20392

 

II  

Designated  

03/09/1998  

03/09/1998  

Coach-house range at Bodorgan home farm  

 

Isle of Anglesey  

Bodorgan  

 

Bodorgan  

238610  

367497  

 

Located immediately north of the main house at Bodorgan. The coach-house range forms the N side of the courtyard of the home farm.  

Agriculture and Subsistence  

 

Bodorgan was one of a number of townships from which the Bishop of Bangor derived his income, and is first recorded in 1306. The estate forms the Anglesey seat of the Meyrick family, whose ancestors were tenants from late C14, the surname first documented in 1537. The estate expanded from the early C18 onwards, and by late C19 was the largest on the island. The main house (built 1779-83) was designed by John Cooper, architect of Beaumaris, who also designed some of the outbuildings, built in 1782. The coach-house range is a long multi-purpose building incorporating coach-houses, former smithy and loose-box; built in several phases, the earliest (to E) probably one of the outbuildings built by John Cooper in the summer of 1782. The entire range is shown on the Llangadwaladr Tithe map of 1843.  

A long building of several phases, aligned downslope from W to E. Rubble walls and re-newed slate roof, gabled at the W end and hipped at the E. At the upper (W) end is an open-sided 2-bay shed (formerly with 4 open bays) with a rubble gable wall and brick piers. Former wide openings either side now infilled with rubble and with inserted square-headed windows, that to the left having a fixed 4-pane upper light over boarded shutters; that to the right a 12-pane fixed light. The shed was later used as a smithy. There is a boarded door to the N (rear) elevation, and a number of blocked openings. To the right of the shed is a feed preparation room, with a boarded door (with second blocked door to R) and fixed 12-pane window, formerly containing a chaff-cutter driven from a gin house abutting the rear (N) of the building (the gin house is now demolished). Adjoining to the right (E) are 5 coach-bays; the 3 bays to the left originally formed the end of the range, and was formerly known as the 'fire-engine house' (dummy venetian window in E gable, now enclosed). To the right is the 2-bay coach-house with a loose-box forming the E end of the building (probably built in 1782). Coach doors have squared masonry jambs with segmental ashlar heads; boarded double doors. The loose-box is built of squared and coursed limestone with ashlar stone voussoir heads to openings. Boarded door to right with 6-pane horned sash window to left.  

 

Included for forming an important part of the agricultural courtyard group of the home farm of Bodorgan, illustrating some of the functions carried out around the estate centre, such as smithing, preparing horse feed and storing carts and fire wagons. The buildings exhibit a range of styles from the more functional vernacular of the shed, to the greater architectural refinement of the coach-house.