THE CURRENT OWNER
The present owner and her late husband fell in love with the house and did not think twice about moving from London to take residence at Trevor Hall, which became a much cherished family home as it is today. Trevor Hall has continued to be restored and renovated throughout over the last decade. Each bedroom is themed, crammed with artifacts from all over the world and various family and pop memorabilia line the walls, as the Parkers were Tour Agents for bands such as The Prodigy, Boyzone, Nirvana, All Saints, Steps and many others. Guests have regularly remarked that they are still finding new things to look at after 3 days!
The Victorian greenhouse is now back to its former glory, thanks to master joiner, Jonathan Roberts and the original 100 year old vines are still producing grapes in the summer. The gardens now reflect the grandeur of the house with 7ft high beech hedges, orchard and an Italian garden complete with lily pond. The original stone coachhouse and farm buildings were completed in December 2004 and Trevor Hall Farm purchased and added to the estate in 2010, thereby returning the original park and woodland to the Trevor Hall estate enabling it to once more be nestled in its centre.
2016 sees the Parker family resume the management of Trevor Hall after a 3 year sabbatical with extensive refurbishments and upgrades to all major services which we know will provide the 5* accommodation that our guests have come to expect. Additional themed bedrooms are completed – ‘Moulin Rouge’, ‘Great Gatsby’ ‘Out of Africa’ and Trevorfell – which are fun, stylish and exciting – well, we had to find more places to put our collections!
New and exciting times are ahead with the next generation of Parkers’ joining the team, as we begin work together on the next phase of development at Trevor Hall. Our next major works for 2017 completion is to develop our Victorian glass house into a wedding ceremony and dining area for our Intimate Wedding couples. Trevor Hall has the most beautiful views of the Dee valley, that it seems a shame not to be able to enjoy them close up! Extensive tree planting with the creation of new woodlands walks encompassing the whole estate; the addition of new garden areas; continued addition of world artifacts and memorabilia to the rooms and corridors, plus an opportunity for all our guests to become a part of the history of this impressive house….
The work is never done at Trevor Hall …………
IN THE PAST
Trevor Hall was for centuries a seat of the Trevors’ of Trevor Hall, one of the three principle branches of this welsh tribe who claimed descent from the Tudor Trevors’, who lived in around the site of Trevor Hall.
The site is an ancient one, and was known to be the home of Bishop John Trevor, who built the Llangollen Bridge in 1345. The house itself was largely reconstructed to its present form in the 18th century by John Lloyd of Glanhavon, Montgomeryshire, who in 1715 married Mary Trevor, heiress of the Trevor’s estate. A carved stone on the outside of the house has their initials and motto Dum Spiro Spero and the date 1742, as well as the name of ‘John Roberts mason’ to whom can be attributed the design as well as the construction of the handsome, three-storey red brick façade with its stone string courses, quoins and pedimented door case approached by a double flight of steps.
The interior plan of the house reflect a medieval h-plan layout, with grand entrance hall containing a beautiful cut-stone chimney piece on the rear wall with male and female busts adorning each corner. Both the interior and exterior of Trevor Hall, plus the ancient site on which it stands has assured it a place in history, and its scarcity in Wales as an early Georgian brick house at Grade I status.
Trevor Hall has had a somewhat chequered past, largely due to the lack of male descendants over the years. By the turn of the 19th century the house had left the Lloyd family when the last heiress married Rice Thomas of Coed Helen near Caernarfon. They extended the house by a bay to the west in order to make a spacious dining room and and a drawing room above. Although the Rice Thomas family owned Trevor Hall until after the Second World War, they ceased to live there after about 1820. During the 19th century the house was let to various tenants, including the manager of the local ironworks and a shipping broker from Liverpool. A long lease was eventually granted to the Edwards family, proprietors of the famous Trefynant Fire Clay Works of Ruabon. James Coster Edwards (1828-1896) was the high sheriff of Denbighshire, and his family carried out various improvements to the design of W.H. Spaull, an architect of Oswestry, including a large new kitchen at the back. If you stand at the back of the hall, you can still see where these kitchens were added, supposidly without windows, to ensure that the kitchen staff were not distracted from their duties. Three generations of the Edwards family lived at Trevor Hall, but in 1956, Edward Lloyd Edwards, at the age of 95, surrendered the lease and the property reverted to the Coed Helen estate, which had no use for the house.
A local timber merchant, John Evans bought the property from the estate, and the downward spiral of the property began. Evans felled all the trees and applied to demolish the house in order to build four dwellings on the site. Strongly opposed by local groups, a public enquiry in May 1961, saved the house with a Preservation Order. The Dudley brand of the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service then acquired the property with the intentions of converting it to a children’s home, but in February 1963 the building caught fire during one of the harshest of winters the valley had known. The Fire Brigade found their work hampered by the weather conditions and lack of mains water. The house was reduced to a smouldering shell. Thus for the second time in two years the future of this important building was under serious threat.
A local farmer, Maldwyn Williams, eventually purchased the property and installed a temporary flat roof to provide shelter for his livestock. Remarkably, however, this agricultural use most probably saved the house from destruction, with the animal droppings protecting the floors from possible decay and the flat roof providing the structure sanctuary from the elements. In 1987, Michael Tree, then a chartered surveyor of the Crown Estates, bought the house and gardens and begun the long process of restoration. Under his expert eye, the house was restored piece by piece over the next 11 years. In 1998, with the house completed to his satisfaction , Michael Tree put the house up for sale, to enable him to restore yet another condemned welsh property, which he eventually found in Llanwrust.