin Gummow for Mary Jane Ormsby and her husband William Gore, encasing an earlier house built in 1735–36 by Francis Smith for William Owen. Later additions and alterations were carried out, including work in 1825, 1870, and around 1906.

The exterior is constructed of stuccoed red brick with Coade stone detail to the pediment of a sandstone ashlar portico. The roof is hipped slate with an open well and rendered ridge stacks. The Greek Revival façades encase the early 18th-century structure, which originally measured 9 by 5 bays.

The building rises to 2 storeys and an attic, with a plain first-floor cill band, moulded eaves cornice, parapet and balustrade, and a cellar that continues as a semi-basement to the right return.

The nine-bay entrance front features a large projecting tetrastyle portico at its centre, with unfluted Ionic columns supporting a pediment. The pediment is decorated with floral scrolls and the Harlech family coat-of-arms at its centre, together with the inscription "IN HOC SIGNO VINCES" set within a garland. A glass-panelled door sits within a plain pilastered wooden surround, and the portico has a coffered ceiling. The windows are glazing bar sashes (18-paned to the ground floor and blind to the upper right) set in moulded architraves with projecting stone lintels to the ground floor. Nineteenth-century hip-roofed dormers are present, one to the left and two to the right of the pediment.

The five-bay left return has two prominent canted bay windows on the ground floor, probably dating to around 1906. A low canted bay projection to the rear of the left return bears a datestone of 1825 with intersecting circular patterns to its balustrade. A single-storey service range behind is dated 1906, which is likely also the date of the canted bay window to the 1825 addition.

The right return extends to 13 bays and incorporates a two-storey canted bay to the left and an external lateral stack to the right. A lower service range to the rear, dated 1870 on a rainwater head, features similar decorative balustrade work to that of the 1825 addition. Mounting blocks are attached to the outer columns of the portico.

Interior

The entrance hall contains an elaborately carved wooden overmantel dated 1617, decorated with grotesque figures and armorial shields, probably salvaged from an earlier house on the site. Moulded doorcases with six-panel double doors lead left and right to two principal rooms. The left room features decoration of around 1906, with festooned garlands to the frieze and modillioned moulded cornice, an enriched coffered ceiling and panelled dado. Broken pedimented surrounds frame the front windows, and fluted pilasters with Corinthian capitals articulate the canted bay. A pilastered glass-fronted cupboard with semi-circular tympanum stands to the right of an elaborately carved fireplace.

The right room is lined with 19th-century bookcases and has two broken pedimented surrounds to its front windows.

A library occupies the left return, and a rectangular lantern is present to the 1825 addition.

The entrance hall features round-headed arches to its left and right in the back wall. The left arch leads through a 20th-century glazed door to a corridor of three domed bays with floral decoration to the pendentives. The right arch is now blocked but originally led to the staircase.

The staircase is of open well type and dates to 1735–36. It is now lit by a 19th-century octagonal lantern with panelling and palmette decoration to its sides, together with a frieze and modillioned cornice to the top. The staircase features three balusters to each tread—one fluted, one turned and one iron-twist—grouped together at the bottom around a fluted Doric column-like baluster. The wreathed handrail is ramped to the top of each flight with ball finials to the newels, carved pendants and open string. Fluted pilasters articulate the panelled dado.

Nineteenth-century panelled doors and marble fireplaces with cast-iron grates are distributed throughout the first floor. Panelled window shutters are present to the ground floor.

John Wagstaff, carpenter and joiner of Daventry, worked here under Smith.