History

Y Wern was built c1935 for the first Warden of Coleg Harlech, Sir Ben Bowen Thomas. The house was designed by Griffith Morris, architect of Porthmadog and received a CPRW award at the time.

Coleg Harlech, the 'College of the Second Chance' was the brain-child of Dr Thomas Jones, Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet under Lloyd George and was opened in 1927.

Exterior

One-and-a half storey house in restrained Arts and Crafts style; roughly L-plan with main, entrance section and gabled cross-wing to the L. The house is constructed of local slatestone, the principal elevations with snecked, quarry-dressed facings, the rear elevation roughcast. Slate roof with projecting gable end chimneys with plain cappings; gable parapets with slab copings and stepped kneelers. The main elevation is asymmetrical, with a deeply-recessed central entrance bay. This has a part-glazed door with leaded upper section, flanked by single (L) and triple (R) arched-headed leaded lights. Small semi-circular buttresses flank the entrance. To the R of this is a 4-light transmullioned wooden window with opening upper casement sections; plain returned label. The front roof pitch oversails the recessed entrance bay in the form of a dormer storey. This has a wide, coped and kneelered catslide dormer with paired 8-pane casements. To the L of the entrance bay is the gable end of the cross-wing, with 3-light transmullioned windows to ground and first floor, as before.

The L return (N elevation) has a chimney corbelled-out at first floor, with a segmental opening to the centre of the upper floor containing a 6-pane casement. 3-light transmullioned window to the ground floor L, with meshed pantry window beyond. The S gable end has a slated and parapeted lean-to projection to the ground floor from which the chimney breast emerges; this with two small vertical lights; further, similar though larger lights to the ground floor. Ten-pane glazed door with label to the ground-floor L. Further casement and leaded windows to the roughcast rear, with a recessed catslide dormer to the roof; boarded service door to the unrendered inner return of the cross-wing.

The house is fronted by a narrow terrace with 2.5m high revettment wall; steps lead down to the road.

Interior

The interiors are plain, though largely unaltered; painted, panelled doors and thin architraves, picture rails and skirtings, all typical of the period. Plain stair in short flights.

Reasons for Listing

Listed as a particularly fine and largely unaltered inter-War C20 Arts and Crafts house by the architect Griffith Morris of Porthmadog; one of a series of highly interesting architect-designed houses built around Coleg Harlech.

External Links

• Cadwr Listing
• Wikidata Q29502455

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

• 
  Harrow on the Hill: A photographic portrayal of listed buildings and structures (Historic Buildings Picture Guides)
• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 1: The City of London: City of London v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Drawing up a Local Listed Building Consent Order: Historic England Advice Note 6