Penoyre House

Penoyre House, Battle, Powys, Wales is a nineteenth century country house. Designed by Anthony Salvin for Colonel John Lloyd Vaughan Watkins, it was built between 1846-8. In an Italianate style, it is described by Mark Girouard as "Salvin's most ambitious classical house".[1] The enormous cost of the house almost bankrupted the family and it was sold only 3 years after Colonel Watkins's death. From 1947, the house was in institutional use, and was converted to apartments in the early twenty-first century. The building is Grade II* listed.[2]

Penoyre House
Penoyre House - under renovation in 2006
General information
Type	Country house
Architectural style	Italianate
Town or city	Battle, Powys
Country	Wales
Coordinates	51.9689°N 3.4309°W / 51.9689; -3.4309
Construction started	1846
Completed	1848
Client	John Lloyd Vaughan Watkins
Design and construction
Architect	Anthony Salvin
Designations	Grade II* listed

History

John Lloyd Vaughan Watkins (1802–65) was a nineteenth century Welsh Liberal politician who sat Member of Parliament for Brecon.[3] and was High Sheriff of Brecknockshire and Lord Lieutenant of Brecknockshire.[4] Watkins inherited a late eighteenth century house from his father, the Reverend Thomas Watkins,[5] and engaged Salvin to undertake a complete rebuilding from 1846-8.[5] The cost of the house alone was over £33,000[5] and Allibone records that Watkins was obliged to "close (it) and live cheaply in a local hotel."[6] Only three years after his death in 1865, the house was sold. Privately owned from 1868 to 1947,[7] the house was then used as a school, the clubhouse to a golf club, a nursing home, an hotel and a rehabilitation centre.[8] In the early twenty-first century, the house was converted to apartments.[9]

Architecture

The house is designed in an Italianate style, echoing Sir Charles Barry's Trentham Park[5] and Thomas Cubitt's Osbourne House.[10] Girouard calls it "Salvin's most ambitious classical house".[1] It has a three-storey main block,[1] a "colossal" entrance tower[5] with a belvedere top,[1] and a balancing conservatory wing which had a glass-domed roof, although this was replaced in 1899.[5]

Notes

1. Girouard, p. 415.
2. Good Stuff. "Penoyre House - Yscir - Powys - Wales". British Listed Buildings. Retrieved 2016-07-10.
3. Leigh Rayment Commons constituencies B Part 5
4. "Editorial". Welshman. 6 October 1865. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
5. Scourfield & Haslam, p. 426.
6. Allibone, p. 92.
7. Good Stuff. "Penoyre House - Yscir - Powys - Wales". British Listed Buildings. Retrieved 2016-07-10.
8. Good Stuff. "Penoyre House - Yscir - Powys - Wales". British Listed Buildings. Retrieved 2016-07-10.
9. "Savills | Penoyre Park, Cradoc, Brecon, LD3 9LP | Property for sale". Search.savills.com. 2012-01-06. Retrieved 2016-07-10.
10. "Penoyre". Coflein. Retrieved 2016-07-10.

References

• Allibone, Jill (1988). Anthony Salvin: Pioneer of Gothic Revival Architecture. Lutterworth Press. ISBN 0-7188-2707-4.
• Girouard, Mark (1979). The Victorian Country House. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300034721.
• Scourfield, Robert; Haslam, Richard (2013). Powys: Montgomeryshire,Radnorshire and Breconshire. The Buildings of Wales. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300185089.