History

Gentry house, C16 origins, remodelled in late C17. Owned from the C15 or earlier by the Awbrey family. A Richard Awbrey of Abercynrig was Chief Forester of the Great Forest in the C15. The family had 11 High Sheriffs, including John Awbrey of Abercynrig in 1596, his son Walter, grandson Morgan, great grandson Jenkin and great great grandson Hopkin. Dr William Awbrey of Cantref c. 1529-95, noted judge, and MP for Carmarthen 1554 and for Brecon 1558 bought Abercynrig from his cousin Richard, and may have built Buckingham Place in Brecon for himself. Dr Awbrey's son Sir Edward Awbrey succeeded, he died 1619, followed by his son Sir William Awbrey of Tredomen, died c. 1631. Sir William is supposed to have wasted the family wealth, and sold Abercynrig to John Jefferys, mercer, of Brecon, c. 1620 in settlement of debt. Jefferys was High Sheriff 1631. His son Jeffrey Jeffreys married the heiress of The Priory estate, Brecon, and Jeffrey's son Colonel John Jefferys of the Priory and Abercynrig was a soldier under Charles I, II and James II, and MP 1661, 1678 and 1685. He died in 1688. He may have rebuilt the house.
The house was largely tenanted from the late C17 to mid C20. The Colonel's daughter married Thomas Flower, Irish privy councillor, and the estate passed to the Flower family successively Barons Castle Durrow and Viscounts Ashbrook (from 1751). The third Viscount sold the estate for £13,460 in 1800 to Captain John Lloyd (1748-1818) of the East India Company, originally of Dinas, Llanwrtyd, in which family it remains. He lived at Brecon, and began building Dinas, Llanfaes, the main family seat from 1828. His heir John (1797-1875) was High Sheriff 1839, his son Col. Thomas C. Lloyd (1828-93) succeeded, followed by his son, Lt-Col Sir John C. Lloyd (1878-1954) noted antiquarian, knighted 1938. Dinas was requisitioned in 1941 and Sir John moved first into the granary and then into Abercynrig itself after the war. The granary had been converted in the 1930s as a children's playroom and linked to the main house by a new servants' hall by the tenant, Captain W. D'Arcy Hall MC, MP for Brecon & Radnor from 1924. Sir John Lloyd made the big panelled main drawing-room in 1948 from two rooms, one panelled, the other with a panelled fireplace only. The house has been restored since with renewed stone-tiled roof, the link range to the granary has been converted to a kitchen, and the former kitchen is now a dining-room.
The general form of the house is late C17 as also the panelling and staircases, but the differing sizes of the two flanking bays on the entrance front and some C16 beams in the N end suggest a remodelling of the C16 Awbrey house.

Exterior

House, colourwashed roughcast with stone tiled steep hipped roofs and four tall stone chimneys each with stringcourse under three square conjoined shafts, with top cornice. Two chimneys on ridge, one tall one on N end and shorter broader one with big external chimneybreast on S end. Deep coved painted eaves cornice. Two storeys and attic. Entrance front has centre door between two large sash windows, with two similar but longer ones above, framed by hipped outer projecting wings with one similar window each floor. The left wing is considerably wider than the right. Windows are renewed 24-pane sashes. There are casement pairs each floor in inner returns of wings, the upper ones apparently C20 insertions. Centre has two hipped casement-pair dormers. Centre door is in C20 stone-tiled hipped porch with double half-glazed doors and glazed sides. The inner door is in a late C17 oak ogee-moulded frame. The door has four long arched-headed panels. In the 1749 drawing there was a window over the porch, all the windows were cross-windows, there was an open hipped porch, and the two dormers were on the eaves. The two dormers are not shown in 1900 photograph.
The N end has one ground floor cross-window, presumably typical of the late C17 fenestration, renewed. It is said to have been moved from over the porch, but if so this was done before 1900.
W front has four hipped dormers, and four similar 24-pane windows each floor but the windows of the third bay are not aligned.
The S side has big projecting chimney breast. Ground floor lean-to is continued W with monopitch roof and tall square stone chimney. Attached to S is flat-roofed 1930s link to the former granary, with later C20 glazed lantern. The granary (not shown in 1749 drawing) is a rubble stone two-storey and attic range with slate roof, gabled W and E, with E end stone stack. One N side window on upper floor with stone voussoirs. W end has loft door and apex window, with stone voussoirs.
On S side are two hipped large C20 dormers, and four upper windows over ground floor three windows and door, all windows uPVC. Windowless E wall. The E wall of the 1930s link is rubble stone with coped parapet, two 16-pane sashes with stone voussoirs and a blocked doorway to right, reusing a C16 or C17 segmental-arched chamfered doorway.

Interior

Interior plan has large centre hall with unusually two similar staircases in each of the projecting wings. The right wing has a staircase in the E end and a narrow parlour in the W. The broader left wing has the former kitchen, now the dining-room, and a small study to the E next to a stair in the SE corner. The hall had been subdivided and was opened out in 1948 to a single large L-plan drawing-room with one window on E, (just N of the front door) and two on the W side. It has fine early C18 panelling, with long panels above panelled dado. Two fireplaces, one N and one S, the N one roughly central to the longer N wall, the S one offset towards W side of room. Both have heavy eared and shouldered surrounds (like the door surround at Penpont, Trallwng), shelf over, and overmantel paintings of classical landscapes with the story of Diana and Actaeon. Moulded cornice. The shutters with sunk panels look late Georgian. The staircase in the N wing has a moulded string, moulded rail and turned balusters. The NW room has thin C16 moulded beams, ovolo and hollow with step between. Two across the room, a third over the window has mouldings in two runs, as if once there was a centre post. N wall fireplace with small C18 type eared surround. The SW room, the dining-room is modernised, the ogee-moulded beam noted in 1965 has gone, as also has the double ovolo-moulded door-frame of the former external doorway, now into modern kitchen. The study to the SE is plain, and the adjoining staircase is similar to that in the N wing.

Reasons for Listing

Graded II* for its exceptional interest as a substantial C17 gentry house of architectural quality, with fine panelled room and two original staircases.

External Links

• Cadwr Listing
• Wikidata Q17739970

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

• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)