Plas Abermad

Plas Abermad is a High Victorian Gothic country house built in 1870, as recorded on the slate corner stone at the extreme right of the main front. It is constructed in brown local stone with dressings of yellow Doulting stone and blue-grey tooled stone, possibly from Llanddewi Brefi, used for the quoins, relieving arches and chimneys. The roofs are slate with five fine tall chimneys: three on the main ridge, one on the west side wall, and one on the rear roof between the gables of the rear northeast wing. The chimneys are chamfered at the angles with battered bases, moulded plinths and brattished caps executed in ashlar.

The house is L-plan with a projecting double-gabled wing to the rear northeast. The asymmetrical five-bay south front has a double gable to the two bays on the right and a single gable to the left bay. The gables are shouldered with copings and stone finials. The principal rooms occupy the first three bays from the right, with the entrance in the second bay. The narrow fourth bay contains a service entry and stair, while the left bay houses service rooms with lower floor levels. A heavy machicolated eaves band runs over the third and fourth bays between gables. Above the third bay sits a two-light dormer with a steep roof, ornate cusped bargeboards with collar, and a Gothic two-light window with pointed top lights.

Most windows are plate-glass small sashes in square-headed ashlar surrounds, with pointed larger windows in the gables. In the three right bays, the two right gables have two-light windows under pointed arches with trefoil lights in the heads and hoodmoulds. The first floor has mullion windows with shouldered heads to the lights and brattished dripmoulds above: two-light windows to the flanking bays and one-two-one lights to the centre. Relieving arches span over the centre and right windows. The ground floor features a massive three-bay porch to the centre, a plate-traceried ashlar rose window to the former library on the right with stone voussoirs to the arched head and flat sill beneath, and a segmental pointed three-light window to the left lighting the former study, with hoodmould, stone voussoirs, transom and stepped cusped heads to the lights. The windows have iron casements.

The porch is the dominant element of the front and is of singularly massive construction. The deeply-shouldered openings have lintels formed of massive single ashlar blocks with roll-moulding, while the shoulders bear large-scale Gothic leaf-carving on the inner faces. Four Gothic columns with carved capitals, shaft rings and bases have shafts of pink Shap granite. The parapet features interlaced roundels in pierced ashlar, with low relief foliage carving to the spandrels including around the corners. The carving is unusually varied and naturalistic on the shoulders of the openings and the capitals, including a fox with a bird, rabbits, squirrels and an eagle. The columns stand on high octagonal plinths above modern pavement. The ceiling is coved and ribbed in painted boarding. Within the porch is a trefoil-arched main doorway flanked by single-light windows with transoms. The panelled main door has two glazed panels and a traceried overlight.

The narrow fourth bay to the left has a square-headed door with two stair-lights above joined vertically by a pierced ashlar panel, the top one with a cusped pointed head. The fifth bay to the left has a ground floor flat-headed three-light window and first floor two-light window, both with relieving arches but without the dripmoulds and shouldered heads of the similar windows on the main part of the house. The attic has a tall plate-traceried pointed two-light window with hoodmould, two plain pointed lights and a roundel. The windows of the two upper floors here are set lower than those of the main apartments, though the gable is of matching height. On the west end is a big wall-face chimney over machicolated eaves, above a two-storey projection that is twin-gabled to the west with south side machicolated eaves at first floor sill level to the first bay of the main range. The two west gables have first floor rectangular lights—two to the left and a pair to the right—and a ground floor hipped porch with a shouldered-headed door to the south side and ashlar chamfered eaves.

The east garden front has three bays with two stone dormer gables, coped with finials, each with a single pointed arched opening with trefoil over a transom and single square-headed sash. Machicolated eaves run along this front. The first floor has similar details to the main front, with mullion windows with brattished cornices: one to the left, one to the centre altered to a door, and a pair to the right. An almost full-width ashlar projection to the ground floor has a moulded cornice. To the left is an open two-bay loggia with two broad shouldered openings similar to those on the front porch and a pointed arch on the south end. The sculpture detail is of similarly fine quality, with one of the best figures being an owl. The pavement is of encaustic tiles by Maw and Company. Within the loggia is a large French window with two lights and top lights and a ring-shafted column between, with the capital below the top lights. To the right under the same cornice is a large three-light drawing-room window with similar ringed columns between French windows but with ashlar cusped pointed top-lights in square-headed openings.

The rear echoes the front with a projecting double gable to the left and single gable to the right. The rear wall is higher to the right as the ground has been excavated for a full-height basement, formerly opening onto an enclosed courtyard. The twin gables to the left have two-light pointed attic windows with trefoils in the heads, single and two-light windows to the first floor with shouldered heads, and a ground floor two-light window to the left of the dining room's large splayed bay of one-three-one lights with lion and leopard gargoyles. The lights have cusped pointed heads in roll-moulded square-headed surrounds. A relieving arch spans over the left window. The dining-room bay has a parapet with a hipped roof behind. A timber attic dormer sits on the west return side. A small second floor oriel is set diagonally in the angle between the northeast wing and main rear range. The main rear wall has machicolated eaves and a tall two-light pointed stair window to the left with transom, cusped heads to the lights and a quatrefoil above. A narrow single light appears at each floor in the next bay to the right, the upper one with cusped head and panel between windows linked vertically, the lower one square-headed. The further gable to the right has a pointed plate-traceried two-light window to the attic with a large roundel in the head, a two-light window to the first floor and a three-light window to the ground floor, with relieving arches. The basement under this range has cambered heads to the openings in grey stone.

Some good surviving cast-iron rainwater heads and downpipes remain.

Interior

The interior is especially fine with strong High Victorian Gothic detail, mostly in pitch pine, including panelled doors (mostly with quatrefoil panels) with Gothic doorcases, ramped overdoors, high dados, and panelled shutters. The square entrance hall has heavy roll-moulded beams to the ceiling and a massive ashlar corbelled chimneypiece. The floor has Maw and Company tiles below carpet, though these are in poor condition. To the north is the dining room with a canted ribbed ceiling and crenellated cornice. The fireplace has been removed. A very large north end bay window lights the room. To the right of the hall is the former library at the front (southeast) and drawing room at the back (northeast) with large sliding panelled doors between and coved ceilings. The library has a fine stained glass rose window by F V Hart; the large central panel is missing but the seven small outer roundels survive, depicting Ruskin's 'Seven Lamps of Architecture' in exceptionally fine Gothic drawing style. The drawing room has the bay window beyond a broad segmental arch carried on marble triple shafts with shaft-rings and carved capitals. The brown marble chimneypiece has pink marble panels. Both drawing-room and library have top lights to the garden side windows with stained glass.

To the left of the hall (northwest) a pointed roll-moulded arch with panelled reveals opens onto the stair hall, from which a further door opens into the (southwest) study. The study has exceptional full-length cupboards and shelving with typically Seddon panelling to the base. The stair hall has another ribbed coved boarded ceiling. The splendid staircase is cantilevered to the upper flight and the stair hall is crossed at the uppermost level by the gallery connecting the two sides of the attic storey, timber on brackets, enclosed with blank cusped headed panels and a row of glazed quatrefoils above. The main stair has a panelled dado and unusual semi-trefoil arches to the balustrade with squat columns and a trefoil punched band between each baluster. The square newels have geometric finials. The vertical boarding below the two lower flights has Seddon's characteristic inlaid butterfly joints. The underside of the upper flight is roll-moulded with dentil detail to the tread bases and cantilevered on a raking colonnette. The attic level is cantilevered on a chamfered bracket. The landing has a full height Gothic screen (now glazed) with deep quatrefoils. The long stair window has fine stained glass by Hart to the window head, an angel in the top quatrefoil and emblems of sun and moon in the two cusped top lights.

The principal first floor rooms are at the southeast end, reached under a stilted pointed arch with linenfold panelling. The doorcases here have crenellated bands and the doors have latticework panelling below T-shaped brass handles and ornate lock plates. The ceilings have incised plaster ribs creating diamond and square panelled areas. The main room facing the front has fine architraves to the windows with brattished cornices and latticework panelled aprons, and an inset blue and white tiled chimneypiece. All the chimneypieces are different. The doors to the other end are nine-panelled with studded corner blocks to shouldered architraves.

Access to the attic is only via the secondary staircase. This is dog-leg with a simple Gothic punched band to the base of the balustrade, pyramidal finial to the newels and pendants. The lower flight has been rebuilt with some different detail. The attic has simple six-panel doors with the T-shaped brass handles and elaborate lock plates. The exposed beams have punched quatrefoils. Two rooms have been created out of the former billiard room at the west end, which has a panelled ceiling.

The large basement has three-course corbelling below the wallhead to most walls and barrel vaults to the west end in transverse rows, including the pantry with full height three-tier slate shelving. The ice house was unusually in the body of the house; it now contains the lift shaft.