4778

 

II*  

Designated  

28/04/1952  

30/12/2004  

Glyn Cywarch  

 

Gwynedd  

Talsarnau  

 

Glyn Cywarch  

260856  

334283  

NE  

In private grounds set well back from the NE side of the B4573, to S of Glan-y-wern and SE of Eisingrug.  

Domestic  

 

The estate of Glyn Cywarch (earlier known simply as Glyn) belonged originally to a branch of the Wynn family, descended from Osbwrn Wyddel. An early reference to the estate associates it with Robert Wynn (d.1592), who was described in documents as 'of Glyn', but the present house was built for William and Kathryn Wynn in 1616. It is an ambitious gentry house of renaissance character, and like many other gentry houses in this region, displays a distinctive layout comprising two linked dwellings: to the rear of the main house, and originally facing away from it, is a smaller block - a secondary dwelling or dower house. The two were subsequently linked by the rear wing of the main house, which was also later extended with the addition of another wing in parallel during restoration in the 1870s. By the eighteenth century, the house had passed by marriage to the Owen family of Clenneny and Brogyntyn, who were mainly resident at Brogyntyn, leaving Glyn to be used by the local agent. The estate came (again by marriage) into the Ormsby (later Ormsby-Gore) family in the nineteenth century, and under their auspices, the house was restored and the estate developed during the 1870s. The internal layout of the house has been altered in recent times, but the main range appears to have comprised central entrance hall, flanked by hall with lateral fireplace, and parlour (later dining room). Kitchen in rear wing, which may also have housed original staircase, with front-stair in entrance hall a later addition.  

Gentry house dated 1616 and displaying some renaissance character whilst remaining in a sub-medieval tradition. Comprises main range, linked by a rear wing to a parallel block to the rear (the secondary dwelling or dower house) with nursery wing of 1870to its rear. Mortared rubble masonry, with sandstone dressings; slate roofs with coped gables and gable end and axial stacks. Main range is two storeyed with attics: Compactly set out, but with sub-medieval asymmetry: Main elevation faces the gatehouse to the SE, the doorway to right of centre, in 4-centred archway with date in spandrels, and armorial tablet above (the arms of Osbwrn Wyddel with those attributed to Owain Gwynedd). Flanking 3-light ovolo-moulded mullioned and transomed windows with leaded panes (2 to left, 1 to right on each floor). 2-light window over the doorway, and gabled dormers unequally spaced in the roof, each with 3-light mullioned window. Windows in each gable return (perhaps inserted at a later date?): 16-pane sash windows to first floor to right, small casement and a mullioned and transomed window to ground floor; sash windows to ground and first floors in left hand gable. Original rear wing towards the north, also with mullioned and transomed windows (and shorter, later wing in parallel to south). Parallel to the main range, and offset from it to the rear, is the former secondary dwelling: Similar construction, but of smaller dimensions - a low two storeys. Its principal elevation faces west, and is partially obscured by the later C19 wing which abuts it, but its principal feature is a fine full-height bow window, surmounted by a gable, and with mullioned lights. Original entrance alongside this to the left in angle with later wing; two axial stacks. The range was extended with a mono-pitched bay abutting the original rear wing of the main house. 1870s wing ins style sympathetic to the original construction.  

The original layout conformed to a regional sub-medieval pattern of hall (originally with lateral fireplace) and parlour in the main range; renaissance influence is suggested by the housing of a well-stair and kitchen in a rear wing. This layout does not survive intact, but original detail of a high order relating to this original plan survives. Fine plaster work overmantel to parlour fireplace, with armorial panel and flanking figures of Adam and Eve; similarly enriched fireplaces to first floor chambers, also with plaster armorial panels as overmantels, dated 1638 and 1639. Leading from the front range to the rear kitchen wing, a fine Jacobean door is resited, probably from Clenenney. Panelling on the upper landing was brought from Penrhos Old Hall, Montgomeryshire. In the former secondary dwelling inscriptions painted by Ellis Wynn, third son of William and Kathryn, survive: one reads E W his chambre …1664 and another 'Let me doe noe things Lord but what may tend to thy … glory and my end'.  

Listed II as a major early C17 gentry house, its architectural ambition and social status marked in a fusion of regional traditions and renaissance ideas, retaining original interior detail of exceptional quality.