14669

 

II  

Designated  

25/07/1994  

25/07/1994  

Cotswold  

 

Conwy  

Colwyn Bay  

 

Colwyn Bay  

284418  

379048  

E  

Between Oak Drive and Lansdowne Road.  

Domestic  

 

Built in 1908 by Alfred Steinthal, architect, of Manchester, for a Mrs Benger, whose family owned a food business in Manchester. The house was later the home of the local architect, S Colwyn Foulkes.  

Decorative timberwork to principal range facing the street, and in the rear N wing, render over brick to rear and to service block adjoining the principal range to the N. Concrete tiled roof (from design provided by S Colwyn Foulkes), replacing (and imitating) the original cotswold stone flags from which the house is said to have taken its name. Axial brick stacks, with diagonally set shafts. 2 storeys, the house is planned around an open hall which dominates the elevation facing the road. This forms a wide hipped roofed block to the right, with advanced gable housing the staircase to the left lit by a 3 tier stair window. Richly decorated bargeboards and tie-beam to jettied gable apex. The hall itself lit by a 4-tier mullioned and transomed window, and both these windows have decorative leading. Timber framed entrance porch alongside stair gable to the left, with segmentally arched doorway, and foliate decoration to bargeboards. Beyond the entrance to the left are the paired asymmetrical gables of the service range, with mullioned windows of 1,2 and 4 lights. The principal rooms are ranged to the rear, parallel to the hallrange, and projecting beyond it to the right (S): the S corner of this projecting wing is cutaway on the ground floor to an arched loggia with secondary entrance, and in its hipped gabled return is a pronounced 2-storeyed semi-circular bay window with conical roof and stone mullioned and transoms to ground floor, wood above. Rear elevation has 4 window range between rear wing to N, and a gabled projecting stack to the S. Stone canted bay window of 4-lights to ground floor, with back door to its right. Windows throughout have leaded lights, confined to the upper panes in the larger transomed windows.  

Porch opens on to entrance lobby with mosaic tiled floor: full height hall is panelled with oak, and has fireplace inserted by S Colwyn Foulkes, marble with wood terms supporting the mantle. Staircase housed in gabled projection, giving access to gallery above: turned balusters, newels with ball finials and undercut stylised foliate 'capitals': a similar detail is used on the principal posts of the gallery. Dining room to the rear has walls partly panelled with architraves to doorways, and articulating wider panels which are covered with leather. Fireplace and overmantle are said to have been brought to the house from Ufford Hall, Suffolk, and are probably late C16: poker-work strapwork decoration to columns either side of the fireplace, and in the arcaded overmantle. Flanking cupboards are similarly richly detailed, and may also have been brought in from elsewhere. The fireplace itself is set in a 4-centred stone archway, and has a fireback dated 1633 (introduced to the house by S Colwyn Foulkes).  

An excellent example of Arts and Crafts architecture, both in the planning and constructional detail of the house, and in the quality of its internal fittings.