Dolmelynllyn Hall Hotel

Dolmelynllyn Hall Hotel

This substantial property comprises a large mid-Victorian villa, a 16th-century house, a 19th-century cottage (originally a 16th or 17th-century barn), associated service ranges, and outbuildings, set overlooking the Afon Mawddach.

The main house is a large mid-Victorian villa in gabled Gothic style with an irregular plan of mainly two-and-a-half storeys. It is built of rubble construction with limestone dressings, string-courses, and steeply-pitched slate roofs. The north (entrance) front displays three gabled sections. The central section is a tall, storied projecting porch with a steep crow-stepped gable topped with stone capping. The original chamfered Tudor-arched entrance was converted in the later 19th century to a three-light wooden cushed tracery window. A later entrance to the east return has a panelled Victorian door. Above the porch stands a rectangular wooden oriel made up of re-used, highly-carved 19th-century Indian elements with carved posts and pierced foliate screen sections, a four-light leaded window, and a shallow lead ogee roof. The oriel is supported on decorative brackets, and above it is a recessed sandstone heraldic plaque. To the left, set back slightly, is a high gabled section with pierced foliate bargeboards and deep verges. This section has two-light rectangular windows to the first and second floors, the latter a 20th-century steel-framed replacement with splayed reveals. The ground floor has a later 19th-century triple-arched porch or loggia with Tudor-arched openings, the central one serving as an entrance. A rustic balustrade with a central pier bears a heraldic plaque and is surmounted by a stone ball finial; a similar, smaller finial tops the corner pier to the left. The right gabled section is broader and lower, partly representing Madocks' work of circa 1800, with plain bargeboards and deep verges. The 19th-century fenestration includes a three-light wooden mullioned window to the ground floor with heraldic stained glass to the upper sections, two six-pane recessed casement windows to the first floor, and a similar four-pane window to the gable apex.

The east side faces a terrace overlooking the Afon Mawddach. It has three bays, the central one advanced with a crow-stepped gable, kneleered and coped with an off-set finial to the apex. Chamfered corners to the first floor are visible. To the right and behind the gable is a large stack with heavily-moulded capping. Two-light wooden mullioned windows light the ground floors of the flanking bays, and a three-light cross-window lights the central gabled bay; a modern window occupies the gable apex. The rear (south) side features a gabled section to the right with a storied timber-framed bay window displaying decorative framing to its upper section. A further, smaller section to the left has similar upper treatment with a projecting gablet. To the left of this stands a four-storey tower with crenellations and decorative machicolations, now flat-roofed, though formerly topped with a lead spire. A single-storey 20th-century conservatory extension extends to the left (west).

A 16th-century house abuts the main house to the west at the rear. It consists of a rectangular, gabled block with a large gabled and slate-roofed lateral chimney to the north-west corner, creating an L-plan. This structure is single-storey plus attic, built of rubble construction with a renewed slate roof. The ground floor south side has modern windows; the gable above has two six-pane 19th-century casements. Original window openings survive on the west side, the right one now a modern French window, and on the east side facing the conservatory. A modern fire escape rises to the upper north gable. A wooden and corrugated iron lean-to adjoins to the west. Abutting this to the south-west is a small semi-circular rubble turret with a square continuation to the north, containing a water tank. It features blind cross-loops and crenellations with an entrance to the south with a boarded door. A sloped, slate-coped rubble wall leads east for five metres, terminating opposite the west wall of the primary house. Two further single-storey ranges adjoin to the north: the furthest is a long outbuilding (formerly stables) with three boarded doors and two windows to its east side, and the other is an external WC block, both of similar rubble construction.

A single-storey service range adjoins the main house to the north-west, built of rubble construction with a modern door and window, and to the right, two wide Tudor-arched four-light windows. A rustic balustrade crowns the flat roof; modern additions extend to the rear. This range curves in a shallow arc northwards, with in front a further open rustic arcade of seven arches—the two northern-most stepped down—which screens the forecourt to the west. The service range terminates in a half-round turret with a blind cross-loop at the junction with the cottage.

The cottage is a 19th-century domestic remodelling of an earlier 16th or 17th-century barn. Built of rubble construction with a steeply-pitched slate roof, the long north side (facing the drive) has two two-light wooden mullioned windows with cusped heads on the ground floor and two gabled dormers above, each with a narrow rectangular four-pane door-light. The west gable displays an upper loading bay with external stone-stepped access. Deep verges have plain bargeboards with a projecting decorative gable truss. A four-pane arched-headed sash window lights the gable. An off-centre chimney features weather coursing. The interior has been modernised.

Interior features of the main house include a long, high entrance hall with a decorative plaster ceiling of bosses around the cornice. A narrow oak well stair has barley-twist balusters and similar quadruple-clustered newel posts with cup-and-cover finials. A similar straight flight rises to the second floor. A good stained and pressed glass window in the stairwell, in 13th-century style, displays heraldic panels at the top showing the Williams arms together with figure subjects. The drawing room has a slate fireplace with a round-arched opening and acanthus brackets supporting the mantelpiece. Four stained glass panels light the upper sections of the rear canted bay. These panels are made up of fragments of late medieval glass, chiefly late 15th or early 16th-century, supplemented with 19th-century coloured glass. The dining room has relocated 19th-century dado panelling with Renaissance-style shallow relief carving. A Tudor-arched fireplace is fitted with glazed ceramic tiles and enamelled fleurs-de-lis plaques; fragments of Pugin-design wallpaper flank the fireplace. A geometric ribbed ceiling of conjoined octagons and squares crowns the room. This room is part of an apparently 17th-century wing added to the primary 16th-century core, which was substantially remodelled circa 1800 and later by Williams. A large fireplace ingle-beam with chamfering is said to survive on the west wall, though it is currently obscured by later plaster. A short corridor leads from the dining room to the primary block, which is stepped down approximately one metre from the main house. To the left of the corridor, a large square mass of rubble masonry contains a corkscrew stair rising to the second floor. The primary block comprises a two-bay hall and a single-bay parlour at ground floor level, now one room, though evidence for the partition screen survives on the southernmost transverse ceiling beam. A heavily-beamed ceiling—a mid-17th-century insertion to a former open hall—features stopped-chamfered detail. Stopped-chamfered timber lintels to splayed windows frame the hall fireplace, which has been reduced and fitted with a modern bressummer. A pair of cruck blades, plastered over, is visible in the first-floor room, originally the upper part of the open hall.