Dolbelydr

Meadow of the Rays of the Sun

Set in a timeless and quiet valley, this 16th-century gentry house has many of its original features, including a first floor solar open to the roof beams. We have taken the house back to its original form, to a building its owner, Henry Salesbury, would recognise if we travelled back in time to the 1580s. "Meadow of the Rays of the Sun" is one translation of the name Dolbelydr, which rings especially true as you gaze at the sunlight slanting across the ground from the mullioned windows down this tranquil valley. There is an open plan kitchen and dining area in front of a huge inglenook fireplace.

Grammatica Britannica

Dolbelydr was the family manor of humanist and physician Henry Salesbury. In 1593, Salesbury published his Grammatica Britannica, written in this fine stone house. Welsh scholars such as Salesbury rose to the challenge of Henry VIII's regime, who was imposing English as the language of government. By putting a classical discipline on the grammar of this ancient language, Salesbury's work gives Dolbelydr some claim to be the birthplace of modern Welsh.

Little is known of Henry Salesbury’s life, although it seems likely that he was related to the Salesbury family, one of the most powerful and wealthy in 16th-century Denbighshire.

Dolbelydr, in the parish of Cefn Meiriadog, would originally have been a house of considerable status, built of well-dressed limestone and with tall chimneys. Analysis of the timbers dates its construction to c.1578 and for this date its plan is transitional. The end chimneys and primary spiral staircase would have been considered innovatory, as would the rectangular entrance hall with its plank and muntin screen (rather than the more usual cross passage arrangement). Dolbelydr gradually declined in status through the years and underwent various alterations. It stood empty from around 1912.

Landmark first visited Dolbelydr in 1982. Its significance as one of Wales’s ‘lost houses’ had long been recognised but the main obstacle to acquiring it was lack of access – during the latter part of its history the house was often approached on stilts from the opposite side of the River Elwy! We were grateful to Mr. Roberts, the farmer on whose land it stands, to agreeing finally to sell us the building and an access track to it in 1999. This acquisition was directly enabled by a generous bequest by Dorothy Stroud. By the time we acquired the house the roof had fallen in. A later bread oven and external staircase were reduced to rubble and the solar screen on the first floor had been removed to a house in Chester, where it remains today. We installed emergency scaffolding at once, although it was another two years before we had raised the necessary money for its restoration.

In the end, we decided with our architect Andrew Thomas that as both Dolbelydr’s architectural and historic significance stemmed from its late 16th-century form, we should present it as closely as possible to its primary appearance.

The house would once have stood in a cluster of walls and farm outbuildings. The forecourt walls have been reconstructed on the footings of the originals and are typical feature of buildings in Denbighshire at this time. As was customary in the 16th century, the walls have again been flush-pointed and then limewashed. Most of the wall at eaves height also had to be rebuilt. Much of the first floor framing remained on the site as well as some of that on the second floor so replacement of the floor joists was not too difficult. The collapsed roof structure was a bigger job, subcontracted to specialists Carpenter Oak and Woodland who took away the roof timbers to their framing yard in Perthshire. Here they painstakingly reassembled the roof frame.

Late in the autumn of 2002, a 40-foot crane arrived on site to lift the three massive roof trusses back into position. Stone tiles were used for the roof covering, as they would originally have been. There were vestiges of a rear dormer window, which we have recreated and the building now has a full set of correctly sized windows in their original positions, several having twelve or even fourteen mullioned lights, survivals of great rarity. These too are limewashed once more, in imitation of stone.

Supporters of Dolbelydr

We are hugely grateful to those who have already supported Dolbelydr, including:

Legacies:
Mrs C Hunt, Mrs D Stroud, Mr W Williams, Mrs D Wray Bliss

Gifts in memory:
Mrs E Ashby 

Charitable Trusts and Statutory Grants:
Carpenter Charitable Trust, Denbighshire Key Fund, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, J G Hogg Charitable Trust, Trees Naunton Charitable Trust, Trusthouse Charitable Trust, Veneziana Fund, Welsh Development Agency, Welsh Tourist Board

We would also like to thank everybody who supported the appeal and Mr R Eaton for donating books for the library.