Corwen Manor (Old Workhouse)

The workhouse is laid out on Benthamite principles, with a central octagonal top-lit tower and 4 radial wings. Mainly roughly coursed rubble (limewashed to front elevations) with slate roofs; the main gable facing the street is of well-coursed stone with ashlar dressings including continuous string course. Principal entrance is in this gable in pedimented and slightly advanced central section: Doric portico in antis, the doorway flanked by 9-pane sash windows. 9 and 12-pane sash windows to either side of the pediment which has tripartite window in its upper storey. Similar sash windows in return elevations of this block. The longest wings run E and W of the central octagon, which is expressed externally by slayed walls across each of the 4 angles between the radial wings. These walls have wide segmentally arched cast-iron small-paned windows (some later replaced by 4-pane sashes) on each floor. The central octagon is surmounted by a glazed lantern and a high wooden cupola. Each of the long wings terminates in a slightly advanced hipped roofed pavilion: these were originally 3-window ranges, and some of the original round-arched windows with cast iron fixed lights survive, though most were later replaced by wider 4-pane sashes. At the inner angle of the wings and the central octagon on each side, the wing is stepped out slightly and contains a round-arched doorway with cast iron glazing to the overlight. Each side of rear wing has paired 4-pane sash windows to ground floor and doorway with round-arched overlight in re-entrant angle; some original window openings survive, but many have been replaced by wider windows.

Original layout survives in part, and original detail includes a divided staircase in the entrance block with cast-iron balusters and swept rail. The large rooms on each floor in the E wing may be the former workrooms, with accommodation mainly in the W wing, where smaller rooms open from a central corridor.