The Tower

The Tower

The tower block stands as a substantial two-storey structure with a sunken cellar below and a parapet above. It adopts a rectangular plan with a full-height semi-circular projecting stair turret to the right of the main facade. The walls are constructed of rubble with fine quality freestone and sandstone ashlar.

The ground and first floor elevations on front and rear feature single large, depressed-arched window openings with moulded reveals and simple returned labels. Nineteenth-century cross-windows with leaded lights occupy these openings; the upper ground floor windows contain good nineteenth-century heraldic glass. The stair turret is pierced by three chamfered slits and is topped by a pyramical stone roof with a twentieth-century weather vane.

A large projecting parapet runs at roof level with stepped machicolations, the corners offset and carrying very fine carved stone gargoyles depicting dragons and beasts. Cross-loops pierce the parapet with splayed inner faces: two to the front, four to the rear, and seven to the sides. The roof is medium-pitched and covered in slate.

Within the roof-space, two previous roof structures are visible. The earliest, probably dating to the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, features very shallow-pitched, chamfered and stopped trusses, testifying to a near-flat roof as was expected in that period. The upper window to the rear face is carved with heads at the label stops, the costume detail of which is correct for the mid-fifteenth century. Above the label sits a contemporary carved shield bearing the arms of England quartering France modern, supported by a mermaid and a griffin. On the northeast face (facing the main range), the roof-line of the former hall is visible, where there is a contemporary moulded hood.

To the southwest of the tower, stepped-down and slightly advanced, sits a square two-storey addition, probably a garderobe tower of first-half sixteenth-century date. It is rubble-built with dressed quoins. A parapetted gable to the left, shown on the Moses Griffith watercolour, has been removed. The front was raised slightly during nineteenth-century alterations and given a coped parapet. Two small splayed lights pierce each storey, one each facing front and rear.

The main range adjoins the tower to the northeast and is stepped-down from it. Built of rubble with a medium-pitched slate roof behind an early nineteenth-century coped parapet, this range replaces a standard roof with gabled dormers. It comprises four bays with a visible division between the first two.

Seventeenth-century chimneys flank the central bays; the right-hand one projects as a stepped and kneelered end-chimney. Both have been given offset paired stacks with simply-moulded coping in the nineteenth century. To the left bay, a nineteenth-century stepped entrance features a stopped-chamfered Tudor arch, geometric spandrels, and simple returned label. Above this sits a two-light window with dividing transom.

The two central bays contain six-light mullioned and transomed windows to the ground floor with cross-windows above, both displaying segmental relieving arches visible above. The fourth (right-hand) bay has two-light mullioned windows. All windows are leaded. The parapet displays a moulded string-course and capping, the latter stepped above square dormer lights at bays one, two, and three.

The fourth bay is entirely of nineteenth-century date and terminates in a sloping stepped wall with decorative crenellations. This wall continues northwest at a height of ten feet, where it turns at right angles to terminate approximately sixty feet to the northeast in a modern entrance.

The rear elevation is asymmetrical, comprising two adjoining plain gabled wings with end chimneys. Near-flush casement windows pierce these gables: the left gable has a two-part, leaded casement with brick-cambered head. The right gable contains three windows: a late nineteenth-century French window with a two-part eighteenth-century leaded casement above, and to its right a large six-pane window. Plain square casement windows light the upper gables. A further two-part leaded casement fills the infill space between the right gable and the tower.

To the left, projecting in front of the main range, a late nineteenth-century single-storey flat-roofed extension with parapet contains two- and three-light mullioned windows. A modernised conservatory infills the space between this extension and the advanced tower.

Adjoining the main range to the northeast, and partly screened by the sloping wall adjoining the main facade to the right, are early nineteenth-century service extensions. These are constructed of brick with slate roofs. To the left stands a two-storey range with a projecting stepped end chimney to the right. This block is continuously roofed with the northeast pitch of the northeast gable, the roof of which it extends. Multi-pane near-flush tripartite casements light both floors, featuring cambered heads and projecting stone cills, with a nine-pane window above.

Projecting outward to the left is a contemporary single-storey extension with a casement window as before and an extruded porch with hipped roof. A plain boarded door opens beneath a plain fanlight. A further storeyed wing stands to the right of this, set back, with a near-flush casement to the first floor. A cambered-headed entrance with boarded door opens here, with a six-pane window above. An advanced modern extension infronts this section with similar, though modern fenestration. Finally, a single-storey range steps down to the right with a three-pane cambered window. A modern covered walkway adjoins to the front.

The listing excludes the modern cottage and outbuildings adjoining to the right.

Interior

The tower block walls are six feet thick. The cellar and ground floor room are spanned by segmental stone barrel-vaults. The ground floor room is entered from the northeast face (main range) via a continuously-moulded four-centred-arched entrance. Nineteenth-century Jacobean-style moulded dado-panelling covers the walls, topped by a carved and fluted frieze, with a similar wooden cornice, highly carved with foliate forms.

A nine-panelled door with segmental arch and panelled, shaped upper surround incorporates a central carved heraldic shield. A nineteenth-century Tudor-arched fireplace features a heavily-carved and fluted surround with pilasters and heraldic corbels. A large overmantel displays fluted pilasters, a moulded cornice, and a heraldic panel.

In the southeast corner, a primary chamfered Tudor-arched doorway provides access to a newel stair within the stair-turret projection. In the southwest corner, a similar doorway accesses the garderobe tower, which contains a similar inner doorway and corbelled ceiling.

The upper floor has been subdivided in the early eighteenth century, containing two equal-sized rooms with coved ceilings and narrow cornices.

The main range entrance hall and stairwell feature simpler moulded dado panelling with wooden moulded cornices and boxed beams. A tiled floor of lozenges with interlace motifs and foliate border covers the floor. On the tower wall, two carved stone corbels originally supporting the hall roof depict an eagle and a dragon/griffin and are primary features.

A Victorian tracery window at the end of the entrance hall contains good heraldic glass. Two nineteenth-century open Tudor arches lead off to the right, providing access to the stairwell and drawing room. The drawing room contains a plain Gothic fireplace and part of a late eighteenth-century architectural bookcase, originally from Penbedr Hall.

In the stairwell, a fine early eighteenth-century wide dog-leg stair features a left balustrade that is a nineteenth-century copy, presumably replacing an original wall. The balustrade displays turned balusters with clustered baluster newels topped flat, and a sloped, moulded rail.

To the right of this, behind a stud wall, another dog-leg stair dates to circa 1630-50. It was reduced in width and turned into a secondary or service stair in the early eighteenth century. This stair features shaped, pierced flat balusters, a moulded rail, and ovolo-moulded newels with geometric finials. It is part-boxed but continues to the second floor, this last section being plainer.

Large early eighteenth-century two-panel doors, moulded and fielded, open to three first floor rooms. Smaller similar closet doors flank a chimney breast in the front-facing southwest room. The northeast room contains a contemporary bolection-moulded painted fireplace with panelled frieze and moulded mantelpiece. In a rear-facing room, contemporary window shutters with moon-lights remain.