Plashendre

Plashendre

This is a Victorian house built in local rubble stone with dressings in moulded yellow Ruabon brick and some grey sandstone. The design, though late Victorian, follows no particular style and is wayward in its near-symmetry, distinguished by large windows, complex roofs and bays.

The building is two storeys with an attic, set on a roughly square plan. It has a slate hipped roof with yellow brick and stone stacks, one on the south side and one on the north. The main fronts face west and south.

The west front is near-symmetrical, centred on a large slate balcony on slate brackets spanning three centre windows. The balcony roof is carried over on two timber brackets. The balcony has cast-iron posts and two rails. A half-glazed double door with cambered-headed overlight sits in the left bay of centre, though the two right windows are blank. The left projecting bay features a canted form, capped by a three-sided slate roof with two small hipped dormers. The right bay projects from the corner and is the south-west angle, with a slate balcony between two large ground floor windows supported on two big slate brackets and a stone and brick centre pier.

The south front features an entry in the south-east gabled bay. A very unusual projected bay with cambered-headed sidelights and a centre triangular bay projects from the main south face, with three stone mullions, sandstone heads and brick outer jambs to side lights, and a moulded brick cornice to its flat roof with similar iron rail. Above this sits a first floor triple window in yellow brick, the centre broader, all with cambered heads. The south-east bay is gabled with a brick band and contains a cambered brick entrance arch with chamfered stone jambs and a sloping slated timber hood on brackets with pierced boarded spandrels.

Windows throughout are large sashes in cambered-headed surrounds mostly of moulded yellow brick with raised outer rim and roll-moulds to inner edges, stopped before angles. Some sandstone heads appear on the south front. Sashes are four-pane above and two-pane below. A brick top to the plinth, brick band at first floor, moulded brick eaves cornice and sandstone sills are consistent features.

The north side has a steep roof to the right with an end stack, then a lower roof to a service range to the same eaves line. A single-storey kitchen wing runs northward on the left, with a door and two windows of different sizes and another door to the west face, the left door now a window.

The east rear side of the main house has a short corner chimney to the right and irregular but similar windows. The first floor has a large window with etched and coloured glass between two small windows, and another large one to the right. The ground floor has five openings, the second with etched and coloured glass and the fourth a former door with overlight.

Interior

The west entrance hall leads into a large centre rear stair hall. The south-west drawing room is accessed from the right side of the entrance hall (the door was originally elsewhere). The north-west library or study is reached from the hall. The south dining room is reached from the rear right of the stair hall, as is the passage to the south-east corner entrance.

Consistent interior detail includes panelled doors with stopped chamfers, very deep skirting boards, and timber sloping cornices pierced with simple shapes such as lozenges, trefoils and quatrefoils. The west entrance hall has a cambered arch into the stair hall. The former drawing room, which extends into the large south-west bay, has a coved plaster cornice. A fireplace on its east wall features white-marble panels framed in painted bull-nosed timber strips. The north-west room, which served as a gun-room in the early 20th century, has a grey marble fireplace on its east wall with a cast-iron grate.

The stair hall has an oak floor laid in diagonal cross patterns. The stair rises on the north wall and returns across the east wall to a landing with matching detail. It has a closed string with panelling below, chamfered stick balusters alternated with shaped and pierced flat balusters, and chamfered newels with octagonal caps and finials. Pendant finials hang under the landing newels. A small Gothic stone fireplace sits at the north-east corner. An east end window has coloured leaded glass. Coloured leaded glass appears in the half-glazed double doors to the south-east passage, with top-lights and cambered head. The passage has a quarry tile floor.

The south former dining-room has a ceiling in panels with moulded timber ribs, decorated with a nailhead motif, echoed on the inner mullions of the bay window. Large shutters line the walls. A west wall fireplace features panels of dark figured marble framed in bullnose-moulded pine, with a Gothic cast-iron grate decorated with fleur-de-lys pattern tiles in its cheeks. A half-glazed leaded door under the stairs leads to stone stairs down to a slate-flagged cellar under the north-east corner of the house. Half-glazed leaded doors connect to a kitchen passage running north, with a half-glazed door to a toilet and door to a small pantry on the east, and a door to the west to the present kitchen. Original servants bells remain in the passage.

The present kitchen has a west fireplace and reset back stairs on the south wall parallel to the main stair. The old single-storey kitchen to the north has a three-sided plaster ceiling. A coal-house at the north end was altered in the 20th century.

The first floor has a matching landing balustrade and cornice, panelled doors and a single flight of stairs up to the attic with a similar rail. Bedrooms have plain coved plaster cornices. A small south room has a fretted pelmet and tiny corner fireplace.