Bryngwyn Hall

Bryngwyn Hall is a simple classical two-storey country house built in red brick with freestone dressings, a hipped tiled roof, and brick chimney stacks. The original house was designed by the nationally important architect Robert Mylne in the 18th century and was later enlarged in 1813. It remains the only known house in Wales to have been designed by Mylne.

The main entrance front faces west and is symmetrical with five bays. The central three bays are advanced and sit beneath a pediment with ball finials and a circular attic window. This pediment was added recently as a reference to the original Mylne design. Freestone dressings include the plinth, first-floor band, and cornice. The original Mylne work uses Flemish bond brick, while the later 1813 enlargement employs English garden-wall bond. The windows are mostly replacement cambered-headed sashes with 16 and 20 panes. A central panelled door with leaded fanlight and pedimented doorcase was introduced when a 1914 porch was removed. To the left, set back and stepped down, is a service range with small-paned windows and a hipped slate roof. The right-hand side clearly shows the extent of the original house and its 1813 enlargement through changes in window sizing, plinth detail, and brickwork. The original Mylne design included two windows on this side; alterations to the brickwork around the middle window indicate later modifications. All windows sit with sills at plinth level.

The symmetrical garden front facing east is especially characteristic of Mylne's style, exemplifying what the architectural historian Colvin calls his 'fastidious restraint'. It comprises five bays including a splayed bay to the centre, where the splays are unusually recessed and the outer bays are very slightly set back. Windows are mostly 9 and 15-pane sashes, with 12-pane sashes to the splayed bay flanking a pedimented doorcase and French windows. Both the garden front and the original part of the south side show remains of a stone plat band course seven courses above the plinth, suggesting that the sills of the ground-floor windows were dropped, perhaps during the 1813 works. The north end is cement rendered with a hipped-roofed porch and further small-paned sash windows. The service range has a broad panelled door at its north end with fanlight.

The main public rooms on the east side retain Mylne's interiors. The former dining room, now the kitchen, has reeded doorcases, six-panelled doors, an acanthus cornice, and a classical chimneypiece. The central room, which has a bay, features a dentilled cornice and an elegant Mona marble chimneypiece with facetted panels; the 1813 plan identifies this as the sitting room. To the south is the drawing room with a ceiling rose and simply moulded cornice, shown on the 1813 plans as the library. At the centre of the house is a fine open-well staircase, top-lit by an octagonal lantern with a slightly coved and panelled sides decorated with foliage bosses similar to those at Woodhouse. The staircase has a turned newel with cast iron upright and rises to a spacious landing with four Doric columns. A letter dated 1806 from architect Joseph Bromfield to Mr Owen of Garth refers to the stairs at Bryngwyn, stating they were built of "Greenhill stone by Carline" (John Carline, architect and sculptor of Shrewsbury, possibly after the 1793 fire). The stair position suggests that before the 1813 enlargements the entrance opened directly into the stair hall; openings in the former front wall have been altered. A passage now runs behind this, giving access to the rooms in the extension, including the drawing room which continues from the original house through tall panelled doors and features a guilloche border to the ceiling and an Ionic chimneypiece with deeply shouldered fireplace. The former entrance hall to the west is now the library, which includes an introduced marble chimneypiece and shouldered doorcases. On the first floor, the main bedroom on the east side has a coved cornice, with some blocked windows and Victorian tiled dado in the bathroom. Broad secondary stairs with reeded cornices lead down to a flagged service corridor. Whitewashed cellars contain four barrel-vaulted chambers and a deep well.