4628

 

II  

Designated  

15/06/1993  

30/03/1999  

Summer House at Wern Manor  

 

Gwynedd  

Dolbenmaen  

Dolbenmaen  

Wern  

254387  

339834  

 

Wern Manor is a small country house approximately 2km W of Tremadoc. The gardens lies to the S and E of the house with the summer-house at the E end of the formal layout.  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

 

In 1892 John Douglas, architect of Chester, completely remodelled an existing country house for the engineer R M Greaves who ran the family slate quarries at Blaenau Ffestiniog and was uncle to Sir Clough Williams Ellis, the architect and creator of Portmeirion. The grounds are an early example of the work of Thomas Mawson, the internationally known and most prolific garden designer of his day; here at Wern in 1891-2 he laid out an entirely new terraced garden, with the summer house as its terminal feature in 1903.  

Summer-house in Italianate style, built of stone and having a fine-grained brown sandstone ashlar front; hipped slate roof. Three semicircular arches to front with voussoirs together with stylised Doric columns with egg and dart echinus raised on the scroll-pierced balustrade; broad end pilaster strips and dentil cornice. The building stands on a raised platform and is approached by 3 semicircular-shaped steps.  

Plastered, and ochre-washed, with a corniced ceiling. At each end is a Cararra marble semicircular table raised on tall Tuscan columns of the same material. The floor is laid with thin slate set in a chequerboard pattern.  

Listed for group value with Wern Manor and for its special interest as a fine garden building surviving from an important scheme by Thomas Mawson.