Exterior

An attractive, welcoming house, spacious but unpretentious. The house is reminiscent of the earlier Pentreheylin, though its main elevations are symmetrical and the more generous windows make it less austere. The main, south front, without doorways, is of two storeys and five bays: the central and outer bays are set slightly forward and a row of five finialled gables crown the elevation. The material is a dark grey stone. The windows, broad and deep on the ground floor with white-painted mullions and transoms, have surrounds in what appears to be a yellow-coloured render and Tudor hoodmoulds which could be terracotta: old photographs show these painted like the windows. The ground floor has a wide, central bay window with a crenelated parapet. There are tall, rectangular chimneys in red brick with corbelled tops. The entrance is via a single-storey porch centrally placed on the west side.

Interior

Simple, light interiors with minimal detail. Unmoulded, four-centred archways; moulded cornices and doorcases; plain ceilings. Original fireplaces also have Tudor arches: others have apparently been replaced. The top-lit staircase has balusters with elegant, pared-down ‘Tudor’ forms.

The Building Today

Bodynfoel remains a private residence, still owned by the family that built it. The attractive gardens, laid out at the time of building, have occasionally been opened under the National Gardens Scheme.

Text: John Hainsworth

Sources

Melvin Humphreys, The Two Bodynfoels: Estates, Architecture and Families (forthcoming).

[W. Maddock Williams] A slight historical and topographical sketch of Llanfechain in the County of Montgomery, Montgomeryshire Collections vol.5, pp.261-268.

Scourfield and Haslam, The Buildings of Wales, Powys, 2013

https://cadwpublic-api.azurewebsites.net/reports/listedbuilding/FullReport?lang=en&id=82419

https://www.parksandgardens.org/places/bodynfoel-hall

Other information kindly provided by Richard and Flavia Murton, who have also supplied the photographs.