Singleton Abbey

Singleton Abbey

Tudor style mansion, predominantly two storeys, with a complex plan. The elevations are rendered in scribed cement over rubble and brick structures with freestone dressings. Slate roofs and tall rendered chimneys, some ornate, complete the exterior.

The five-window entrance front is the focal point, featuring three gables that advance to the centre and are enriched with angle turrets, griffins and pinnacles to the gable parapets and foliated stringcourse. A Bath stone porch to the left has a four-centred arch and ribbed plaster vault. Linked diagonally at the corners are two stone sheriffs posts on granite bases (J H Vivian was High Sheriff of Glamorgan in 1827). The elevation includes mainly cross-frame windows with a splayed bay to the centre and a later 19th-century bay window to the right. To the far right is a three-bay dining-room extension with high gable parapets, which does not appear in a drawing of 1832 but is included in Robins' 1837 drawings. The front has a church-like character with cusped ogee-headed windows, crocketed hoods, carved headstops and panelled buttresses; intersecting tracery appears to the gable end. Notably, the interior of this range has square-headed window openings, creating a contrast with the ornate exterior.

The gabled south front, five bays wide, retains part of the original 'Marino' in a three-storey semi-octagonal projection to the centre, with two storeys to either side. Each bay is flanked by octagonal turrets with crenellated and swept caps, similar in glazing to the front. A coat of arms sits over an oriel window with a quatrefoil pierced parapet to the central, ornamented gable. A freestanding Gothic stone bench stands at the extreme right end.

The building steps back to the west and has been variously altered and extended in a similar style. Running north to south at the extreme west end is the former orangery, now a lecture hall, with a snecked rubble front of nine bays, a tall piered parapet and four-centred openings with small-pane glazing. Linked to the north is a mid to late 19th-century two-storey gabled house, built originally for a staff member and later becoming the Registrar's House, now University offices, featuring snecked masonry and similar window and chimney detail.

The north end contains the stable courtyard with an L-shaped range of buildings in rubble with red brick dressings and slate roofs. The western part, formerly a coach house, has an altered ground floor. To the north is the symmetrical stable block with advanced and gabled two-storey central and end bays, single-storey between with brick dormers to the attic. A central square clock-tower has applied black and white detail and iron brackets carrying the bell, with a projecting chimney to the rear with a circular stack. On the south side of the courtyard, a later 19th-century elevation to a range backs onto a central light well or courtyard, partly infilled. This area is shown as the Butler's Room on the 1837 plan.

The entrance hall has a panelled ceiling with bosses and a heraldic frieze representing contemporary Glamorganshire families, a panelled dado and a Tudor chimneypiece with an ornate overmantel in the manner of an altarpiece. Beyond a triple-arched screen lies the staircase hall. The cantilevered stairs, now with supporting piers, have panelled square newels but were never given the pointed arches to the balustrade or the Classical frieze that the architect showed in his 1837 drawings. Heraldic glass adorns a window.

Various panelled doors are present, including nine-panel to the Council Room and unusually broad doorcases with quatrefoil friezes to the Committee Rooms. The original Dining Room, now the Council Room, retains original decoration despite unsympathetic modern acoustic wall covering, including a grand barley twist timber chimneypiece said to have been brought from Italy and a heavily ribbed ceiling with a papered armorial frieze. This room was lavishly decorated for the intended visit of Princess Victoria in 1837, before the death of William IV made her Queen.

Committee Room I has a Gothic chimneypiece with mirrored overmantel. Committee Room II, originally the Library, has a late-Gothic chimneypiece with carved figures either side and a traceried overmantel panel, said to have belonged to Catherine of Aragon, though much restored. On the west side, the former Drawing Room, which once opened onto a conservatory, is divided into two by a broad four-centred arch but otherwise retains more Classical detailing, including a marble chimneypiece, though Robinson's design shows this room was originally Tudor.

On the first floor, the staircase rises to a gallery with further triple-arched screens and attached at right angles are similar twin-arched screens leading to the various corridors, all arranged to a symmetrical design. Some 19th-century fireplaces are present, including one to the top floor with blue and white tiling, reeded pilasters and garlands.

The part of the building surviving from the original 'Marino' remains on three floors plus an attic, retaining its own staircase. One first-floor room has a semicircular end wall.