GWYNFRYN PLAS, Llanystumdwy, Caernarvonshire 2009
Notes on GWYNFRYN PLAS, Llanystumdwy, Caernarvonshire 2009
I left the house at 4am and spent two and half hours driving in the dark miserable drizzle up to the village of Llanystumdwy. The only other traffic were articulates passing goods around the country. I parked the car and walked past a lodge house and up the winding path across open parkland passed large oaks and up to the imposing ruins of Gwynfryn Plas. The rain had stopped and a warm sun peered through the clouds just north of Snowdon skimming Gwynfryn’s façade with a warm and welcoming hue.
The house is positioned beautifully on the Lleyn Peninsula overlooking Snowdonia and Cardigan Bay. Looking up at the house it became quickly apparent that the larger tower is nearing the precipice of collapse. A stone window lintel on the first floor has buckled and cracked with a bulging mass of stone above it looking ready to burst out onto the ground below and no doubt bringing with it much of the tower above.
The tower, as much of the house, is built with brick but with a stone outer and was built by Hugh John Ellis Nanney and completed in 1876 (with a date stone on the tower). It remained a family home until 1928 (a mere 52 years) and then became a retirement home for the clergy, a hospital and then a hotel (a mixed, yet not uncommon, history). It burnt down during the 1980’s and has remained that way since (except for a brief period when a squatter took it upon himself to begin a restoration, a seemingly ambitious but futile attempt before eviction).
Wandering through the rear rooms and service quarters there’s much evidence of the house as a hotel. Slot machines fill an outbuilding, a room full of children’s books and toys fill another, a room with light fittings and chandeliers, maintenance rooms with metal boxes filled with nuts, bolts and other hardware, rusting and messy, in disarray and disorder.
Evidence of the ambitious and, quite frankly, brave squatter - a sole inhibitor - an easy chair and radio. A lot of machinery dotted around the rear of the building; heavy duty bench saws and drill presses, all rusting outside and destined for landfill one day. Many rooms are filled with building material, roof beams, an endless list of supplies and spares, either salvaged or bought for restoration, all redundant and wasted. All this is open to the elements and decaying in the damp. Cars litter the grounds barely visible in the summer foliage, other farming and foresting equipment laying redundant, damp, mouldy, lichen covered with weeds growing in and around wheels and engines. Overall Gwynfryn is a very depressing sight.
The entrance is at the side, a lavish decorative stone lattice porch and it was in this doorway that the better exposures were made. A view opened up into the house revealing fallen beans, passageways and into the main hall and onto a large fireplace. I can not say I particularly enjoyed my visit to Gwynfryn. The drive up there was long and slow and under horrid weather conditions. The house so beautifully positioned yet is so miserable and carelessly abandoned that you feel anger towards the waste. I hail the brave squatter and salute his resolve but this house needs more than care put into it. It needs a hefty wallet and a generous and willing loving restorer.
Plas Gwynfryn 2009
Plas Gwynfryn 2009
I left the house at 4am and spent two and half hours driving in the dark miserable drizzle up to the village of Llanystumdwy. The only other traffic were articulates passing goods around the country. I parked the car and walked past a lodge house and up the winding path across open parkland passed large oaks and up to the imposing ruins of Gwynfryn Plas. The rain had stopped and a warm sun peered through the clouds just north of Snowdon skimming Gwynfryn’s façade with a warm and welcoming hue.
The house is positioned beautifully on the Lleyn Peninsula overlooking Snowdonia and Cardigan Bay. Looking up at the house it became quickly apparent that the larger tower is nearing the precipice of collapse. A stone window lintel on the first floor has buckled and cracked with a bulging mass of stone above it looking ready to burst out onto the ground below and no doubt bringing with it much of the tower above.
The tower, as much of the house, is built with brick but with a stone outer and was built by Hugh John Ellis Nanney and completed in 1876 (with a date stone on the tower). It remained a family home until 1928 (a mere 52 years) and then became a retirement home for the clergy, a hospital and then a hotel (a mixed, yet not uncommon, history). It burnt down during the 1980’s and has remained that way since (except for a brief period when a squatter took it upon himself to begin a restoration, a seemingly ambitious but futile attempt before eviction).
Wandering through the rear rooms and service quarters there’s much evidence of the house as a hotel. Slot machines fill an outbuilding, a room full of children’s books and toys fill another, a room with light fittings and chandeliers, maintenance rooms with metal boxes filled with nuts, bolts and other hardware, rusting and messy, in disarray and disorder.
Evidence of the ambitious and, quite frankly, brave squatter - a sole inhibitor - an easy chair and radio. A lot of machinery dotted around the rear of the building; heavy duty bench saws and drill presses, all rusting outside and destined for landfill one day. Many rooms are filled with building material, roof beams, an endless list of supplies and spares, either salvaged or bought for restoration, all redundant and wasted. All this is open to the elements and decaying in the damp. Cars litter the grounds barely visible in the summer foliage, other farming and foresting equipment laying redundant, damp, mouldy, lichen covered with weeds growing in and around wheels and engines. Overall Gwynfryn is a very depressing sight.
The entrance is at the side, a lavish decorative stone lattice porch and it was in this doorway that the better exposures were made. A view opened up into the house revealing fallen beans, passageways and into the main hall and onto a large fireplace. I can not say I particularly enjoyed my visit to Gwynfryn. The drive up there was long and slow and under horrid weather conditions. The house so beautifully positioned yet is so miserable and carelessly abandoned that you feel anger towards the waste. I hail the brave squatter and salute his resolve but this house needs more than care put into it. It needs a hefty wallet and a generous and willing loving restorer.
Plas Gwynfryn 2009
Plas Gwynfryn 2009
|
Comments
By D hughes: I was personally acqainted with the intrepid squatter who poured considerable resources - mainly physical, into the attempted partial restoration of this ruin. I hail now as I did then, his unquenshable zeal in the face of such monumental impossibility. I could never fathom out why on earth he should want to attempt it, - it's a horrid mish mash of architectural styles, impressive in a kind of awsome, crude way but splendourless. The mouldings and stones(though not the stonework) could be put to some grander use I'm sure. I believe the owner hails from Canada and made a court appearance locally in order to challenge the shaky legality on which the squatter based his occupancy and indeed possession. I'm minded that a better outcome would have been to allow the misguided yet committed squatter to continue with his endeavours; better this than the sad and blatent neglect which is now inexorably reducing the edifice to rubble. A shame on those owners who seem to be paralysed by such inertia that not even basic preservation is attempted. By By P White: Hello, Thanks for your comments - i just felt the need to reply - I agree with you wholeheartedly about the mish-mash of architectural styles of the house - aesthietically i find it insulting to the senses; Disney-like, crass and oddly characterless. There are however some discernable features, i do like the porch, although even this seems like an after-thought! By By P White: Hello, Thanks for your comments - i just felt the need to reply - I agree with you wholeheartedly about the mish-mash of architectural styles of the house - aesthietically i find it insulting to the senses; Disney-like, crass and oddly characterless. There are however some discernable features, i do like the porch, although even this seems like an after-thought! By aaron: i love this building and have been trying to contact the owner or the former squatter but with no joy CAN ANYONE HELP PLEASE
I WISH TO PURCHASE By Dawn: I would like to try and contact anyone who owns this building or who can grant me use of the grounds.. I run a ghost hunting business and have been asked by many local people who claim to have seen things flowating around in and around the building to arrange something but fear simply being in the grounds i may be tresspassing?? By Richard Williams: This was a fantastic building. I remember working on it just before it became a hotle. It was then ownd by a Mr Cotterril!! who was supposed a "boxing promoter". When we had to lay a waste pipe through the wall it was Very difficult. The outside stonework was so good there seemed to be no mortar between the stones. So well was it built. I remember "Bwff" a local craftsman cleaning the oak panelling with some sort of acid to remove years of dirt. Boy did it come up clean. What an awful shame it has come to this. The ceiling in the Library was fantastic. Wish I had won the Euromillions lottery, because I would love to see this building come back to life. By Steve Hill: The Mr Cotterill refered to was the business partner of my father who was co-owner at the time - 1970s. I spent most of my teenage summers at Gwynfryn when it was a hotel, working in the kitchens, the laundry and maintaining the extensive gardens and walled kitchen garden. I also remember getting the local fire service in to help hoist a flag pole to the top of the tower - flying the Welsh dragon of course! The views across the Lleyn peninsula were spectacular from there.