14700

 

II  

Designated  

25/07/1994  

25/07/1994  

Dining Hall at Rydal School  

 

Conwy  

Colwyn Bay  

 

Colwyn Bay  

284555  

378999  

E  

Facing Pwllycrochan Avenue and forming the central range of the 2 courtyards which comprise the main buildings of Rydal School.  

Domestic  

 

Rydal School was founded by T G Osborn, a leading methodist Educationalist in 1885, and was first established in a house known as Rydal Mount which forms the nucleus of the present old house. The school expanded on this site in the years which followed, and the school hall was built in 1900, to designs of T E Lidiard James, architect, of London. It was extended in the same style by S Colwyn Foulkes of Colwyn Bay in 1957-8.  

Single storeyed over a over a basement (housing the kitchens), in the style of an Oxford or Cambridge college hall, using a Tudor Gothic style. Rusticated coursed and squared rubble with slate roof. Gabled entrance porch up steps set back at the N end, and stair turret (to former organ loft) at NW angle of hall; 9 bays (the original hall comprising the first 5 bays), divided by pilaster buttresses and each with 3-light leaded mullioned and transomed window, then full height canted bay window. Embattled parapet; fleche with ogival traceried base surmounts the roof. Similar detail on E-facing elevation.  

10 bay hall, with stone corbels carrying wall posts of braced collar trusses (with additional steel braces in the later bays to the S); dado panelling in simple C16 style. Commemorative stained glass in bay window to E.  

The central building in the Rydal School complex, the hall is an excellent example of the use of a Neo-Tudor architectural vocabulary especially associated with educational buildings.