8 bedroom house for sale

Tenure: Freehold

Situation

Trawsgoed is located in the unspoilt Ystwyth Valley designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, between the Cambrian Mountains and the spectacular Ceredigion Coast with wooded valleys descending to hidden coves and wonderful beaches. Trawsgoed has easy access to the red brick university town of Aberystwyth (8 miles) with the largest arts centre in Wales and a good range of shops and restaurants. The area is particularly popular for holidaying and Trawsgoed is perfectly situated to enjoy the excellent walking, bird watching, fishing, shooting, golf, riding and sailing available in the area.

Description

Trawsgoed Mansion, or Crosswood Park as it has been known in the past, is one of the most important houses in Wales.

The Georgian wing of the Mansion is as yet undeveloped but in many parts restored and offers great scope to recreate a country house of great stature. The finesse of the library ceiling
is spectacular as are the gardens and grounds which are also listed. Much of the renovation work is already completed by traditional craftsmen with over 80 tons of lime plaster used to date. Throughout the property are charming reminders of the architectural richness of Trawsgoed Mansion including a balcony leading from an upstairs room to overlook the staircase and hall below. There are extensive plans drawn up to make Trawsgoed Mansion a most luxurious and significant dwelling which has the appropriate planning consents, the spaces within the Mansion are flexible and could be adapted to a number of uses. It would lend itself superbly to either a high end destination hotel, wedding venue or conference centre.

Trawsgoed Mansion is an important Grade II* listed 17th century Mansion House being the original and principle part of one of Wales most important stately homes standing in wonderful gardens and grounds which are suitable for opening to the public. Rich both in architectural detail and history the current owners have painstakingly restored the principle state rooms while many of the materials required to complete the renovations are already in situ. There are many existing planning permissions to further improve the range of accommodation including permission for an extension off the main house to incorporate a fabulous attached indoor swimming pool and garden room.

Further parts of the Victorian wing of Trawsgoed which are currently converted into grand apartments are available by separate negotiation which will allow further accommodation/income and the possibility of owning the full facade.

Trawsgoed is an important and most impressive Grade II* listed mansion, formerly being the seat of the Earls of Lisburne and originally the centre of a 40,000 acre estate. Standing in a superb situation with far reaching views, the house is approached through impressive gates with a white lodge cottage and up a long driveway through a lime avenue to a wide sweep arriving at the front or the impressive front facade of Trawsgoed.

Trawsgoed Mansion has a beautifully balanced 17th century façade. The main Georgian part of the house has a stunning baroque library with ornate guilt and plastered dome ceiling, commissioned in 1832 and is the best example of an Empire style salon in the county. There is a magnificent hall and drawing room with French doors opening to the formal gardens. The gardens are of particular note having a mature arboretum of specimen trees and in the spring the garden is ablaze with colour from mature rhododendron, bluebells and azalea. Like the house the gardens have undergone a wide schedule of improvements to bring them back to their former glory. Beyond the formal garden and it's grand fountain is a series of wooded walkways leading to hidden areas that make for a wonderful balance of both structured and flowing garden layout. The present owners have created a secret romantic rhododendrum maze. There is a Japanese style summer house and a hard tennis court.

Owned over the centuries by the Vaughan family, Earls of Lisburne, Trawsgoed and its surrounding parkland was acquired by the government in 1947 and used as the headquarters of the Welsh Office Agricultural Department until 1996. The house since that time has undergone partial renovation including the restoration of the roof and partial timber treatment. The house now offers the opportunity to be restored to its former grandeur as a single dwelling or a commercial venture.

Listing
The Mansion house is listed Grade II* and the important gardens and outbuildings Grade II. The actual listing of the Mansion house is reproduced in detail below.

History

The present house has developed since the 17th Century and was a seat of the Vaughan family, later to become Earls of Lisburne. The site is however much older and traditionally was a grange of Strata Florida Abbey. The main block to the south is later 17th Century and was remodelled sometime before 1756 by reversing the main entrance front. In the mid 19th Century, after 1853, there were lavish improvements to the principal rooms, especially the Library. In 1891 the house was greatly enlarged to the north including extensive service accommodation; this range is said to have been planned twenty years earlier.

An undated estimate of circa 1900 refers to a decorative scheme carried out by Maples & Co, one of the leading interior designers of the period, including further embellishment of the Library apparently in two phases. In 1946 the house was leased to the government in lieu of death duties was subsequently been occupied by the Welsh Agriculture Advisory Service. This use reflected the fact that, along with characters such as TurnipTownsend, Trawsgoed had been a pioneer of farming methods since the early 19th Century.

Throughout the years a great number of royalty and dignitaries have stayed at Trawsgoed including Edward the Vll, Edward VIII as well as such luminaries of the political world as Sir Winston Churchill, Stanley Baldwin and William Gladstone.

Exterior
The early house to the south is 3 storeys with symmetrical 9-bay front, the central 3-bays of which are pedimented. It is scribed render with a slate roof, hipped to the left and with later ridge cresting; clustered chimney stacks to the left. The pediment, which is raised and bracketed, contains a painted coat of arms. Central Ionic porch with broken capitals; panelled double doors and bracketed architrave. 12-pane sash windows to 1st floor and later casements below.

To the rear round-headed windows to the central five bays include a broadly curved bow. These have good wrought-iron balconies and all windows have blind boxes, cornice and unusually tall parapet pierced by round-headed openings. The 1891 block is cement-rendered to rear with a yellow brick cornice and 4-pane horned sashes.

Interior
Despite partitioning in the conversion to offices and laboratories since 1946 Trawsgoed retains some fine interiors and the current owners have gone through a long process of put back in place much of the rich architectural detail that originally graced Trawsgoed Mansion.

The entrance hall has a 19th Century marbled chimneypiece with tiled fireplace and a spine corridor which gives access to the main rooms including the 18th Century former drawing room and library. The panelled south end was probably originally two rooms and opened out in the 19th Century with the insertion of two fluted Corinthian columns.

There is a good early 18th Century ceiling to the western half and a simpler ceiling to the other half with Rococo style ornament to the corners. The doorway has a Rococo style plaster overdoor with putti. The Maples estimate of circa 1900 indicates the most expenditure on this room.

The finest surviving room is however the mid 19th Century library which is expensively furnished and brightly painted and gilded in an Empire style manner, characteristic of Maples' work. This occupies the central bow on the garden front and the rectangular flanking bays divided by fluted and marbled Corinthian columns. The domical ceiling to the centre is gilded and festooned with a brass chandelier and a circular plaster border surrounded by painted anthemions and arabesques with heraldic panels to the corners and coved cornice painted with fleur-de-lys and putti.

An Empire style marbled chimneypiece with tall, sub-Adamesque detail, tall jabs; coat of arms to centre, ornate brass fireplace surround and mirror overmantel with acroteria. Both doorways have pedimented doorcases and huge, veneered, 9-panel doors with ormolu and porcelain fittings. Fictive marble dado architraves and keystones; further painted panels to the bow.

To the east of the library, being the part of the house that has the early origins, is a fine late 17th Century dog-leg staircase with bolection string, barley twist balusters open work pendant and finials. The ceilings of the library and conference room have been strengthened resulting in the floors of the corresponding 1st floor rooms being raised. .

The staircase in the 1891 part of the house is made up from reused parts of a stair brought from London but believed to have come from abroad originally with a long flight up to a broad top-lit landing with pineapple newel pendants and finials. The landing has a curious stylistic mix of Gothic arched openings with classical detailing. The stair case is well lit from above by a sizeable sky light.

Some rooms have egg and dart architraves and panelling; one subdivided room has Ionic pilasters flanking fireplaces. Another 1st floor room reuses a sub-medieval fireplace with carved spandrels and flanked by unusual pilasters with trumpets and mermaids etc.

In one first floor room, overlooking the gardens, is a room that the Prince of Wales stayed in during the 1920s, the present owners have a letter from the Royal archives at Windsor Castle confirming his visit. The fireplace of this room is decorated commemoratively with a painted Fleur de Lys.

Accommodation

Directions

Trawsgoed Mansion is situated off the B4340, 8 miles south of Aberystwyth. The entrance has a white painted Victorian Lodge.