Wynnstay Hall

Wynnstay Hall

A 16th-century house built in French Renaissance style, constructed of sandstone ashlar, slate and areas of sandstone rubble. The principal elevation faces south.

The south front is complex and picturesque. To the left stands a three-storey corner tower with rusticated quoins and pilasters in the upper storeys, topped by a tall pavilion roof with altered chimneys and a dormer featuring a shell niche, with iron brattishing at the top. Attached to this is a five-window two-storey range with fishscale roof slates and pilasters to the upper floor. A long wing projects at right angles, containing a range lit by tall mullioned and transomed windows and a four-storey tower with pavilion roof. This wing originally had a port-cochere entrance (now blocked) above which rises an oriel window rising through three storeys, capped with a lead domed roof and flanked on each floor by shell-headed niches. To the right is a further two-storey range, a three-storey tower, and a later single-storey block with similar though slightly simpler detailing. A range with steep roof and polygonal front follows, and a further range is stepped back with its right-hand return having twin circular towers with conical roofs. The west return has an altered entrance with a portico now consisting of two square-section cast-iron columns.

The rear of the building incorporates work of 1858. A long two-storey eleven-window range with central pediment of early 19th-century character is joined to the main building. A three-storey block attached to the left is built of uncoursed rubble with roughly dressed window surrounds and a deep cornice surviving on the return south elevation (now enclosed). The architect Ferrey added the third storey to this block to match the main building. Various attached buildings and walls of various dates surround the courtyards.

The 1858 work partially follows the footprint of the previous building and incorporates elements of it, especially on the rear and northern sides. Vaulting at ground-floor level suggests the building may be of fireproof construction.

Interior

The plan separates reception and guest rooms in the west wing from private family rooms on the east side by means of the main hall, though otherwise the plan lacks coherence. The original entrance through the former port-cochere led to the hall, which rises through two storeys and is lit by tall mullioned and transomed windows. The hall features oak dado and gallery panelling. The gallery contains a fine organ by Snetzler with a case designed by Robert Adam in 1774. A French Renaissance style chimneypiece incorporates the Wynn arms. The ceiling is of deeply moulded maple with five-pointed stars, and a painted frieze contains extracts from a Welsh poem.

Doors with ornate oak surrounds lead to the library, which has a coffered oak ceiling and ornate oak door and window surrounds with restrained gilding. Other reception rooms, which have been subdivided, feature deeply moulded plaster ceilings with heraldic motifs and carved oak medallions depicting Biblical scenes set into the walls.

A top-lit staircase hall contains a Renaissance-style stair with green marble door surrounds, likely dating from a late 19th-century remodelling when the main entrance was relocated to the west side. Tall vaulted corridors are lit by lunette windows and have floor tiles by Maws, some dated 1858. Dadoes are formed of mosaic tiles in geometric Islamic-style patterns by Simpson. The suite of family rooms to the east have vaulted ceilings, some with stencilled decoration. A billiard room of later 19th-century date replaced a glass house. A further family room features a board and beam ceiling, richly stencilled shutters and doors, and a Renaissance-style chimneypiece incorporating marble roundels with relief designs copied from Thorwaldsen's Night and Day. Extensive service areas contain narrow stairs of blue-black slate and incorporate at least two earlier phases of building.

Embedded in the service area is a stone tower of 1706, built of sandstone in square plan with an attached square stair tower. It is three storeys tall with a domed stone roof and ball finial to the staircase turret, though the remainder has only a modern temporary roof. The entrance on the south side of the stair tower is a heavy studded door leading to a spiral stair lit by square and oval windows, some now blocked. An iron safe is set into one wall, and access to the upper-floor room is blocked. The ground-floor room is tunnel vaulted and is entered from the west side.