Lancych

Lancych is a country house built in the picturesque cottage ornée style, rendered in colourwashed roughcast with far-overhanging slate roofs and numerous chimneys. The building combines Tudor-style detailing with outsize decorative bargeboards typical of cottage tradition. The roof pattern is extremely complex, reportedly comprising 17 separate roofs, and the chimneys of varying sizes are all capped with paired diagonally-set brick shafts linked by stone shelves positioned at one-third height.

The house is two storeys, with a plan organised around a square hall entered through a porch. The staircase lies to the right (south) of the hall, with the library to the left (north), and the dining-room and drawing-room extending parallel beyond to the northeast and southeast respectively. Windows are generally small-paned with mullion-and-transom frames. The building stands on raised plinths.

The west entrance front is composed of five distinct elements. The first, a windowless gabled block facing north and hipped to the south, features deep eaves underlapping a stuccoed gable with a very large external chimneybreast. This chimney rises from a high plinth through an open lean-to on poles (hipped at the northwest end) to a set-back at first-floor level, continuing through the eaves to a string-course just above the gable, and is topped with an inset panel and stone coping beneath the two brick chimney shafts.

The second element comprises a lower axial ridge running across to join a projecting gable, with a cross-axial ridge chimney whose base features a panel on the narrow end and shafts in line. To the right of this stack is a two-storey half-hipped gable with plain bargeboards, containing a recessed first-floor cross-window in a chamfered surround. Below this is a large projecting gabled porch with very ornate pierced bargeboards, a Tudor-arched chamfered entry, plinth, and a Tudor-arched door. The porch is positioned at an angle to the gable and projects forward, causing its right roof to overlap.

The third element is a gabled cross-wing projecting forward from the main range, adorned with outsize ornate bargeboards featuring cusps. It contains a first-floor cross-window and a ground-floor three-light window. An external chimneybreast rises on its right side above the roof of the fourth element, continuing through the eaves to slated set-offs, a tall whitewashed stone stack, stone coping, and diagonal shafts. Behind the cross-wing stands a taller stair tower with plain bargeboards to the west and a traceried rose-window to the south.

The fourth element is a contrasting one-and-a-half-storey service section with single-light windows flanking a raised pier on the ground floor. The first floor corbels out at eaves level and continues as roughcast above, featuring a picturesque narrow canted oriel of one-two-one lights with a centre transom and moulded eaves beneath a hipped roof. A stepped moulded base and half-hipped gable with plain bargeboards complete this element.

The fifth element is a higher cross-wing with a west gable set slightly back from the fourth element. It features a massive external chimneybreast with a high plinth, set-offs at first-floor level, and a string-course just below the gable. The roughcast top is capped with stone coping beneath twin brick shafts. The south return has an eaves-breaking gabled casement pair to the left, a short projecting lower range in the centre and right with half-hipped gable and plain bargeboards, and an attic casement with very small panes above a boarded ground-floor opening.

The north garden front is L-shaped with a gabled projection to the right. The projecting gable at the west end (corresponding to element 5) features ornate bargeboards matching those on element 3, a first-floor cross-window, and a ground-floor projecting square bay with a three-light front, single-light sides, and a deeply projecting hipped roof on coved eaves. The range to the left has a similar but slightly smaller square bay with a hipped roof on deep cove, against a narrow wall-face projection with a triangular-headed single light beneath an overhanging gable with fretted bargeboards. Beneath the eaves to the left is a corbelled panelled projection, possibly the base of a removed chimney.

The east garden front displays two gables, with the left projecting considerably further than the right. The left gable (corresponding to the eastern end of the north range) features bargeboards matching those on elements 3 and 5, a first-floor cross-window, and a ground-floor three-light window. The projecting drawing-room gable is half-hipped with plain bargeboards, containing a triangular-headed long single light to the ground floor on both the north and south sides, and a long three-light to the ground floor on the east end, with a cross-window above. The left (south) return has an added lean-to at ground-floor level, with a massive external chimneybreast rising through it, featuring a set-back shaft but no brick shafts.

Behind this, rising at right-angles to the east side of the stair tower (whose roof is higher and hipped at the southeast angle), the rear of the low service section has a narrow half-hipped projecting gable to the right with a twelve-pane stair-light at mid-height, and is set back to the left to a single first-floor casement above a ground-floor lean-to. The gable end of the cross-wing features plain bargeboards, a ground-floor cross-window, and a two-light window above.

The south service range comprises two parallel blocks of whitewashed rubble stone—a longer block to the west and a shorter one to the east. The range features unusual whitewashed rubble chimneys of elongated hexagon form that may date to the 17th century.

The west service range has a large cross-axial ridge stack and a three-window range to the west with casement-pairs beneath the eaves featuring cut slate sills. The south gable end has a low door with stone voussoirs. The east side is otherwise windowless except for one opening with stone voussoirs at the angle to the east service range.

The east range is parallel to the south end only of the west range, with a slightly broader roof, half-hipped to the north and gabled to the south. A massive south-end chimney similar to that on the ridge of the east garden front terminates the gable. The east side has a first-floor broad three-light casement with tiny panes, and the ground floor features a roofless large lean-to. A door and window with stone voussoirs appear at the north end of the ground floor, with a single-storey range running south from the south end.

The interior was not available for inspection after a 2004 fire. The staircase is said to have been destroyed, along with rooms on the first floor, though the ground-floor library, drawing-room, and dining-room remain intact.