History

Plas Kinmel, the former Home Farm for Kinmel, replaced Llwyni House on the site after it was purchased by Edward Hughes in 1789, three years after he had acquired the Kinmel estate. The present house, which at one time housed the agent, together with the farm complex, was designed and built by W E Nesfield in 1866-8, he being engaged, allegedly, by a Hughes daughter on the grounds that he had successfully designed farm buildings at Shipley Hall, Derbyshire and an unexecuted scheme of 1863-6 for Croxteth Hall, Lancashire. A later generation of the Hughes family moved from Kinmel into Hendre Gyda (Kinmel Manor Hotel) and later into the Home Farm in 1934, when it was given the present name.

Exterior

The farm is laid out around a large square, the house occupying most of the S side, and the S end of the W range. It is built of limestone, with slate roofs and stepped red clay ridge tiles. Tall ribbed brick stacks. The W front, in the W range of the square, has a forward wing on the left, and is assymetrical, consisting of an emphasised entrance porch under a pent roof on timber turned posts, set in front of a coped gable over the 4-light first floor window. The entrance has a robust arch of 2 chamfered orders, with the doorcase recessed; a panelled door with the ribs iron studded, and handsomly designed ironmongery. On the immediate right, a small window with leaded lights. To the right of the porch, a projecting chimney stack, bearing the crested Hughes arms, and the date 1867. Below the motto HEB DDUW HEB DDIM DDUW A DIGON. To the left of the porch, a pair of 4-light mullioned and transomed windows, with a hipped dormer lighting the upper floor. The iron rainwater hoppers bear sunflowers. The gable of the projecting wing on the left has a 5-light mullioned and transomed window with small quarry leaded glazing, and a 4-light similar window above. Adjoined to this gable, the gate piers to the house forecourt, approximately 3.5m high, of stone with 2 courses of chamfered offsets at the top. The house is linked by a small wing to the S end of the W range by a single storey 2-bay block with a boarded door and window with leaded yellow stained quarries around a central panel, a potted flower labelled 'bell flower'. Sashed dormers above.

The garden front, which was modified c1934, extends between the projecting living room on the left, to the centrally placed open fronted 3-bay garden loggia, with further accommodation beyond extending to the dovecote at the corner. The left projecting wing has a canted stone mullioned dormer, with a dramatically steep stone roof dying into the the first floor gable and terminating in a flower motif. An arch-headed door with moulded stone doorcase emerges on to the terrace. The facade continues to a door, and has 2 hipped dormers to the upper floor, the glazing of c1934. The upper floor has an angled square oriel balanced on the corner of the house. The garden loggia has brick piers supporting the double pitched roof, and part of front timber framing with rendered infill impressed with sun motifs. The games room, continuing the range to the E, has arcaded blind glazing and a double pair of doors. The terminal dovecote is a tour-de-force, a tall rubble stone drum with a banded slate conical toof terminating in decorative ironwork. Two-light windows filled with puntil glass, with 3 blind panels of ashlar stone bearing Hughes arms flanked by potted sunflowers. The door to the dovecote is on the E side. The glover, in the form of a steep arched dormer on stone corbels, has four flight holes and a decorative panel above, and a Lombardic 'h' entwined with flowers below.

The N elevation of the house, facing the farmyard, has 3 dormers on the main range, with 2 hipped dormers on the W wing, which has further windows with yellow-stain quarries around central 'bellflower', 'sunflower' and 'poppy' designs.

The small formal garden on the S side, divided into quadrants and surrounded by a thick hedge, and having an urn at the centre, is probably the work of W A Nesfield, father of William Eden Nesfield the architect of the Kinmel.

Interior

Interior not accessible at time of inspection (1997).

Reasons for Listing

Included at Grade II* as an outstanding example of a house, by a major architect, which was instrumental in establishing an 'aesthetic' tradition in architecture.

External Links

• Cadwr Listing
• Wikidata Q17744190

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Listed Buildings and Other Heritage Assets
• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2