24 Vaughan St / Bridge St

Llanelly House, comprising Nos 2 and 4 and Nos 20, 22 and 24 Vaughan Street on the south side of Bridge Street

This is a major early 18th-century house of three storeys and seven bays, constructed of rubble stone rendered in stucco with a low-pitched slate roof behind a parapet. The façade is articulated by three forward-projecting breaks arranged in a 1-2-1-2-1 pattern. The upper floors remain very little altered, though the ground floor has been considerably rearranged.

The upper floors are fenestrated with small-paned long sashes with exposed boxes, some still original. The first floor has 18-pane sashes, while the top floor features 24-pane sashes with oblong blank panels above. The parapet is capped with painted stone moulded coping and seven ornate stone urns, the two central ones more elaborate than the rest. The three projected bays each have very ornate painted timber carved modillion cornices below their second-floor sills.

There are rendered stacks to the left and centre, with evidence of a former third stack to the right, originally constructed of red brick with arcading. Two symmetrically placed lead downpipes with rainwater heads of exceptional quality occupy the façade, bearing a date of 1714 beneath the heads. The pipe to the left is complete, while that to the right survives except at ground-floor level.

The ground floor, though considerably altered, preserves a stone string course over the first three bays, with openings remaining in their original positions. The first two bays now contain 20th-century plate glass windows in probably 19th-century moulded stucco surrounds. The third bay has a modern door with overlight in plain timber architrave. The centre bay retains an off-centre 18-pane sash, with a tall door of fielded panels and glazed top panel to its right, not aligned with the window above. The final two bays contain a late 19th-century shopwindow of two panes with slim column shafts, framed within a late 19th-century applied shopfront featuring fluted Corinthian pilasters at each end and a long entablature. The recession of the fifth and sixth bays has been lost in these alterations. The door may be original, though its top panel has been altered and its position moved from the original centre-bay location.

The west end wall has a parapet ramped up to the centre, with corner urns. It is fenestrated by two 15-pane upper windows—one similar to the first-floor left window on the main front and one blank to the right—and has a ground-floor late 19th-century shopfront matching that on the main front. A matching lead rainwater head and pipe are present.

Nos 20 and 22 Vaughan Street comprise the former rear wing of Llanelly House, projecting slightly forward of the main house end wall. This section is two storeys, stuccoed, with a slate roof and brick stacks (one at the south end, one at the rear east roof). The first floor originally had four 15-pane large sashes with stone sills. The ground floor was wholly altered circa 1980 by a double shopfront with polished black and grey stone cladding and metal-framed windows.

Despite years of neglect, Llanelly House still contains extensive areas of original panelling, extending over almost the entire first floor, including the Vaughan Street wing. The panelling consists of tall fielded panels over moulded dado rails with fielded panels below, and fielded panelling also to window seats throughout. Simple moulded cornices are present. The main first-floor front room, of four bays, has complete panelling but with later 18th-century fireplaces; the south fireplace wall has fluted pilasters. The first-floor corridor contains three fine panelled and moulded arches with fluted pilasters, panelled spandrels, keystones, and cornices.

The stair hall, built in the angle behind the two ranges, has a rich modillion cornice in timber and plaster. A second-floor gallery with original bobbin-turned balusters overlooks it; the open-well main stair itself appears to be of later date, though a fine moulded and panelled arched doorway on the east side of the half-landing appears original, as does a similarly detailed but narrow viewing archway on the west wall, now blanked off behind bobbin-turned balustrade.

The Vaughan Street wing contains one small panelled room with a single window to Vaughan Street and three painted grisaille over-door panels, and one larger room to the south with two windows, fully panelled, featuring an original south wall fireplace with pulvinated laurel-leaf frieze. Panelled doors to a recessed cupboard are to the right. A later staircase in the south-east angle descends to the ground floor. Behind the smaller panelled room is a stair to the attic, not inspected.

The ground floors are more fragmentary in their survival. In the main range, the left room retains most of its panelling behind modern boxing, and a painted overmantel is revealed showing an idealised coastal scene with classical temples and the British fleet. A moulded plaster ceiling was accidentally destroyed in 1990. The passage in the third bay is plain. The remaining four bays, presumably the original entrance hall and large north-west room, now form a single shop, with original panelling on the east wall and one moulded and panelled archway adjoining a similar south-wall archway through to the stair hall. Ceilings are divided into panels by plastered beams, some with simple original decoration. Further panelling and a large fireplace survive in No 22 Vaughan Street, though boxed in.

The building requires further historic and archaeological investigation, but appears internally to retain to a remarkable extent the original fittings of a major early 18th-century house.