Penfro

Penfro

A three-storey town house with cellar, finished in painted roughcast with a slate roof and brick end stacks. The front elevation displays brick dentilled eaves and a three-window range of broad sash windows with slate sills: the top floor has square 12-pane windows, whilst the lower floors have 20-pane examples. A central entrance comprises four steps with brick and stone risers and stone treads leading to a porch with two columns and entablature. The doorway itself is tall with a moulded architrave and a six-panel fielded-panelled door, fitted with a lion knocker and an overlight. The rear has a very large stair gable projecting to the left, rendered but formerly with some slate-hanging, and features a long stair window.

The hall possesses an early to mid-18th century character, defined by a moulded cornice and walls panelled in long panels (not fielded) above a dado rail. The south wall contains a fireplace to the left in a raised chimney breast with a moulded surround and shelf. To the right is a large round arch leading to a short passage into the stair hall, which has a broad fanlight with thick radiating bars and two small carved shells. Half-glazed double doors with two fielded panels below four glazed panels each occupy this arch. Doors on the east and west sides feature sunk panels in moulded architraves. A panelled small lobby opens westward from the passage to the stair hall.

The west room displays early to mid-18th century character: a thick moulded painted timber cornice, unpainted timber panelling with large raised fielded panels above a dado rail and panels below. The west wall has a raised chimney breast with fine panelled detail, featuring fluted full-height pilasters on each side with entablature blocks and a cornice broken forward over, with moulding swept up in the centre beneath a similar cornice break. A mid-19th century marbled slate fireplace with a cast-iron arched grate is set here, with two rectangular raised panels above the mantelpiece. The upper panel is painted with a mid to late-18th century seascape of a classical ruin overlooking a bay with two ships flying the red ensign and a small yacht with the Dutch flag. Doors on the east wall—one sunk-panelled, one fielded-panelled—and a fielded-panelled door in the south wall lead to a brick-lined cupboard recess. One panel on the west wall opens to reveal shelves within.

The east room dates to around 1840 and features a sunk-panelled six-panel door, an egg-and-dart cornice moulding with scrolled ceiling border, and a centre neo-Egyptian rose to the ceiling. Deep skirting boards are present. A grey marble fireplace with fluted Greek Doric half-columns and rosettes in frieze blocks above has a 19th-century iron grate. The shutters have sunk panels, and two 18-pane sashes open to the rear.

A passage through to the stair hall has broad sunk-panelled piers to the inner sides of the south arch, with a panelled soffit and moulded arch. Three-panel fielded-panelled doors appear on the east side to a modern WC. A similar arch and panelled pilasters appear on the stair hall face, with panelled spandrel piers above each side and a centre keystone, plus a moulded cornice broken forward over all three.

The stair hall contains an imposing 18th-century staircase with a broad open string, three balusters to each tread. The balusters are twisted above and have turned ovals below (varying from one to three ovals to accommodate the descending height), with corniced panelled newels and a thick ramped rail. Two flights rise to the first-floor landing with similar balusters under a rail ramped down at each end. The moulded plaster ceiling to the stairwell is particularly fine, featuring a moulded cornice, deep cove, and heavy moulded ceiling border framing an oval panel and two rectangular outer panels. Embossed flowers appear in the angles of the cove, with leaf mouldings in the angles of the ceiling border. The oval has a thickly detailed leaf and rose border with a small centre spiralled rose, whilst shallow relief plant ornament occupies the outer spandrels. The rectangular panels have bloection-moulded frames with fleshy scroll ornament and roses.

A doorway on the west side of the stair hall opens to a parallel 18th-century servants' stair with connecting doors at the landing. This is a closed string stair with turned balusters, square newels and a moulded rail, arranged in dog-leg flights to the attic and down to the basement. A fielded three-panel door leads into the rear of the west room cupboard.

The first floor has a plain square-headed opening into the front landing and a doorway to the left into the servants' stair. A three-panel door opens into a small centre room with boarded dado, fitted with a small 19th-century fireplace with an iron grate of neo-Japanese type designed by T. Jeckyll in 1873. A three-panel door leads to the west room, which retains complete 18th-century painted panelling matching that of the room below, with a similar cornice. The panels above the dado are very large, the largest appearing on the north window wall. The shutters have sunk panels. The chimney breast holds a 19th-century marbled slate chimneypiece with an arched cast-iron grate and two raised rectangular overmantel panels. Two three-panel doors on the south wall give access to a small closet, now a bathroom, which contains an unusual 19th-century cast-iron WC and basin supports with Adam and Eve figures on one and dragons on the other. The cistern is marked "H.O. Simlett Pembroke".

The east room features a fielded-panelled six-panel door, an early 19th-century moulded cornice, a veined 19th-century grey and white marble chimneypiece, panelled shutters and panelled piers flanking the window. Another basin of the type in the west room closet is present here.

The servants' stair rises only to the attic. The room over the main stair has a four-panel door and a fielded six-panel door to the rear west room. The front range has two-panel doors; the west room contains a 19th-century fireplace with roundels at the top corners and an iron grate. A small centre room holds another Jeckyll grate set in a 19th-century chimneypiece with moulded piers and lintel and acorn roundels. A thick wall at the east end of the landing contains a cupboard.

The basement has double fielded-panelled two-panel doors with shaped upper panels at the foot of the stair, and a three-panel door to the under-stair space. Flagged floors and three-panel doors are present throughout. The west room contains a timber-framed partition and two beams; the centre has two beams, with two more in the east kitchen. An elliptical arched fireplace of gauged brick with stone imposts and keystone is notable. The rear wing room has late 19th-century or later boarded walls.