Neuadd Wen

Neuadd Wen and Gwyndy

This is a private house commission executed in a restrained but stylish Arts and Crafts idiom, incorporating neo-vernacular as well as Jacobethan elements. The building has an irregular plan across two storeys, with an additional dormer floor and an off-centre storeyed porch adjoining the hipped-roofed main section. Two-storey wings extend to both sides: the right-hand wing is slightly advanced and features a gable in the form of an open pediment, whilst the left-hand wing has a similar arrangement facing the rear. The construction is roughcast over brick with a tiled roof and brick chimneys with simply-decorated upper sections corbelled-out. The eaves and verges are deep with flat wooden guttae.

The porch is constructed of red brick with fine buff-coloured sandstone dressings, including banding to define the windows and counter-changed decoration to the upper section. It has a parapeted flat roof with shallow coped gables. The entrance takes the form of a round arch, deeply splayed and moulded, with flush flanking buttresses to right and left. The tiled porch floor has simple marginal decoration, with a panelled ceiling above. The round-arched entrance itself features rubbed brick jambs and voussoirs, and retains its original door with a panelled lower section and a 12-pane segmentally-arched upper section, topped by a multi-pane arched fanlight. Above the entrance is an undressed sandstone block. This was originally a sandstone tablet inscribed with the patron's initials 'OME', but the architect Edwards chose to reverse it during insertion as a gesture of modesty. The upper floor contains a 3-light mullioned window, with single-light rectangular windows to the returns on both floors. Rectangular leaded quarries are employed throughout.

To the left of the porch is a 5-light casement window with 8 panes per light, and a 4-light window to the first floor with 6 panes per light. To the right of the porch is a large multi-pane stair window with random bullseye panes. Beyond this is a single-storey flat-roofed and leaded bow window with similar casement sections and a 3-pane window above. The cross-wing to the far right is now separated from the main house and forms Gwyndy. This has a 5-light window to the ground floor, with an advanced jettied upper section carried on scrolled wooden brackets. The first floor features a flat-roofed canted oriel window with flanking lights, and an ocular window in the gable apex. Three flat-roofed dormer windows serve the central section.

The left side has two large canted storeyed bays with flat roofs and casements. Between these is a single-light sandstone window to the ground floor with a decorative lozenge motif above. The rear elevation features 5-light windows to the gabled section at the right, and three dormers to the central section. Two, three and 5-light windows appear on the ground and first floors, with boarded doors to the right and left of the main section, the latter incorporating a 2-light window. A single-storey red brick wash house and store adjoins the rear elevation, advanced to the left. This features a segmental arch leading to a passage and a brick gable-end chimney. A modern lean-to adjoins the main section to the right.

The interiors survive relatively unaltered, with simple moulded picture rails, architraves and cornices to most rooms. An inner porch leads to an entrance hall with a parquet floor, with the staircase and principal rooms opening off it. This hall contains a fireplace with a simple classical wooden chimneypiece featuring an egg-and-dart and triglyph frieze, with a dentilated cornice and mantelshelf. The fireplace surrounds are lined with a very fine series of 17th and 18th century Delft blue and white tiles depicting animals, ships and mounted warriors. Part-glazed doors lead off the hall, each with a segmental upper section of 6 panes with 3 bullseyes to the lower glazing tier. To the left are the Dining Room (front) and Drawing Room (rear), while the Sitting Room and former service passage occupy the right side, the latter now blocked at the junction between the two separated parts of the house.

The Jacobethan staircase is of painted wood, consisting of a narrow well type with square panelled newels topped with geometric finials. Those to the bottom flight are full height to the ceiling and have fluted upper sections with attached lateral brackets forming a double shouldered arch, terminating in a pendant to the right and a wall corbel to the left. The rail is moulded and swept up to the newels, with thick stick balusters. The staircase returns in a galleried landing on the first floor.

The Dining Room features a lincrusta frieze with Art Nouveau-style decoration in shallow relief. It contains a simple Arts and Crafts oak fireplace with segmental spandrels and narrow fluted brackets to the overmantel. The Drawing Room has a renewed modern fireplace, with frieze and cornice as before. At one end is a wide segmental arch leading to a large square recess with a central fireplace. The arch is supported at each end by squat Tuscan columns with engaged pilasters beyond. The oak fireplace has fluted outer pilasters and a dentilated cornice, with blue glazed tiles to the fire surround. Eighteenth-century-style dado panelling to left and right incorporates fitted oak benching.

The first floor bedrooms have 6-panel Jacobean-style doors. One bedroom contains an Arts and Crafts fireplace of painted wood with a dentilated mantelpiece and an oculus to the centre of a small overmantel. It retains a contemporary metal grate with turquoise glazed tiles to the surround, incorporating a bucolic scene in its frieze.