Bodysgallen Hall

Bodysgallen Hall is a large three-storey house with attic, built mainly in Tudor-Gothic style across many periods. It is roughly square in plan, with ranges grouped around a central five-stage tower. The construction is rubble stone with larger quoins, slate roofs behind coped gables, and numerous tall stone stacks. Windows are generally consistent in having ovolo-moulded mullions and transoms on the ground and first floors, with plain chamfers on the second floor.

Northwest Entrance Front

The five-bay entrance front faces northwest and is near symmetrical, with projecting gabled end bays and a three-storey central porch slightly lower than the main house, added in 1894. The first and second bays were added in the late 17th century and have been called the servants' hall. Bays three to five form the 1620 hall house, to which the porch was added.

The porch has a Tudor arch with continuous chamfer and 20th-century boarded doors. The first-floor oriel, incorporating a cross window, rests on freestone corbelling with a heraldic shield bearing a Mostyn lion. The oriel and outer corbels support the second-floor three-light window. Set slightly to the left above the porch, the main house has a gabled dormer with a two-light mullioned window. The narrow bay to the right of the porch has three-light windows under dripmoulds and relieving arches to ground and first floors. The projecting, gabled right end bay contains three-light windows and relieving arches to ground and first floors. The gable is pedimented with a thin cornice, where there is a blocked attic window under a dripmould. In its left-hand return wall this bay has a corbelled stack with a tall shaft, behind which, in the angle with bay four, is a lead rainwater head with downpipe inscribed 'MW 1765' in relief.

Southwest Gable End

In the right gable end facing southwest, the ground level is lower. The basement storey has an entrance in a segmental-pointed arch with studded door. The ground and first floors have four-light windows with dripstones. On the first floor the dripstone is carried over a tablet with '1620 R K W' (Robert and Katherine Wynne) in relief. The second floor has two two-light windows under dripstones, and the attic has a similar single window. All windows in this elevation have relieving arches. On the right side, in the angle with the 1894 drawing room, a lead rainwater head is inscribed 'MW 1765'. The rear, above the drawing room, has a mullioned first-floor window.

Central Tower

The embattled rear tower stands directly behind the 1620 hall and rises three stages from the main stair turret at second-floor level. It has its own stair turret in the southwest wall, against which is the lateral hall stack. The turret has superimposed one-light and two-light windows. To its right the tower has a blocked window and three further superimposed two-light mullioned windows with dripstones, and on the right side a rainwater head with 'RW 1752' in relief.

Servants' Hall Wing (Late 17th Century)

Returning to the northwest entrance front, the two left-hand bays belong to the late 17th-century servants' hall, of three storeys with end stone stacks. In the wider gabled first bay are two cross windows to the ground floor, two-light first-floor windows, and smaller two-light second-floor windows. In bay two, immediately left of the porch, are string courses at the level of the windows in bay four, but with altered 19th-century windows. These are paired cross windows on the ground floor, paired two-light first-floor windows under a narrower original relieving arch, and a small two-light second-floor window.

The northeast front of the servants' hall is approximately three bays and asymmetrical. In the right-hand and the narrower left-hand bay are three-light transomed ground-floor windows, smaller three-light transomed first-floor windows, then a string course and two-light second-floor windows. The elevation is dominated by its advanced central bay, under a crow-stepped gable with apex ball finial, added in 1884 to house a stair. It has a large double-transomed four-light stair window with patterned and coloured glass, and a hood mould extending over the jambs, the tops of which bear the date in raised numerals. Above the main window is a three-light plain chamfered window, and below the stairs are paired two-light windows, also with plain chamfer. Set back on its left side is a narrow hipped turret.

Northeast Service Wing (1730)

Projecting at the left end of the northeast elevation is the 1730 northeast service wing. This is a gabled three-storey wing with an end stack. In the gable end its ground floor and second floor have two wooden cross windows. Original first-floor windows are blocked but their segmental relieving arches remain visible. Above them in the centre is a tablet with 'RW 1730' in relief. In its right side wall, facing the servants' hall, is a lean-to chimney projection, a two-light plain-chamfered first-floor window with dripmould and relieving arch, and a blocked second-floor window.

Late 19th-Century Additions to Northeast Service Wing

Set back on the left (southeast) side of the northeast service wing are additions from the last decade of the 19th century, probably 1894, and shown on the 1900 Ordnance Survey. Openings have stone lintels, windows are wood-framed casements with leaded glazing, and between first and second floors is a thick roll mould. A slightly lower canted projection against the 1730 wing has a steep swept pyramidal roof with lead finial. It has one-light windows to first and second floors. An adjoining gabled projection facing southwest has its entrance on the northeast side, up slate steps with stone parapet, with a recessed boarded door under a cambered head. This entrance is integral with an external stack. Its gable end has two ground-floor windows, a single two-light first-floor window, and a three-light second-floor window. The left side wall has two two-light windows on the ground floor and cross windows to the first and second floors. Set back to the left, between the gabled bay and the 1905 southeast service wing, is a two-window section of the side wall of the 1730 wing. It has two-light ground-floor windows, cross windows on the first floor, and three-light with transom and cross window on the second floor.

Southwest Elevation

Additions of 1894 and 1905 dominate the southwest elevation. This elevation is composed of the original 1620 house on the left, a gabled bay set forward in the centre, with another set back on the right, both of 1894, then the southeast service wing of 1905 at right angles set further back to the right end. Immediately right of the 1620 wing is a projecting one-storey former drawing room with crow-stepped gable. It has a large bay window under a coped gable with apex finial and ball finials on the eaves. It has a five-light double-transomed window and two-light returns, with coloured leaded glazing above the upper transom. In the gable is a tablet with '1894 HLlM PGM' in relief. The left side wall has a single window. In the right side wall of the drawing room are replacement French doors in an original opening under a mullioned overlight.

Set back further right is another gabled bay, of three-and-a-half storeys and incorporating the dining room, also of 1894. It has a pair of three-light transomed windows on the ground floor, four-light windows to first and second floors with dripmoulds, and a small narrow attic window. A narrow outshut is set back on its right side, and set further back is the southeast service wing, hipped to the left. In its angle with the lean-to on the left is a quarter-round corbelled two-light oriel (a similar window exists at Plas Mawr). Otherwise the southeast wing has three-light and two-light ground-floor windows. The first floor has a pair of two-light windows, its dripmould carried over a central tablet with '1905 HLlM PGM' in relief. The second floor has a pair of three-light windows under a single dripmould and a gable. In its right-hand (southeast) gable end, facing the rear service yard, is a corbelled first-floor stack. It has a hipped lean-to at basement level with a boarded door in its right-hand return, flanked by casement windows. Above is a casement window on the right side of the first floor and two single second-floor windows in dressed surrounds with dripmoulds. The rear wall facing the yard has a one-storey hipped lean-to with a boarded door and fixed leaded window in the side wall. On the second floor is a two-light casement. The angle between southeast and northeast service wings has a full-height projection under a pyramidal roof, with one-light and two-light windows.

Interior

Inside the porch is the original main entrance, a Tudor-headed doorway with hood mould and replacement two-panel door. The entrance opens to the hall of 1620. It has a lateral rear fireplace in a moulded freestone surround with a later 17th-century wooden painted heraldic overmantel. A second fireplace is in the projecting bay at the upper end of the hall. This is simpler and has an ovolo-moulded freestone surround. The walls are wood-panelled and retain an original plaster cornice of low-relief foliage. To the left of the main fireplace is a doorway to the main stair. A full-height open-well stair, it has later turned balusters and square newels, but retains original broad turned balusters to the second floor. From the first floor a boarded door leads to the stair turret of the tower, which retains a stone newel stair to the parapet.

The first-floor solar, later a drawing room, has another lateral fireplace in a stone surround. It bears the Mostyn family motto 'Auxilium Meum a Domino'. Above it is a mid-17th-century painted plaster overmantel bearing the arms of the Wynne family and the Vaughan family of Corsygedol, referring to the marriage of Robert Wynne's son Hugh to Ellen Vaughan. A second fireplace, in the projecting bay at the upper end, has a corbelled head and painted heraldic board. The first-floor room has three cross beams with stepped stops.

In the late 17th-century servants' hall wing is a staircase dated 1884 on the exterior, a copy of a stairway at nearby Gloddaeth Hall. It is a dog-leg staircase with barley-twist balusters and moulded foliage tread ends. It also has a late 19th-century fireplace with corbelled lintel. On the first floor, in the narrow bay between the original hall block and servants' hall, is an alcove with wooden screen dated 1896. The former dining room of 1894, south of the hall, has a large corbelled freestone fireplace, while the former dining room beyond it is of a different character with plaster panelled walls.