Coedarhydyglyn including attached outbuildings at rear.

Coedarhydyglyn including attached outbuildings at rear

A Grade I neo-classical Regency villa of outstanding architectural and historical importance. The building is constructed of stone with stuccoed elevations and stone plinth, roofed with Carmarthen slates in a hipped form with broad bracketed eaves and rendered chimney stacks. It rises to two storeys with cellar and attic to the east.

The main south front is composed of seven bays and features the most prominent architectural elements. The penultimate bays at each end are advanced and pedimented, partly embracing a freestone portico with four unfluted Greek Doric columns. The parapet carries anthemion acroteria or finials, and the central bay contains a half-glazed door. The top left window and the top two right windows are blind. The fenestration throughout comprises twelve and fifteen-pane sash windows in reveals with narrow glazing bars, much of the original glass surviving. The ground floor reception rooms are all lit by long fifteen-pane sashes.

The garden front to the west comprises five windows and is distinguished by a broad splayed two-storey bay at the centre, further projected by a hipped wooden verandah with swept lead roof. The verandah's frieze displays stylised anthemions and a Greek fret pattern, supported by slender triple columns executed in wood with cast iron motifs.

The seven-bay north elevation features an advanced and pedimented central bay with tall fifteen-pane fixed light windows serving the dining room. Blind windows appear at the upper right and at the end left on both storeys. The rear elevation to the east comprises six bays and rises to three storeys. Attached to the rear are single-storey service ranges of whitewashed rubble with hipped slate roofs and overhanging eaves, arranged around a small stone-flagged courtyard, now gravelled. The southern range is a former store with salting slab and has a six-panel door with overlight flanked by six-pane sashes. The northern range served as bakehouse, laundry and office, featuring a central round-arched opening flanked by small-pane windows, with a sliding sash to the left and a hopper to the right.

The interior is very well preserved and displays exceptional neo-classical detailing. The entrance opens onto a large rectangular hall with a cornice featuring foliage ornament and mutules, and a bolection-moulded stone fireplace. This gives access through double doors to the large central staircase hall, the focal point of the plan. The hall originally featured a plaster coffered ceiling with brackets and a lantern dome, which was replaced in 1924 and subsequently modified to a top light in the 1990s.

The imperial staircase is of fine design, with scrolled newels, a wreathed handrail, S-shaped treads and iron uprights to the balustrade enriched with palmettes and a band of double guilloche moulding at first floor level. An enriched round-arched niche is positioned at the half-landing. The stairs rise to a first floor landing with tall round-arched loggia-type openings framed by panelled soffits and pilasters.

Off the left of the staircase hall are three rectangular principal reception rooms arranged parallel to each other along the garden frontage and connected by inter-communicating doors. The drawing room on the left features a white marble chimneypiece with mirrored overmantel and decorative small-tile surround to the fireplace opening. The ceiling carries an elaborate frieze and cornice adorned with anthemion and acanthus ornament, egg and dart moulding and guilloche work, with a central rose.

The library at the centre is distinguished by a dark grey marble fireplace with Greek key pattern and two tiers of cornice moulding, with a ceiling rose. The dining room to the right has a black marble chimneypiece with gilded mirrored overmantel. Its ceiling frieze displays arabesques, garlands, anthemions and egg and dart ornament. At the east end is a broad and deep recess framed by tapered pilasters with similar capital detail and a ribbed ceiling, providing direct access via corridor to the kitchen and service rooms.

The service wing, now converted to family accommodation, retains its original layout including kitchen, servants hall, housekeeper's room, butler's pantry, office, pantries, buttery and cellars. Round-arched corridor openings and panelled doors with overlights preserve the period character. The plasterwork throughout is elaborate and finely moulded, particularly to ceiling cornices and doorcases with entablatures. Panelled doors of polished mahogany serve the formal rooms, and panelled reveals with window shutters are retained throughout. The plan is exceptionally well designed, providing ease of circulation and adequate service accommodation while maintaining external symmetry.