Building Name

“Cotswold,” Brackley Avenue, Colwyn Bay

Date
1908
Street
Brackley Avenue
District/Town
Colwyn Bay
County/Country
GMCA, Wales
Client
Mr and Mrs Benger
Work
New build
Listed
Grade II

Arts & Crafts. Roughcast and gabled with half timbered work. Richly ornamented bargeboards and bressumer. Spacious galleried hall and staircase. Hubbard commented that it was “charmingly Edwardian, (designed) with sensitivity and a feeling for texture and the nature of materials.”

The house was built for Mr and Mrs Benger, of Benger Baby Food fame. Mr Benger was a keen organist and installed an Aeolian Pipe Organ with a music roll player in the console. In the roof was a twelve‑seat cinema. The roof itself was covered with Cotswold tiles. Unfortunately, these slates came from the base of the quarry, where ice and water had formed static pools of moisture. These eventually began to crumble and flake.

The architect Sidney Colwyn Ffoulkes bought the house in 1952. He had designed tiles for houses on Elwy Road which were also used on Colwyn Bay's civic centre. Ralph Colwyn Ffoulkes, his son, replaced the originals with these Colwyn tiles, manufactured by Marley.