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.
Denne historien er fra September 11, 2019-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra September 11, 2019-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
