Stories of survival
Dedicated owners have kept the glories of two houses alive–a Nash masterpiece in Pembrokeshire and a Queen Anne hunting lodge in North Yorkshire
ONLY three of Nash’s Welsh country houses still stand, of which Grade Ilisted Ffynone, set on high ground near Boncath, Pembrokeshire, is the most westerly—and the most spectacular. However, it’s not for nothing that the original Welsh name of the estate was Ffynnonau, meaning ‘wells’, which abound in the area. Over the years, Welsh water and Welsh weather have been Ffynone’s greatest enemy.
According to the architectural historian Richard Haslam (Country Life, November 12, 1992), ‘that [Ffynone] is still there is due to the persistence of Lord and Lady Lloyd George, who recently had to tackle a legacy of dry rot to save it from the fate of the great majority of country houses in that far peninsula’. Since the Lloyd Georges’ day, a further handful of dedicated owners
have expended time and money to ensure the survival of this remarkable house.
They include its present owner, who bought the house, set in 34 acres of landscaped gardens and parkland, in 2017 and embarked on a further programme of restoration and refurbishment. Unfortunately, his business is now taking him abroad, hence the re-sale at short notice of Nash’s Welsh masterpiece at a guide price of £1.95 million; the contents of the house are included in the sale. ‘The owner has done much of the boring, unseen work that needed to be done, such as installing damp courses and so on. However, there is still more to do and what the house needs now is an enthusiastic owner who will live there full-time,’ says Lindsay Cuthill of Savills (020–7016 3820).
In the late 1700s, a vogue for small, sporting Welsh landowners to build grand country
houses in picturesque settings—‘elegant, perhaps, although often beyond their means,’ Mr Haslam observes—led to a series of commissions for Nash in the three south-western counties of Wales and in old Monmouthshire, between 1785 and 1795.
Ffynone stands high on a hill that’s shared by Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire and Cardiganshire—on a spot carefully chosen to make the most of the glorious open views. Here, in 1792, Nash was commissioned to build a rigorously symmetrical villa for Col John Colby, whose uncle had bought the estate in 1752.
The house remained in the Colby family until 1927, by which time the building had been remodelled and enlarged for John Vaughan Colby by the architect and garden designer Francis Inigo Thomas.
To be more precise, the work was commissioned in 1902 by Colby’s wife, who took advantage of her husband’s extended absence on a bear-hunting trip in Siberia to let her own and her designer’s imaginations run riot. Thomas adopted an Italian Classical design to build two new wings, decorating the rooms in each in Italianate Baroque style. Outside, he created a long stone terrace with grottos and water features. Estate accounts show that some 60,000 trees were brought in from a nursery in Norwich; some of these survive to this day.
‘The contrast between the extreme reticence of the Nash design and the full bloom of its Edwardian re-clothing is fascinating,’ marvels Mr Haslam. ‘No longer a typical West Wales squire’s house, perched white among long, green hills, Ffynone was given a new scale that enabled it to preside over an amazing Italian formal terrace to the south, a Roman Beaux Arts extravaganza realised in slate.’
Colby died in 1823 and, within a few years, large sums of money had to be spent on strengthening Ffynone against the weather; the roof was recovered in north Wales slate and hardwood window sashes fitted. The stables and ornamental clock tower were probably added at about the same time.
The Colby family’s involvement finally came to an end when Colby’s grandson, John Vaughan, lost his only son in the First World War and his daughter eventually sold the estate in 1927. Happily, their legacy has been respected by successive owners, who have preserved the house and buildings in their entirety, as well as renovating
and modernising according to both the letter and the spirit of its Grade I listing.
Ffynone offers impressive accommodation on three floors, including six reception rooms, 13 bedrooms, seven bathrooms and three guest or staff apartments used in the past for holiday lets. Its crowning glory is the series of splendid reception rooms, notably the west-facing drawing room and its adjacent library, where steps lead down to the enchanting music room—thomas’s ballroom. At the opposite end of the library is the morning room, which leads to Thomas’s panelled drawing room with its wonderful vaulted ceiling and exquisite plasterwork.
Ffynone encapsulates the genius of two great designers of the Georgian and Edwardian eras, but, over in North Yorkshire, the revival of Grade Ii-listed, Georgian Colton Lodge at Colton, seven miles south of York, has been inspired solely by the owners themselves, working in tandem with a local architect and the local conservation officer.
Having bought the Queen Anne-style house —originally built as a hunting lodge for the Morritt family of Rokeby Park—as ‘a virtual wreck’ back in 2006, the couple embarked on a painstaking, four-year restoration programme that included rebuilding the roof, fitting new windows, installing new wiring, adding a state-of-the-art heating system and creating two futuristic extensions, one at either end of the building. The result is a very individual country house that contrasts inherent Georgian charm with boldly modern interior design, such as the use of fullheight walls of glass in the kitchen and the gardens rooms to ‘bring the outside in’.
Colton Lodge stands in some 14 acres of elegant landscaped gardens surrounded by traditional estate-fenced paddocks and an all-weather outdoor school, which, together with the stable block and picturesque tack room (a former dovecote), reflect the family’s passion for equestrianism.
The lodge itself offers 9,000sq ft of living space, including an impressive reception hall, three main reception rooms, a striking kitchen/dining area and three luxurious bedroom suites on the first floor, with seven further bedrooms, a bathroom and kitchen on the second floor.
Sadly, the time has come for the family to downsize and handsome Colton Lodge, which is handily located for both York and Leeds and only 8½ miles from the A1(M), waits for another lively Yorkshire family to take up the reins. It is Nick Talbot of Jackson-stops (01904 625033) who has the task of finding a sporting new owner, at a guide price of £2.5m.