Llantysilio Hall

Llantysilio Hall

Llantysilio Hall is a Victorian Jacobean-style country house, built of snecked Ruabon ashlar with gable parapets, band courses and plinths. The slate roofs are topped with grouped circular and octagonal stone chimney stacks. The house rises three storeys above extensive cellars.

The main front faces east and displays five bays with gables projecting over the advanced end bays and set back towards the centre. A deep band runs between the ground and first floors. The windows are three-light stone mullioned and transomed throughout, except for a two-light window at the centre. The outer attic windows are stepped. The central gable is flanked by a bracket eaves cornice. The principal first-floor windows have cornices and architraves. The ground floor features canted bays at the ends with bracket cornices and ornate panelled parapets. The central porch is particularly ornate, with a high openwork parapet, a Mannerist keyblocked semicircular arched entrance initialled CFB with concave jambs, and panelled double doors with an overlight. To the right, stepped down, are a further three bays with two-light windows; the ground floor has a cross frame and the first floor has sashes. The panelled band between floors continues across this range. Further right, stepped further down, is a projecting lean-to porch at the angle with the long billiard room range, which runs forward to enclose the forecourt on the north. This billiard room range has round-arched-headed lights to the side elevation window and a tall gable end to the east with a barley twist finial. A Gothic attic light sits above a three-light, late Decorated-derived window with a crenellated transom.

The south side, facing down to the River Dee, comprises three bays. A central gable projects over a two-storey squared bay with a pierced parapet. Bracket cornices flank this feature, extending over the ground-floor windows. Similar carved detail appears in the central band.

The west side displays two unequal gables to the right; the gable at the corner is set slightly forward. Both gables have canted mullioned and transomed bay windows to the ground floor with pierced and roundel-panelled parapets. Stepped forward to the left is a narrow three-storey bay conjoined with a four-storey square tower, 27.5 metres high, at the junction with the service ranges. This tower has a belvedere-like top above internal water tanks. Similar detail appears on the service ranges stepping down to the north, bordering the cobbled yard. One range has a blind clerestory. The north side of the billiard room range has a lateral chimney breast, and the rear porch displays a mantled and crested coat of arms dated 1874. A neighbouring downpipe is dated 1873 and initialled CFB.

A stone screen wall encloses the yard with a gated entrance. Stables to the north date from 1874 and were designed by Beyer, Peacock and Co.

The interior is remarkably complete and contains excellent decorative detail. The plan is double-pile with a central spine corridor, with main rooms and stairs positioned at the south end. The porch opens into the left side of the near-two-storey hall, which features fluted and cabled pilasters, a panelled dado, frieze and egg and dart cornice. A Minton tiled fireplace set in a black marble surround and a fine ornate cast iron fireplace are prominent features. To the left, double half-glazed doors with a fanlight lead to the staircase hall. The staircase itself is remarkable, featuring an ornate balustrade with swags and interlaced designs and a convex string with geometric shapes; fruit festoons decorate the newel with pendant finials, all carved in Polish oak that was specially imported along with the craftsmen. These craftsmen worked under a master named Cox, for whom cottages near the Home Farm were built.

The doorways to the main drawing rooms at the south end have lavish doorcases with profuse classical detail. Large doorways interconnect these two rooms, with ornate panelling and cornice. Contemporary box pelmets, dado rails with bobbin moulding, and brass picture rails are present. The larger room at the west end has a Carrara marble chimneypiece with giallo antico columns and with cameos in the frieze depicting Queen Victoria, Mrs Henry Robertson and Lady Martin of Bryntysilio. The smaller room has a similar chimneypiece portraying Kaiser Wilhelm I, Bismarck and field-marshal von Moltke, the architect of the Prussian victory over the French in 1871.

The former Dining Room to the west of the hall features an egg and dart cornice, a rope-moulded band over a panelled dado, and a faceted architrave in the bay. The floor incorporates ebony and other wood inlaid detail. An unusual cast brass open-fronted firebasket is installed here, with another in the Morning Room on the south front, together with matching brass firedogs. The Morning Room also features another classical cornice. The secondary staircase has barley twist balusters. The Billiard Room in the east wing, at the far end of the corridor, displays a three-bay open timber roof with arched ribs and Gothic arcading above the wallhead; stone corbel springers support this. The walls are vertically boarded.

The kitchen contains a large cast iron range by Bennett of Liverpool. The house comprises twenty-five bedrooms and measures 3,656 square metres in total.