82163

 

II  

Designated  

28/11/2003  

28/11/2003  

Job's Well House  

 

Carmarthenshire  

Carmarthen  

 

 

239667  

220056  

 

Situated some 350m S of main entry to St David's Hospital.  

Domestic  

 

Gentry house, now hospital offices. A house on or near the site was owned by Thomas Williams in the mid C18, then by T. Jones, attorney, (d 1790) whose son J. Jones MP moved to Ystrad mansion in early C19. Described as 'substantial' when advertised to let in 1814 and 1818, the house was bought in the 1820s by William Nott, Carmarthen-born Indian Army officer, but the failure of the Calcutta Bank forced him to sell and return to India in 1829. The 1837 tithe map shows a rectangular building with rear projection, then owned by Margaret Thomas and Temperance Glascott, occupied by David Rees. It was called 'considerably improved' when advertised in 1838. Nott became one of the military heroes of early Victorian Britain in the first Afghan War 1838-42, for the defence of Kandahar after the massacre of Elphinstone's army and the retreat from Kabul against enormous odds in 1842. He retired ill in 1843, repurchased the house in 1844, but died 1/1/1845, when alterations by J.L. Collard had barely begun. Collard added the wings and presumably remodelled the main part, still incomplete when sold by Lady Nott in 1846. In 1857 sold for the Joint Counties Asylum, built on the hill to the rear in 1863-5, the house being variously used, altered in 1875 for convalescents and epileptics, and later used as offices.  

Gentry house now hospital premises. painted roughcast and stucco with slate deep eaved roofs. Tall narrow 3-storey, 3-bay main range with brick end stacks, between added projecting 2-storey gabled wings. Main house has deep flat eaves with scalloped fascia board, wings have moulded bargeboards. Narrow angle strips to all 3 parts, narrow bands over each floor on wings. Main house has tripartite 2-4-2-pane sashes to upper floors and ground floor square bay window to left of centre and enclosed porch to right, the bay not aligned. Bay has string course under parapet, large tripartite window to front and single windows in side walls. Porch is minimally Tudor with octagonal angle piers, 2 narrow bands to original parapet (added top course), and bands to piers at 2/3 height. Plain chamfered Tudor doorway with double 4-panel doors. Gable ends have paired pointed attic lights, brackets to deep verges with fretted bargeboards. Wings have big tripartite casement window with top lights to first floor. Left wing has altered ground floor with tripartite glazing and top-lights, centre half-glazed door. Side wall has big external chimneybreast with 15-pane ground floor window each side, 12-pane window to first floor left of chimney and long stair-light further left. Right gable has original hollow-moulded Tudor tripartite mullion-and-transom window with Tudor-arched heads to all lights (probably the example for other lost windows). Front iron area railings. Right wing runs back further than left wing, side wall has 2 external chimney breasts (right one missing stack) and centre gable. C20 windows. Rear of main house has 2 narrow gabled bays, larger to left with 2 12-pane stair lights. Centre has triple sash to each floor. right gable has 12-pane sash to both upper floors, ground floor obscured.  

In entrance hall, broad Tudor inner arch, infilled. No other ground floor original detail, staircase not apparently original.  

Included as an early Victorian gentry house of striking character, and for historical interest as owned by and remodelled for Major General Sir William Nott.