4779

 

II  

Designated  

28/04/1952  

30/12/2004  

Maes-y-neuadd  

 

Gwynedd  

Talsarnau  

 

Eisingrug  

261704  

334536  

 

In an elevated position, set back from the E side of the country road leading N out of the small hamlet of Eisingrug.  

Domestic  

 

There are early literary references to a house here, the earliest being by an itinerant poet Liew Glyn Cothi c1460. The foundations of the estate were laid by Dafydd Thomas ap Dafydd ap Ieuan in the early C16, and it became one of the pre-eminent estates of Merioneth. From the mid C17 until the early C20, it was the principal home of the Wynn (later Nanney Wynn) family. The family appears to have been firmly rooted in Merioneth by the mid C15, but acquired Maes y neuadd when Jane Lloyd, the heiress of Gruffydd Lloyd, married Maurice Wynn of Moel-y-glo. It is not quite clear how the structural history of the house maps onto this genealogy, but it has been proposed that at its core are two sixteenth century houses, forming an example of the 'unit system' of linked dwellings later linked by a third block, probably in the eighteenth century. Successive generations were associated with successive remodellings, including a major renovation carried out for E W Kirkby by the Shrewsbury architect John Randal in the 1860s.  

Large gentry house in three distinct linked sections. Two storeys with attics. Mortared rubble masonry, roughly brought to courses; slate roofs with tiled ridges and coped gables; tall stone stacks with dripstones and capping. The earliest sections are thought to be those aligned roughly N-S, with the later E-W block joining them. Long N-S range at south of the complex comprises an irregularly fenestrated 5-window range, of which the right-hand bay appears to be a later addition, linking the earlier section with the rest of the house (there is a straight-joint beyond the right-hand ridge chimney). Entrance now in this bay, with window above it. Windows are all 4-pane sashes, though those in two right-hand bays are larger. Closely-spaced dormers in the roof. Ridge stacks, marking original gable lines, that to right larger. Copings to left-hand gable. E-W range adjoins to the left, advanced as a 3-window range, with central doorway and 4-pane sash windows, including gable end windows. Dormers within roof, and gable end stacks. At the rear of this range, parallel with the main N-S range but in staggered alignment, is a small 2-window range, possibly a later addition obscuring an earlier N-S range. It is 2-storeyed over a basement: principal rooms appear to be at first floor level, with bigger windows (4-pane sashes; ground-floor windows altered). This range is abutted by modern extensions linking the house to its former servants' hall, a heavily altered advanced range to the right, retaining however a bellcote on its western gable.  

The oldest part of the house retains a massive chamfered bressumer to an inglenook fireplace and has massive hewn chamfered cross beams in the ground floor rooms. Much of the original timberwork has been retained in the attics including hewn pegged collared trusses, hewn chamfered cross beams and joists. The C18 wing at the S end of the house now houses the dining rooms and sitting rooms which have retained the original plasterwork and panelling. There is a moulded dado rail and the moulded coving is corbelled, between the two are recessed panels with shaped moulded surrounds and the detailing is echoed on the pedimented fire surround in the dining room.  

Listed as a substantial sub-medieval and later gentry house, the seat of an important Merionydd estate. The house displays the complex development of linked domestic units characteristic of the domestic architecture of the region, giving a composite layout. Architectural character (including surviving internal features) reflects this historical development, though unified externally by C19 detail.