Henllys

Henllys is a two-storey house dating from the 18th century, with rendered elevations and a hipped slate roof, wide boarded eaves and rendered chimney stacks. The main façade is the one overlooking the garden and the A5, and it is a three-window design with a full-height splayed bay in the centre. It features mostly 16-pane sash windows, along with an earlier 20th-century bay extension to the centre and a modern small-pane window to the right. The south-facing end of the left side has a 16-pane sash window above a Victorian square bay with a lean-to roof and a tall window on the main face. The west side, facing the lane, has a full-height advanced bay in the centre above the main entrance, with a modern door. An outhouse projects forward to the left of the entrance and features a camber-headed sash window. The roof lowers slightly to the left, with a modern kitchen extension behind the outhouse, which extends up to the boundary wall and has a round-arched doorway.

Internally, the drawing room and dining room show earlier origins, though the overall character is Regency. The drawing room ceiling is particularly refined, with diagonal ribs springing from a central square panel containing a broad gilded rose, along with paterae, egg and dart, anthemion, and other ornament on the ribs. A fine candelabra, made by a local carpenter, was installed when the house was amongst the first in the area to be electrified. The shallow frieze appears to be older than the ceiling, exhibiting a less precise repeated swirling pattern. The picture rail is from the 19th century, but precedes the bay window’s construction. A Gothic marble chimneypiece with an ogee iron grate, originally from Ystrad (the Vivod dowager house), is reused in reverse. The small dining room has a similar but simpler ceiling without ribs; featuring a large scalloped rose with a circular beaded surround. Both rooms have six-panel doors and deep-panelled reveals. The hall, which originally had a scribed marble effect, features an elaborate egg and dart cornice and Regency reeded architraves to the main rooms. A steep staircase rises against the west wall, with S-shaped tread ends and turned newel posts. Coved cornices are present upstairs, and the earlier part of the building has deep-panelled reveals and high skirtings. A Shropshire and North Wales copper fire certificate is also recorded.