Bryn Bras Castle

Bryn Bras Castle is a country house built in the picturesque style of a medieval castle. The earliest part is the square T-shaped range to the west, originally an 18th-century farmhouse with cellars beneath. The north gable end of the main range of this building, which has integral end stacks, is visible on entering the house through two screen walls (one lower, one higher) to the north, the entrance through which most visitors come.

The first phase of the castle itself (1830–2) is the central three-bay block to the east with service rooms behind. This was followed (1832–5) by the addition of the projecting circular tower (Flag Tower) to the south-east with its higher, square stair turret behind, the D-shaped tower to the north of the central block, and the two yards flanking the original 18th-century building to north and south.

The building as completed is in the neo-Norman style, typical of Thomas Hopper, although less severe and more domestic than his nearby Penrhyn Castle. The original effect is compromised by later 19th-century and early 20th-century alterations, including the many four-paned sashes and the first-floor addition between the four square turrets of the central block on the east front.

The castellated and turreted kennels, although small, are built on a grand scale and lie to the south. They have an iron gate and railings. The other outbuildings, built in a similar style, are on the other side of the road to the south and include the stables, converted into a ballroom by Alves in the 1920s. They are linked to the main site by a bridge, built in 1921–2 to replace the original one which had collapsed soon after completion in 1836. Alves was also responsible for the western two-thirds of the west wing, the eastern section having been built for Barnard before 1907.

The castle is principally constructed of rubblestone, stuccoed except for Flag Tower where the roughly coursed stonework is exposed. Some red brick, mainly to the central range of the east front but also to the 20th-century additions, is stuccoed too. The roofs are gabled slate with rooflights and lead valleys, hidden by crenellated parapets.

East (Garden) Front

The east front has a central three-bay range articulated by four square slender turrets with corbelled and battlemented tops linked by a crenellated parapet, the inner two slightly projecting and framing the central bay. The ground floor has three wide round-headed arches over three recessed round-headed doorways with chevron decoration enclosing French windows with glazing bars and fanlights. Tripartite plate glass sash windows occupy each bay on the first floor.

The embattled Flag Tower to the left has very narrow round-headed sashes with margin lights to the front: four to the lower stage, above a moulded stone high plinth course continued to the stair turret behind, and three offset to the left above. A glass lantern and iron bracket (1925) are fixed to the wall above the plinth. The stair turret is higher and square with a corbelled and crenellated top and has five narrow openings to the north face, one directly above the other—the lowest three round-headed, the upper two rectangular slit openings.

A short link section between the turret and central range has the main entrance from the garden via a neo-Norman doorway (by Hopper) in three orders with a massive panelled door. The carved timber tympanum has the Alves crest and motto, and the stone monograms "DEA" and "HOA" in the twin niches above are also his.

A similar short section with paired narrow sash windows on the ground floor links the central range to the crenellated north tower, which is of semi-circular shape on the garden front. It has a window with plain intersecting tracery (circa 1907) to a wide round-arched opening on the ground floor and two narrow sash windows above.

North Side

The north side of the castle presents a mixed and varied elevation to the road (it is really the back of the building). The north side of the north tower is flat and has two tiers of plate glass sashes. An inner screen wall with a crenellated parapet and circular corner turret to the right largely conceals the 18th-century house. A stepped return wall to the south links to a stack (rebuilt in the form of a square corbelled turret in the 1830s) at the west end of the 18th-century house and then continues as a crenellated wall ending in a circular corner turret.

The west elevation of the 1830s building was therefore originally fortress-like, the effect now obscured by the two-storey embattled Barnard/Alves west wing with its two tiers of plate-glass sashes, some round-headed.

A lower rubblestone screen wall with stone-on-edge coping running the full length of the north side has two round-headed doorways to the left and one round-headed and one elliptical-arched doorway to the right, all with elaborately nail-studded and strap-hinged doors. A square embattled turret stands at the right end.

Bridge and Outbuildings

An archway linking the first floor of the castle at its southern end with the outbuildings on the other side of the wall-lined Llanrug–Llanberis road has a segmental arch with voussoirs and keystones below a dentilled string course and narrow slit windows underneath an embattled parapet to the link itself. A square turret at the castle end is topped by a large crown of Richard II as part of an elaborate iron light beacon with heraldic dragons made by D J Williams & Son, Caernarfon in 1925, which is also the date of the Alves coat-of-arms on the western side of the archway.

The outbuildings, of which the principal structure is the stables (converted by Alves into a ballroom with bedrooms above), are also castellated. Several of the original narrow slit windows were replaced by sash windows and also by stained glass windows on the ground floor at this time.

Interior

The interior is very fine and includes many features, especially in Flag Tower, associated with Hopper's work of 1832–5.

The entrance hall, accessed by Hopper's doorway from the garden, continues the neo-Norman theme of the doorway itself with its geometrical plasterwork and profusion of Romanesque mouldings (cable, chevron, beak-head, etc.) to ceiling and window surrounds. The fine slate fireplace is virtually identical to that in the library at Penrhyn Castle but is now painted. The parquet floor and stained glass windows date from circa 1920.

The ante-hall between entrance and staircase halls was enlarged circa 1920 by a small alcove containing three large round-headed windows with Art Nouveau stained glass, including the Alves coat-of-arms. Neo-Norman decoration continues to the ceiling.

The staircase hall has a console-bracketed flat arch onto a fine 1920s staircase and first-floor gallery in late Jacobean, almost Baroque style. It features twisted balusters and newels, the latter each carved with the letter "A" and the "DEO FAVENTE" motto, the bottom newel also capped by the Alves wheatsheaf in place of the ball finials to the others. Tapering colonettes stand between elliptical arches to the gallery. A tall green glass leaded-light window on the stairs has the 13th-century coats-of-arms of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, made circa 1920. The geometrical, rib-patterned ceiling is also of this date.

The room to the south-east of the staircase hall is the drawing room (previously a morning room and before that the breakfast room) with an early 20th-century anthemion leaf frieze beneath the original Hopper beak-head cornice. An elegant white marble fireplace in Louis XVI style is a 20th-century import.

The room directly to the east of the staircase hall is the original dining room and occupies the middle bay of the central block overlooking the garden. The main feature is the massive Hopper slate fireplace (again now painted) to the south wall. The plaster ceiling, Art Nouveau frieze, and woodblock floor all date from circa 1898.

The room to the north-east of the staircase hall was the dining room from circa 1900 to 1965, since when it has been a sitting room. Originally smaller, it was enlarged in the 1880s to house a billiard table (now gone). Good-quality wall panelling, inscribed "PF 1680" and "SPL 1709" with inlaid decoration of birds and flowers in vases to six panels, and a fine Jacobean fire surround and overmantel with ribbed cast-iron fireback, were all brought in, the wall panelling in 1921, reputedly from a church in Manchester. The Alves coat-of-arms appears in the window.

The north tower, burnt out in the 1880s, was completely restored by Barnard circa 1907 and the ground floor fitted out as a library. From 1940–46 the room was used as a Catholic chapel during the house's use as a school. The main feature is the late 17th-century wall panelling, complete although obviously brought in (reputedly from Criccieth). Very fine naturalistic carving of vines, acorns, oak leaves, etc. to the pilasters and the same style, incorporating putti and columns, to the recessed fire surround at the west end. A rather unusually-placed window directly above has the Barnard coat-of-arms. Pre-Raphaelite stained glass in the alcove opposite depicting Faith, Hope, and Love was made in the 1890s but presumably not installed until circa 1907.

The first floor of the castle is much plainer with few features of particular note. The south room of the central range has an Adam-style fireplace. A small bathroom in this range has 1920s fittings including vitreous enamelled wall panels and a glass ceiling. A long first-floor corridor to the west wing, lit by a narrow window at the southern end, has small bedrooms on either side with good 1920s small cast-iron fireplaces.

Flag Tower

The great majority of Hopper's surviving work is in Flag Tower, accessed by a timber newel stair in the staircase turret, lit by recessed panelled windows with stained glass. The balustrade at the top of the stairs has sturdy turned balusters and a pineapple-embossed newel. The ceiling is an oval-shaped decorative plaster ceiling.

The drawing room is reached first and, as with all main rooms in the tower, it is completely circular. The room is approached through a deep panelled recess with a semi-circular shaped round-headed door on the inner side. Inside the room the door is enriched with fantastical neo-Norman carving enclosed in a round-headed doorcase with cushion capitals at impost level and two orders of decoration to the arch itself: billet and chevron patterning below and ballflower ornament with cable moulding above. Round-headed arcading runs right round the room, topped by horizontal banding just above impost level of the doorway and terminating in carved human heads to either side of it. The arches are all enriched and supported on a variety of capitals. A wide slate fireplace (now painted) has columns and nail-head ornament to the jambs. Above the horizontal band is plain intersecting arcading, interrupted only by the windows, which have deep panelled reveals and are separated by slender colonettes. The plain ribbed ceiling has chevron decoration to the cornice.

The bedroom above (said to be slept in by Lloyd George on his visits) is plainer but has the only Hopper fireplace surviving in its original unpainted state, essentially Romanesque but like that below with fantail detailing to the spandrels of the flat arch. A panelled door in a simple round-headed surround has enriched carving to the panels. There is a plaster cornice and cross-beam ceiling. The original roof structure was replaced in 1977–8 by a flat roof with rooflights creating additional space above the bedroom.