Nash Manor

Nash Manor

Nash Manor is a two-storey house with attic, approached from the north through an enclosed courtyard. The building is largely constructed of local limestone with rendered elevations, though the later western wing is of brick. It has sandstone window dressings and slate roofs, which were formerly stone-tiled. The house is now of H-shaped plan, but in its original 17th-century form would have been T-shaped, comprising a hall block and parlour cross-wing.

The courtyard is entered through a gatehouse and clocktower, probably added around 1789, which features the Carne emblem over the clockface. The timber bellcote retains its bell, and the structure is timber-gated with seats within and a chamber above. The gable ends of the eastern and western wings display decorative bargeboards. Within the courtyard, a coat of arms appears over the main doorway, and blocked and mullioned windows indicate the fenestration before 19th-century alterations.

The eastern front is distinctive for its fine group of lateral chimney breasts, including one to the gable end of the central block where the chimney is corbelled out at first-floor level, and a pair of chimneys at the south end. Windows throughout have scalloped timber heads. The stepped south side features four gables with decorative bargeboards, finials, and an added porch. Gateways and the terraced forecourt are finished with ball finials.

All windows retain Tudor hoodmoulds; most are small-pane timber-framed sashes, though some courtyard windows have sunk-chamfered stone mullions.

The finest room in the house is the Parlour at the south end of the eastern wing. Its ceiling spans six bays with two narrow bays added at the north end, and the beams are richly moulded to the highest standards of the period. The room is fully panelled with bolection-moulded muntins and features a pulvinated frieze with dentilled cornice. The frieze is principally decorated with strapwork-style scrolls linked beneath a cabled border, and the cornice displays a continuous band of semicircular floral splays. Some wall panelling on the north wall has been reset. The fireplace and overmantel are flanked by Ionic pilasters and the overmantel displays four arcaded panels divided by garlanded male and female figures with foliated spandrels. The dressed-stone chimney piece is 19th-century with blue and white tiles within. The overmantel, displaying an early use of classical motifs, represents one of the most remarkable achievements in panelling in Glamorgan and is comparable to that at St. Fagans Castle and Llanmihangel Place.

The other main ground-floor room is the hall, redecorated in the 19th century and including an inscribed stone chimneypiece inserted by Reverend Nicholl. To the south lies the little parlour, retaining remains of 18th-century panelling. North of the parlour in the eastern wing is the kitchen, which has a beamed ceiling with broad chamfers and ovolo stops. Beyond that is a room that may correspond to the 'new chamber' listed in the 1628 inventory; it likewise has a beamed ceiling and a grand overmantel made up of re-used pieces of 17th-century carving. The window at the north end bears the engraving "Dec. 10th 1889 J D Carne". In the western wing is one grand room at the south end with a pilastered chimneypiece.

The main open-well staircase lies to the rear of the hall block and is basically late 16th-century, though partly reconstructed, particularly the lower newel and dog-gate of the lower flight. In its original form it would have been wholly exceptional. It features unusual octagonal newels richly ornamented in strapwork with ball-shaped finials that are hollowed-out rather in the manner of a crown, and turned balusters. At the top of the stair at first-floor level are two dressed-stone Tudor-arched doorways with hour-glass stops, one retaining its original door. Beamed ceilings extend to the main first-floor rooms. In the eastern wing, one end room retains complete bolection-moulded panelling with large raised fields.

In the attic, much of the original roof structure is retained, partly mortice-and-tenon jointed, though collars have been cut out to the north end of the eastern wing.