Mostyn Hall

Mostyn Hall is a large country house of roughly square plan with two storeys and attics, featuring gabled blocks and wings. The house is constructed of ashlar sandstone with a pecked surface, under slate roofs with square stone stacks that are mainly grouped together. Architectural details include raised copings to the gables with kneelers and finials, two-, three-, or four-light mullioned windows with dripmoulds (most with transoms), and quarry glazing throughout.

The entrance front faces east, with the garden front to the south and two long wings extending to the rear on the north side. The east entrance front is 19th-century fabric but incorporates remodelling or refacing of earlier ranges, including a single-storey hall at the centre. At each end of the hall is a narrow advanced gable bay, single-storey with attic. The right-hand bay incorporates the entrance, which has a Tudor-arched head with decoration to the spandrels and a large square hoodmould. The corbels of the hoodmould bear heraldic motifs. The entrance has double studded doors, and above is a stone tablet with a heraldic shield dated 1625. A three-light mullioned window with hoodmould sits above the doorway, with similar windows in the matching advanced gable to the left. Between the gables, the hall has a pair of three-light windows.

Wide gabled wings flank the central section: two-storey and attic to the left, three-storey and attic to the right, with a long service wing adjoining the latter. Behind the hall and aligned with it is the roof of a higher range containing the stair-hall and landing. At the right end of this range stands a square tower. A wide adjoining gable to the left has four-light transomed windows (the first floor window serving the library is particularly large) and a two-light window to the attic. Set back to its right (to the left of the staircase landing) is a high gabled dormer with a two-light window. The turret has a truncated pyramidal swept roof, a dentilled eaves cornice, and supports a flagpole surrounded by iron brattishing, with a three-light window to the front.

The wide right gabled wing is two windows wide, all of three lights, with a single two-light window to the third storey attic. Attached to the northeast angle is a low two-window range that originally served as a chapel. It has two-light windows (not visible to the lower storey), a blocked round-headed doorway to the south gable end, a three-light window to the first floor, and a single light to the attic. Set back behind this is the long three-storey six-window kitchen wing. A narrow range against the ground floor has short two-light windows, with two-light windows to the first floor and attic under gabled half-dormers. At the far right end of the kitchen wing is an added stills house, a single range positioned at right angles and advanced from the main building. It has a raised ridge ventilator and a three-light transomed window to the east gable end with a planked door below. There is a single blocked light to the attic, below which is a beam for supporting a hoist.

The garden front incorporates part of the 17th-century house along with evidence of its original plan. The recessed central block dates to the early 17th century and is flanked by narrow gabled advanced wings also containing fabric from this period. Both wings are in turn flanked by 19th-century wings facing east and west. The three-bay central block is constructed of coursed sandstone with a central full-height canted bay under a hipped roof. It features a high moulded rubble plinth, a first floor string course, and a moulded stone eaves cornice. The roof is steeply pitched with a large clustered red brick stack to the rear pitch. Three-light transomed windows with ovolo-moulded mullions appear on each face of the canted bay and to the right bay, with similar four-light windows to the left. Gabled attic dormers under hipped roofs contain two-light casements.

The rubble plinth continues around the advanced gabled wing to the left, and the masonry above appears older than the 19th-century work, with three-light windows to each storey. The wing to the right retains a fragment of the plinth but is otherwise 19th-century, with large four-light transomed windows to the ground and first floors, a small two-light window to the attic, and a doorway to the left return. To the right is the two-window side of the gable facing east, with three-light transomed windows (the first floor library window being particularly large). To the far left, the side of the gable facing west is one window wide, with a three-light transomed window to the ground floor and two-light windows above.

A broad gabled wing at the west end of the house was built in 1855, flanked by narrower gables set back. It features a wide two-storey canted bay to the centre, with a moulded cornice to the ground floor. The first floor is slightly set back and has a dentilled cornice supporting decorative openwork parapets, each face bearing the letter 'M'. French doors to the centre are flanked by almost full-height windows. These windows and the first floor windows are cross-windows. A pair of two-light windows sits in the attic. The flanking gables have cross-windows to the ground floor and two-light windows above. The north side of the west end has a cross-window to the ground floor and a two-light window to the attic.

This wing adjoins the north gable end of an earlier wing (visible on the south front), constructed of rubble stone with plinth and quoins. It has a replaced two-light mullioned window to the attic and wooden cross-windows below. A short range (probably truncated) adjoins at right angles, of the same materials and with a stepped roof. It contains a replaced Tudor-arched doorway with studded door to the right and a two-light window to the upper left. The three-storey five-window nursery wing adjoins to the left and is slightly advanced. It has small two-light windows to the ground floor and three-light transomed windows above, under gabled attic half-dormers. The right bay is wider with three-light and four-light windows to the ground and first floors respectively.

On the north side of the house, the two rear wings enclose a courtyard, bounded to the north by an unattached pre-19th-century two-storey service range of rubble stone with stacks and mullioned or large-pane windows. The nursery wing has round-headed openings to the ground floor, otherwise matching its other elevations.

Inside the front entrance, the hall lies to the left. It is four bays wide with an open arched-brace roof. The braces are 19th-century except for the central brace, which is moulded with decorative bosses to the underside and may be earlier (it is said to be 15th or 16th century). Almost full-height wooden panelling covers the walls, and the floor is flagstone with a step up at the south end. A minstrel's gallery was inserted at the north end with an ornate wooden openwork front, supporting a royal standard flagpole dated 1911. A stone fireplace on the west wall has a Tudor-arched head, with the mantlepiece supporting a heraldic emblem and inscription referring to E M H Mostyn and dated 1847.

A door to the left of the fireplace leads into a long narrow stair-hall oriented north-south, with cross-beams decorated with acorns and leaves and panelled doors. A 19th-century dog-leg staircase to the rear (north) has heavy turned balusters, a moulded handrail, and carved newels. To its left is a wide segmental wooden arch with stylised foliage leading to the service areas. At the south end of the stair-hall, a study lies to the left, with the dining room leading off to the right.

The study is 19th-century with full-height wooden panelling and a wooden fireplace with Tudor-arched head to the north. It contains an earlier four-panel overmantel bearing vases and human figures. The panelled ceiling has beading and semi-circular motifs to the ribs. Leading from the corridor into the dining room is a fine 17th-century wooden doorcase with roll-mouldings to the jambs decorated with ribbon motifs. The dentilled lintel bears an inscription reading "RM 1631 MM". A triangular pediment with blank shield flanked by leaves, finials to the angles and apex, and mouldings matching the jambs completes the composition.

Double doors lead into the dining room, which retains 17th-century work. The five-bay panelled plaster ceiling has moulded cross-beams and narrow mouldings to the ribs. A fireplace at the centre of the north wall features panelled pilasters with bowl capitals supporting a large moulded lintel. A large plaster overmantel displays a heraldic shield, lion and eagle above a date (1632) and skull and crossbones. These elements sit within a blind arch with depressed head, the tall pilasters bearing busts and heads of human figures. These are flanked by beasts and angels, whose wings continue into the spandrels of the arch. A strapwork frieze runs above the overmantel. Full-height wooden panelling covers the walls (some probably original), and the windows have ovolo-moulded mullions.

A doorway leading north to the service areas is positioned at mid-level of the stairs. At first floor level is a landing, with the library to the left and the drawing room to the right (above the dining room). The landing has a ceiling cornice with strapwork frieze and heraldic motifs, and an emblem at the centre of the ceiling dated 1846. The 19th-century doorways have pediments copying the style of the 17th-century dining room doorcase. A stained glass window to the east displays heraldic emblems referring to members of the family.

The library is 19th-century with full-height wooden panelling and a panelled ceiling with panels set diagonally decorated with strapwork and heraldic motifs. On the north wall, a stone fireplace with black inlay and delft tile surround is surmounted by a wooden overmantel with round fluted columns and strapwork cornice. The drawing room has an original 17th-century panelled plaster ceiling, each panel with a border of acorns and foliage, and a cornice with head bosses. A heraldic emblem with eagle appears at the centre of the ceiling. Wooden panelling covers the walls as in the dining room. The fireplace is probably 19th-century, with a rusticated stone surround, flat head and keystone, and contains a cast iron fire-back bearing a shield dated 1632.

Large kitchens occupy the ground floor of the east wing, with the former nursery wing to the west and bedrooms on the upper floors. Added to the end of the east wing is a stills room containing a two-storey polygonal stone structure surrounded by external timber stairs and balconies. Set into the top is a large conical stone vat which would have held a copper basin. This was heated from the storey below, where there is a small cast iron oven. On the left at this level is a wide barrel into which the heated liquid would have flowed. The grain must have been hoisted to the top from the first floor loading doors to the east, but there is now no evidence for this mechanism.