87733

 

II  

Designated  

31/08/2018  

 

Coach House at Ty Gwyn  

 

Cardiff  

Lisvane  

 

 

318935  

182818  

 

To the E of Ty Gwyn, set below on a bend in the private entrance drive.  

Domestic  

Edwardian  

Built 1906 (dated) as one of the service buildings for Ty Gwyn, the Jacobethan residence of James E Turner. Turner was senior partner in E Turner and Sons, builders of Cardiff responsible for many of the important civic buildings in Cathays Park. The Coach House is one of a range of ancillary ‘estate’ buildings constructed in the grounds of Ty Gwyn. Designed as coach house and stabling but altered in the 1920s by Turner when the house also underwent significant updating and refitting. The single storey NE range was refitted to provide garaging for motor vehicles and the NW range for laundry facilities with the installation of a large capacity laundry drying cabinet manufactured by Thomas Bradford &Co of Manchester of a type normally installed in commercial laundries. The updating of service facilities for Ty Gwyn represents an important stage in the development of domestic estate building with the introduction of motor cars over horse drawn carriages and the development of labour saving technology. The S half was converted to domestic use in later C20 in the form of two cottages (Orchard Cottage and Rose Cottage), previously they are reported to have been a tack room and chauffeur’s accommodation. The chauffeur’s accommodation is likely to have been a 1920s conversion to accompany the garage conversion at that time and may have used an existing, originally domestic part of the building. Altered and extended in 2017/18 to create a single dwelling.  

Coach house in Neo-Renaissance style. Red brick, brick chimney stacks with stone dressings, decorative and plain bargeboards, tile roofs and ridge tiles and scalloped hung tiles in gables. Square block around central open courtyard, 2 storey entrance range to SE, remainder single storey. 6 bay SE entrance elevation with central arched entrance bay with oriel window and gable above. 4-light canted oriel with slender cusped ogee lights, two to the front and one to each side. Apron extends from the arch keystone with projecting date plaque. Battlemented cornice. Entrance arch of rounded stonework, with cusped imposts and projecting keystone and plinth. 3 bays to left form a symmetrical composition with gabled outer bays with small pane casement windows to each floor, with projecting sills and flat aprons with scroll decoration. Smaller 4-pane flat- headed windows to centre. 2 bays to right with small casement windows with rounded heads; lower window to right larger modern window. Continuous string course immediately below the eaves course made up of individual floral decorative tiles with plain brick between each. Return elevation to NE has 2 windows to upper floor of 2 storey entrance range gable and 1 round headed lower window, all later replacements. This steps down to single storey range with similar window then door to cottage, later glazed door with overlight. Service area from this point, with wide transom window to garage area then boarded door to outside wc. Gabled end to NW range, with 2 transom windows. SW range of similar layout, with blank 2 storey gable of entrance range gable. Door to left of central single storeyed part, with wide window to side and smaller higher window, both replacements. Two large rooflights. Transom window to gable of NW range. 7 bay to NW range, 3 windows to garage area, single window and door to storage room then 3 windows to laundry room. Courtyard interior elevations: gabled entrance arch with partially blocked former loading door above, door to cottage to right. To SW square oriel with overhanging eaves, and dormer above - both later replacements. Large flat chimney stack (to laundry) in W corner, single window to NW range, NE partially open with overhanging canopy, 2 windows and door in E corner to cottage.  

Service area walls lined with glazed brown brick with a blue brick dado course. Floor areas largely concrete, NE range with some parquet flooring incorporating vehicle maintenance pit. Boarded ceilings and boxes for roller shutters survive. NW range with 2 separated rooms accessed from steps up from N corner; storage room then laundry room retaining original drying cabinet, fittings and shelving. The drying cabinet is also lined with glazed brick as before and incorporates 2 floor length vertical cast iron drawers containing clothes airers either side of a central stove. Interior of cottages not inspected.  

Included, notwithstanding some later alterations, for its special architectural interest as part of the complex of self contained small estate buildings at Ty Gwyn. Despite the part conversion to residential it is also of special historic interest as an example of a building adapted to accommodate technological improvements and represents the continuation of a traditional building form in the early period of motor car history and the development of the servicing of larger domestic buildings in the inter-war period. Group value with Ty Gwyn and other support buildings.