11323

 

II*  

Designated  

04/05/1973  

29/01/1999  

Merthyr Mawr House  

 

Bridgend  

Merthyr Mawr  

 

Merthyr Mawr House  

288885  

177942  

 

Approximately 0.75km NE of parish church and reached by private drives on its W and NE sides.  

Domestic  

 

Sir John Nicholl purchased the Merthyr Mawr Estate in 1804 and planned a new country residence away from the old manor house, Merthyr Mawr Hall (now the site of Home Farm). A new site was chosen below Chapel Hill which overlooks the Ogmore valley. In 1806 Henry Wood of Bristol was engaged as architect and conceived a new house with attached offices and a stable, drawings for which were much modified by Nicholl. Work began in 1806 but progressed slowly and was dogged with problems, in particular a fire which badly damaged the offices. Henry Wood departed in 1808 by mutual agreement but the house was not completed until the following year. In 1809 the columns for the entrance portico was supplied by Robert Blore of Piccadilly. A drawing of 1813 by William Weston Young shows the house to have had a single-storey office range on its E side, beyond which was a laundry at a lower level. Significant changes were made by John Cole Nicholl, who inherited Merthyr Mawr in 1853. The office range was raised to a 2-storey building with a plumbing tower against the E wall of the main house and a cold store at the E end in the courtyard, and a manservant's wing (later partly an armoury) was built on the N side of the courtyard. Alterations proposed in 1855 by Pritchard and Seddon were not carried out, except for minor additions to the service end, including a servants' hall between the main service range and the manservant's wing. A cast iron verandah was added on the W side between 1878 and 1899, replacing an earlier verandah shown on the 1843 Tithe map.  

Late-Georgian house of 2 storeys and 5x3 bays, and with lower service block on the E side. Of ashlar limestone under a hipped slate roof with wide bracketed eaves, and stone ridge stacks. The symmetrical entrance front faces N and is 5 bays, the outer bays brought forward slightly, and the lower-storey windows higher. Small-paned tripartite sashes to the outer and central bays, with plain sashes to the narrower bays R and L of centre. The centrally-placed portico has 2 Tuscan columns in Portland stone and a plain wooden entablature. The double doors have fixed panes with panels below, are flanked by thin fluted pilasters and similar glazed panels. A wide fanlight has coloured glass. The W garden front is 3 bays, with tripartite sashes to the outer bays and plain sash to the centre. In front is the late C19 stone-paved verandah extending the full width, of cast iron with 2-dimensional latticed piers and hipped roof. The S garden front is 5 bays with small-pane sash windows, the outer bays brought forward slightly, and wider with tripartite sashes. At the R end is an added plumbing tower of a single bay set back, with plain sashes to the 1st and 2nd floors. Below it is a single-storey projection added by Pritchard c1855 with a sash window across the angle. Set back from the main house is the lower 2-storey office and service block, consisting of a main 6-bay wing facing S, with a further wing on its N side and cold store and laundry attached at E end. Facing S are hornless sash windows and a flat-roofed projection against the central bay, of coursed, pecked stone, which is open on the R side and leads down via steps to a lower walled drying ground in front of the former laundry, at a lower level than the remainder of the service block. The single-storey former laundry is of the period 1806-9 and is now converted to 2 holiday cottages. It consists of 2 units (the wet end on E side, dry end to W) under a hipped roof with central stone ridge stack. It has doorways R and L of centre with inserted half-lit doors flanked by paired hornless sashes, and inserted windows further R and L. At the R end is an added shed behind which are doorways to store rooms, and behind which is an added vehicle shed opening to the yard. Behind the laundry, in the yard, is a cold store attached to the S wing of the service block, which has a half-hipped roof and pyramidal apex ventilator, replaced windows under flat heads and lozenge-shaped vents in the end wall. A short single-storey link on the N side of the main service wing, added by Pritchard c1855 on an earlier boundary wall, is attached to a similar parallel 2-storey 6-window wing on the N side of the yard, the former manservants' quarters and armoury.  

The entrance vestibule has a pair of Tuscan columns at the inner end stressing the divide between vestibule and a corridor to the principal rooms. The entablature has triglyphs and a cornice has a Greek key pattern. The main stairway is to the L and consists of an open-well stair with cantilevered stone treads, cast iron neo-classical balusters and a wreathed mahogany hand rail. The library on the SW side has Ionic columns with diagonal volutes. The main rooms have marble fireplaces with moulded surrounds. The panelled doors have reed-moulded surrounds.  

Listed grade II*, Merthyr Mawr House is a well-preserved late Georgian country house retaining good external and internal detail, and as the focus of the rebuilding of the Merthyr Mawr Estate following Sir John Nicholl's purchase of it in 1804.