Llandovery College

Llandovery College

A college comprising several linked buildings. The principal front range dates from 1849-51 and was designed in collegiate Gothic style. It was originally constructed of local purple rubble stone with ashlar dressings, but was clad in roughcast during the 20th century and painted more recently. The additions behind are all in rubble stone. Those of the later 19th century are plain wings extending to the rear of the original range, but those of 1901-3 are more architectural, comprising primarily a 2-storey east-facing dining-hall block, a taller 3-storey southeast classroom block, and a low linking north range between the dining-hall and original building.

The original college building comprises an entrance tower approximately 67 feet high (20.4 metres), a large single-storey school hall to the right measuring 62 feet by 30 feet (approximately 18.8 metres by 9.1 metres), and a 4-bay range to the left in the style of a Tudor house with 2 advanced gables. This left range comprises former staff rooms to the left and a warden's house to the right. All windows are of Bath stone with mullions and segmental-pointed heads to top lights, and generally feature transoms, except to smaller upper windows.

The entrance tower is of 4 stages. The ground floor is advanced as a battlemented porch with a Tudor arched entry, the hoodmould linked to a string course under the battlements with a stepped centre battlement over a shield plaque. Corner gargoyles decorate the stage. The tall second stage has a long 2-light window through 2 floors with carved panels between floors and cusped heads to both levels, then a chamfered string course under a stepped-in narrow third stage with a deeply recessed square clock panel to the front, a blind lancet to the north and south sides, and a chamfered string course. The stepped-in top stage has long narrow flat-headed 2-light windows with cusped heads to the lights on each face, and a string-course with corner gargoyles under an embattled parapet. Within the porch, original stone is exposed, featuring a Tudor-arched doorway with double early 20th-century panelled doors with a traceried large overlight. The roof is a concrete flat structure.

The hall to the right is of 5 bays with a steep-pitched roof and large traceried windows divided by 2-step buttresses. The windows are 3-light with segmental-pointed heads and triangular heads to the lights both above and below the transom. Stone corbels support the gutter. The south end has a large canted bay with a hipped roof.

To the left of the tower is a domestic composition in Tudor style of 5 bays with advanced gables in the second and fifth bays (the second gable being smaller), and with a porch to the warden's house in the angle to the right. A recess to the left of the tower contains a 2-light window on each floor with mid transoms and pointed heads to the lights, the upper one breaking the eaves in a dormer gable. The gable to the left has a large south side-wall corniced stone chimney and 2-step buttresses to each side of the front, which has a 3-light similar window on each floor, a coped gable and finial. The recessed third and fourth bays have 2-light windows to the right and single-lights to the left, with pointed heads and transoms only to the ground floor right window; others are simply flat-headed. The ground floor left has a projecting porch with a lean-to roof against the side wall of the left gable, a stepped parapet with shield plaque, a segmental-pointed door in a triangular-headed surround with double doors, and a low buttress to the right. The gabled bay has 3-light windows on each floor, the ground floor window with a high transom and pointed top lights, the others flat-headed, with a trefoil plaque in a shouldered coped gable. A side buttress is positioned to the left.

The north return has a stuccoed canted bay with parapet, a 3-light window to the first floor and 2-light above in an eaves-breaking gabled dormer. Stair lights appear on each floor in the bay to the left, then a large coped gable over a 3-light window on each floor above a shallow square stuccoed bay with a 3-light transomed window. The bay windows have pointed top lights and carved heads at corners.

The additions behind the original block comprise a 2-storey parallel range behind the school hall, raised from an original one-storey classroom range (of which a traceried south end window survives). A gabled wing to the right is at right angles (behind the hipped stair roof of the original range). A further 19th-century addition of 2 storeys runs back beyond the stair roof with a 20th-century glazed addition open to the south, in a gap to another 2-storey 19th-century range with a 2-window south front and black brick heads to 3-light long windows.

This abuts the left end of the 1901 tall 3-storey classroom range in rock-faced purple sandstone with tooled brown sandstone quoins, raised sill bands, and pink cut sandstone flush bands above ground and first floor windows. The range is of one-plus-5 bays, the first projecting with a bargeboarded gable, a long flat-headed window to the top floor, and a large cambered-headed 3-light mullion window with 2 transoms to the first floor, with a moulded cambered-headed pink stone doorway with sunk spandrels and hoodmould stepped over a shield plaque dated 1901. The doors are panelled doubles. A two-step low buttress is positioned to the left. The plainer range to the right has narrow small-paned sashes in pairs with some singles and triples. A string course runs over the ground floor flush band, with dripstones over the first floor flush band. The east gable end has a chimneybreast and ashlar mullioned windows with top-lights, a single-light to the left and 2-light to the right. A north 3-bay return has 2 shallow slate-hung gables to the left over mullion and transom windows, and projects to the left of the dining-hall.

The dining-hall range facing east is a lower, long 2-storey, 4-bay structure with parapet and 4 low coped gables, 2 on each side of a centre stack. Four pairs of first floor mullion and transom windows are present, with an armorial plaque on the chimney breast. The ground floor has large pink stone canted bays with hipped roofs on each side of the central raised chimneybreast, of 1-3-1 mullion-and-transom lights, and outer 3-light mullion-and-transom windows. The north end has obelisk finials on the parapet corners, and a 2-light first floor small mullion window to the right of a large chimneybreast.

The range between the rear of the dining-hall and the former warden's house also dates from 1901. It comprises a plain 2-storey range to the left with a one-storey outbuilding extending north, then a 3-storey range to the right joining to the warden's house in 17th-century style with 2 coped gables over eaves-breaking windows on each side, stone mullion windows, a 2-storey canted bay to the right, and a door in the centre with a side light in a surround with a shaped head. A large east end stack and smaller ridge stack are present.

Interior

The entrance hall contains a plaster bust of Reverend T Price (Carnhuanawc). A Tudor-arched doorway with double half-glazed doors with tracery leads to a large stair hall with timber open-well stairs featuring a closed string, plain square balusters, ramped rails, and octagonal newels. The dado is panelled. A large hanging light with 4 brackets is suspended above.

The former school hall, now used as a library to the right, is a large room with an open timber roof of 4 collar trusses with Tudor arched braces on corbels. Diagonal struts and an iron tie-rod run over the collars. A gallery at the north end was originally shallower with short sections against the side walls, but was infilled during the 20th century to form a single gallery, originally with stick balusters to the front, now panelled. A segmental-pointed south end arch opens to the bay window, with doors on the east wall featuring triangular heads.

A corridor extends north from the stair hall with a segmental-pointed arch and double framed ledged doors. Rear stairs of stone ascend in a dog-leg configuration with an iron newel, stick balusters, and a ramped rail. The former warden's house at the north end has an open-well stair with a continuous rail, stick balusters, and a chamfered newel.

Behind the hall, an altered rear wing (former dining-hall area) contains a bust of Reverend J Williams dated 1858, signed by J Edwards of London.

The dining hall features a good interior of 1901-3 with panelled doors, heavily moulded beams with moulded brackets and pendants. A marble fireplace is set in panelling at each end, with dado panelling throughout. A 3-bay serving recess on the back wall has square piers and depressed arches, with a cornice on each side of a raised centre containing 3 leaded windows.