Plas Machynlleth

Plas Machynlleth

This is a mainly three-storey house with scribed render elevations, Bathstone dressings and hipped slate roofs with boarded eaves. Stone chimney stacks are present, one cut down at the front. The almost symmetrical main front features a late 18th-century four-window central block with a pediment containing a datestone, flanked by high parapets. Cill bands run across both floors. The sash windows have shouldered architraves; those on the first floor are topped with cornices, while the tall sashes of the ground floor lack glazing bars and extend to plinth level. A simple four-panel door sits in the third bay. The ground floor was probably remodelled when an Ionic colonnade was added, complete with balustrade, dentil cornice and shallow entablature.

The side elevations of the central block feature small-pane sashes, and on the right (north) side is a round-arched window with a label and an unusual architrave with volutes. Projecting two-window ranges extend to the rear of these sides, with the southern range displaying some painted slate hanging. The view down the side elevations is screened by two single-storey, two-window wings from the 1850s, set slightly back from the main entrance block. These wings have small-pane sash windows with detached pediments and parapets with acroteria at the ends. The left-hand wing terminates in a deep bow featuring pilasters and cornice with sashes having marginal glazing bars. The right-hand wing ends with two polygonal corner bays.

On the south side, where it meets the Gothick range, sits a lean-to structure over broad loading doors. At the corner of the wing, evidence remains of a former conservatory that once ran along this side. The stepped four-window south range features mostly broad four-centred arch metal-frame windows, some with coloured glass in the heads. One sash window steps up over a round-arched recess now containing a water pump. The gable end to the west is slate hung; set back below is a short two-storey range with one small Gothick window to the first floor. The two-window gable end of this range is also slate hung above ground floor level. The rear of the south range, overlooking the narrow formerly roofed yard, is rubble with roughcast render. Small-pane sashes and one four-light Gothick window are present, with a six-panel door at the centre and fire stairs rising to a Gothick door. Similar detail appears at the rear of the main block. To the north lies a lower service range with a two-storey, four-bay rubble elevation to the yard, stepped up towards the junction with the main block. The rear of this range is red brick with gables to the four-window lower part. The courtyard is closed by a later brick wall, with the area to the north enclosed by a short rubble wall extending to the boundary wall; square gate piers with low caps mark the entrance.

The low entrance hall is formed from the combined two main rooms of the 18th-century house. The plaster ceilings display Adamesque detail: an oval foliage garland surrounds the rose on the right and a circular rose sits on the left, with anthemion, egg-and-dart and dentil cornice. Similar detail appears on the panelled piers carrying the main beams, which have Adamesque panelled soffits. Chimneypieces are in the same style. The left-hand ground floor room, formerly the drawing room, is in French Empire style with a fine white marble chimneypiece featuring tapered terms and a heavily gilded ceiling. The ceiling includes three panels with fan motifs to the corners and a wreathed entablature. The right-hand wing contained the dining room, now the Council Chamber with modern murals by Jack Crabtree. The old library, now an office, retains two glazed Gothick cupboard doors.

The 18th-century dog-leg staircase has turned balusters, S-shaped tread ends and a swept-up handrail with a fluted newel. A pointed arch crowns the top of the landing. The first floor features quatrefoil-panelled reveals and colonnettes to doorcases. One room, perhaps formerly the principal bedroom, has a coved and ribbed ceiling rising to a circular rose, a quatrefoil doorcase and nook shafts to the window with gilded foliage trails to the cornice. Pointed arches appear at the landing. The north side of the house displays classical rather than Gothick detail, with lugged architraves to six-panel doors. The main bedroom on this side, situated over the balcony, has a dentil cornice with thin egg-and-dart detail; the inner side of the door is quatrefoil-panelled, suggesting reuse. The first-floor billiard room in the lower courtyard range displays Mannerist detail with fluted pilasters stopping short of the coved cornice and entablature only over the pilasters, together with a panelled dado. One room on the south side bears a plaque commemorating a stay by the Princess of Wales in 1896.