History

Tremadog was a town created by William Madocks (1773-1828) in the first decade of the C19 on reclaimed land known as Traeth Mawr, the estuary of Afon Glaslyn. It was originally intended to be a post town on a direct road between London and Dublin, via Porthdinllaen on the Lleyn peninsula, a project that in due course lost out to the Holyhead Road. Tremadog was laid out around a market square, with market hall, coaching inn, houses and shops, with a church and chapel just outside the centre. Building of this small planned development, as well as a separate woollen manufactory, began c1805 and was largely completed by the time Richard Colt Hoare described it in 1810.

The Royal Madoc Arms Hotel was the original coaching inn for Tremadog, and incorporated a stable block, now detached, and a tap room, completed by 1808.

Exterior

A late Georgian style hotel, symmetrically designed with central 3 bay, 3 storeyed and attic block, flanked by lower 2-storey 2-bay in-line wings. Roughly dressed blocks of quarried stone laid in regular courses, slate roof behind coped gables and stone end stacks to the main range. A rendered central flat-roofed porch has round-headed openings in the side walls. The entrance has a half-glazed fielded-panel door. Windows have late C19 rendered architraves with shallow triangular heads. The lower storey has 4-pane horned sashes, the middle storey 12-pane hornless sashes (horned to the R-hand) and the upper storey 6-pane hornless sashes. Three hipped roof dormers have 2-light casements. The R-hand wing (the original tap room) is in line with the main range and abuts the Market Hall. It has surrounds similar to the main range, 12-pane hornless sashes in the upper storey, a glazed door with glazed side panel inserted into an earlier doorway to the lower R, and a large inserted small-pane bay window to the L.

The L-hand wing has a roof hipped to the L side and a central, heightened stone stack. It has a half-glazed fielded-panel door to the L (similar to the main entrance doorway) and 4-pane horned sashes in rendered architraves. At the L end is a lean-to with boarded door. The 3-window L side wall of the wing has, in the lower storey, a central window boarded up and a 12-pane horned sash window to the L. In the upper storey are 4-pane sash windows to the centre and L and a blocked window to the R. At the L end is a modern canopy attached to No 1 Dublin Street (the former stable block).

The 2-window rear of the main range has 12-pane sash windows in the middle storey but mostly replacement windows, an added escape stair from the attic and inserted attic roof dormer. The wing on the L side has a flat-roofed projection and a replacement small-pane window in the upper storey. The longer wing on the R side has an added flat-roofed projection.

Interior

The main range is now a single room in the lower storey. The fireplace on the L side has a massive freestone cambered lintel.

Reasons for Listing

Listed for its special architectural interest as a coaching inn retaining definite C19 character and detail in a balanced composition. The building occupies a prominent position in the town centre, is notable for its use of local stone, and is historically important as part of the original conception of the new town of Tremadog.

External Links

• Cadwr Listing
• Wikidata Q29484121

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

• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings
• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 6: Westminster (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England): Westminster v. 6
• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)