Plas y Wern

Plas y Wern is a large house with a c.1670 main range and an older c.16 block, situated within its wider landscape. The c.1670 range is roughcast externally with a steeply pitched valley roof, a double hip on the west side, a moulded eaves cornice and a large stone west-side wall stack with rebated angles and a central indent. It is two storeys and has a basement, with a roughly square plan and large c.18 15-pane sashes. The south front has three windows; a c.17 panelled door is in the right bay, featuring an oval centre panel and a moulded doorcase, topped by ornate scrolled consoles which support a later hipped slate hood. Timber pilasters have also been added. The west side is windowless to the right, with a two-window range to the right. A rubble stone north wall has a side-wall stone stack and a gabled dormer to the right. A basement door, in an ovolo-moulded timber frame, is to the right, with a basement window to the centre, also ovolo-moulded, which may indicate the original mullion-and-transom form of the main windows.

The older range to the east is of rubble stone and has a slightly lower ridge line and a massive c.16 east-end outside chimney. The south front is three-storey and one-window to the extreme left, followed by an outshut (possibly built out in the c.16), which is two-storey and two-window, the left section projecting more than the right. One ovolo-moulded three-light timber-mullion window is on the ground floor right; other windows are casements. In the northeast angle is a two-storey section with a lean-to roof against the end of the main house and a north-end stack. Battered walling suggests an early date, possibly c.16, but the windows and door are c.19. Beyond this to the north is a lean-to added in 1936, unusually detailed with buttresses, and a gabled section to the right with a bellcote.

The interiors of the c.1670 range are outstanding. Two main ground floor rooms have bolection-moulded panelling, cornices and fireplaces. The dining room has a heavily panelled plaster ceiling with a central circle and axial ribs; the drawing room has lower relief ceiling details, a central oval, a square-with-half-circles panel and an outer border. The broad, dog-leg staircase has panelled newels, a heavy moulded rail and twisted balusters, rising over four flights to the attic with plaster moulded undersides. A south bedroom on the first floor has similar panelling, while the north library has large early c.18 panels. One bedroom has a ceiling with deep plastered beams, four diagonals centred on a transverse beam.

The rear wing features a ground floor room with a large timber-lintel fireplace at the east end, and a square stone stair winding around a centre square stone pier, that rises to the attic. A 1936 attic room, now a music room, has a west gallery. The attic roof has three collar-trusses with triple through-purlins; the collars are slightly arched and there is chamfering to the undersides and lower sides of the blades. The roof-trusses are of late medieval type and relate to the earliest phase of the house, potentially a first floor hall. The stair relates to existing floor levels and may be c.16, or the whole may be c.16. A block to the north contains a room (now a bathroom), reputedly where Henry Tudor stayed. This may be a c.16 parlour wing, much altered.