Cresselly House

Cresselly House

This country house, built around 1770, comprises a symmetrical main block of three storeys and five bays, with coursed rubble walls, freestone quoins, band courses and window dressings. The central three bays are advanced. Flanking the main block are two-storey, three-bay wings added in the 1860s, built in uncoursed rubble with simpler dressings. The porch also dates to the 1860s enlargement.

The roofs are of hipped slate with tall stone chimney stacks. The main block has moulded eaves, while the wings have wider boarded eaves. Small-pane sash windows are used throughout. The windows to the wings are unhorned, possibly to harmonise with the original glazing pattern. At ground floor level on the main block, windows were altered during the 1860s enlargement to 4-pane sashes; those in the outer bays sit within tall semicircular-arched recesses, a popular Palladian motif. The first-floor windows were similarly modified through lowering of the sills, which resulted in the band course being slightly cut back beneath each window; the rear elevation reveals the size of the original first-floor windows. The second floor has 6-pane windows. The porch features twinned pilasters and round-arched openings with dropped keystones, a balustraded parapet, panelled door and plain fanlight. The wings have splayed bays with dentilled cornices and balustraded parapets.

On the garden front, the central three bays are advanced and deeply splayed forward beneath a hipped roof, a composition recalling the work of principal architects of the period such as Keck at Penrice in Gower, Taylor at Ottershaw in Surrey and Mylne at Bringwyn in Powys. The outer ground floor windows are again set in semicircular recesses. The window detail differs between them; the tripartite window to the left with round-headed central light appears to be a modification of the broader Venetian window to the right, possibly narrowed to allow more wall-space for bookshelves in the adjacent library. Splayed ground floor bays serve the wings, and slate-hung end elevations have lean-to structures with shaped parapets and doors onto a spinal corridor.

The interior contains an offset entrance at the south-west corner leading to a panelled rectangular hall with triglyph frieze, cornice and lugged marble chimneypiece. A corridor runs along the back of the hall with round-arched, keyblocked openings, extending the full length of the house and providing access to the principal rooms. To the right of the hall stands a cantilevered openwell timber staircase lit by a lantern and fitted with cast-iron scrolly uprights; this staircase was built in 1816 to 1818 by William Hoare of Lawrenny, with wrought-iron balustrade made by William Moss of Carmarthen. To the left of the hall is a space that may mark the site of the original 1770s staircase.

The dining-room on the east side of the main block is panelled with reeded dado rails, modillion cornice and Rococo plaster cartouches. The drawing-room on the west side, directly behind the hall, occupies the full width of the garden front bay and is the finest room in the house. It retains a finely executed Rococo plaster ceiling with egg and dart cornice and a cartouche featuring musical trophies and an open score, closely similar to a ceiling at Park House on the Stackpole Estate. The room also preserves a fine marble chimneypiece and Edwardian silk wall-hangings and panelling. The library, entered opposite the staircase, features mahogany bookcases with some bays having ogee-arched cupboards beneath five-tier shelving, made by William Owen of Haverfordwest contemporaneously with the 1816 to 1818 alterations. This room has a carved wooden chimneypiece, egg and dart cornice and Edwardian oval plaster ceiling swag. The study to the left of the drawing-room retains full original panelling with raised fields.

The principal rooms in the wings are the morning-room to the right on the west side, which has a marble chimneypiece and anthemion dado, and the panelled billiard-room to the front. The south wing contains the kitchen, offices and back stairs; the stairs between first and second floor are of Chinese Chippendale type, possibly a reuse of the original 1770s staircase and one of a small number of local examples of this style.

Throughout the interior, original Georgian detailing is retained, including cornices, panelled shutters, doors and architraves. The spinal corridor is repeated on the first floor with similar arched doorways. Some bedrooms are panelled. In the cellar is a beam dated 'H 1771 H'.