Nantclwyd Hall

Nantclwyd Hall

Nantclwyd Hall is a large two-storey brick house with an attic storey. The main entrance faces west and dates from the 19th century, while the garden elevation to the south was remodelled and refronted in render around 1960.

The original 17th-century section projects from the north front and is built in small handmade bricks on a limestone plinth with a hipped slate roof and large bracketed cornice. This section is three bays wide with a single-bay return on the right and a three-bay return on the left. The window dressings and quoins are in yellow freestone, with stone string courses at sill and window cornice heights on both storeys. The windows are cased in stonework with moulded sills, eared architraves, pulvinated friezes and moulded pediments featuring carved details in the tympana, which are varied in character with grotesque touches. The central window pediments of the left flank are curved; the others are triangular. All windows are of cross type with timber mullions and transoms and quarry glazing.

To the left of this older part, considerably set back, is a six-window 19th-century range with an advanced bay in the second position from the left. The main door of the house, refashioned in the 20th century, is located in the fourth position at the centre of a three-bay range. The sixth bay adjoining the older wing is set at 45 degrees. This range has a return elevation to the east of three windows, including a two-storey canted-sided bay at the left. To the right of the older part, slightly set back, is a later 19th-century six-window range with an advanced bay in the second position from the right containing a minor door. This range has a three-bay west return entrance elevation with the centre bay advancing and containing the former main door. The late 19th-century design shows broad symmetry, with the architects copying the features of the original wing that remained as centrepiece, using sash windows instead of cross casements. In the late 20th century, dormer windows were added throughout the north, east and west sides.

The garden elevation to the south is the work of Sir Clough Williams-Ellis around 1960. It comprises a five-window range to the west and a three-window range to the east, where the roof, plinth and quoins details of the north side are repeated in plain colour-washed render with windows in unornamented openings. Between these unequal ranges sits an asymmetrically placed gabled centrepiece with link-ranges to left and right. This centre-block has a Dutch gable with a coped upper part to its parapet and side urns, a decorative roundel on the gable, two small attic windows, a Venetian window with stone casings, a decorative swag bearing the initials E A F-H and V E N-L and the date 1959, and three round-headed ground-storey voids—the centre for a sculpture and the outer ones as French windows.

The entrance hall and stairs are located towards the east of the house, with main reception rooms towards the west; the layout has been much altered. The Oak Sitting Room and the Oak Bedroom above it, both in the north wing, are the special features of the original house. Both are panelled in wainscot with panels surrounded by large bolection mouldings, and doors are similarly panelled. The Sitting Room detailing is more ornate than the Bedroom, with Corinthian pilasters framing the chimneypiece. Both have carved timber ceiling beams but plain plasterwork in the ceiling bays.

In the mid-19th-century extensions, early period detailing is imitated in the strapwork plasterwork of the Nursery Suite ceilings. In the late 19th-century extensions, the Library and Dining Room with their late Classical decoration are outstanding features.