Welsh Journals

story. The eldest son, Arthur Davies Owen, was born about 1752 and thus came to Tyn y coed around the age of eight. He was brought up to the law and first appeared in the Commissions of the Peace for that of 19th August 1802 when he was fifty years of age. He became chairman of Quarter Sessions and a Deputy Lieutenant for the county, serving as High Sheriff in 1814. He died two years later as Sir Arthur Owen, having been awarded a knighthood on 28th July 1814. On the formation in 1803 of what subsequently became known as the Montgomery Yeomanry he was appointed captain of the Montgomery Troop of Cavalry and was promoted to major in 1813. It is said that he was second in command of the Yeomanry throughout these ten years. He married — according to his descendants 'he was courted by5 Jane Pugh, the widow of Charles Pugh of Llanerchydol, Welshpool. They wed in 1799 but had no children of their own6, though Jane had a son by her first marriage, David Pugh, who became MP for the Montgomery boroughs from 1847 to 1863. Jane died in 1825. It is to Arthur Davies Owen and his wife that Glansevern is due. In 1796 Arthur had acquired Lower Garthmyl from two second cousins, the daughters of Edward, natural son of Arthur Davies of Tyn y coed (brother of Charles Davies of Llifior); and somewhere around 1800 inspired perhaps by his marriage he must have decided to erect a mansion on the land belonging to it. He looked around for a designer and his choice fell upon one Joseph Bromfield of Shrewsbury. His choice was unusual but may perhaps have been dictated by financial carefulness. Joseph Bromfield was born around 1743 and died on 6 June 1824 at the age of eighty one. He was thus a young man at the beginning of the neo-classical movement which received its impetus at Versailles in the 1760s. Though he frequently acted in the capacity of either architecture or surveyor, and described himself in his will as 'an architect', he was in fact a plasterer by trade; and it was as an 'ornamental plasterer' that he was admitted to the Shrewsbury Carpenters and Bricklayers Company in 1777 aged thirty two. Fifteen years later, in 1792, he was admitted a burgess of the town, being entered on the Burgess Roll8 as a 'plaisterer'. This may perhaps have been as a result of his plasterwork inside the new St Chad's Church, erected in neo-classical style in Shrewsbury in the same year. It is indeed as a plasterer that he is best known, his work being included in Oakley Park, Walcot Park and Apsley Castle. He worked for the first Lord Powis and was also concerned with alterations to Stytche Hall and Attingham Park in Shropshire, at the old rectory in Berrington and at Nannau. In addition he built the former church at Churchstoke which has since been replaced. He was also connected with another neo-classical building Rug near Corwen; but the extent of his involvement there is far from clear and may only have been internal. It is possible, therefore, if we seek a private residence wholly conceived and erected by him, we shall find that Glansevern stands alone. It was built from scratch and John Evans' map of the survey of North Wales with the Llwyn y Groes imprint of 1795 shows no sign of any building on the site in that year. The precise date when Bromfield received his commission from Arthur Owen is uncertain, but it must have been no later than August 1801. The first letter on the subject from Bromfield in the relevant correspondence9 is dated 30 August, 1801, when the architect acknowledged a letter from Owen of 23 August and said: 'I have a plan for your house drawn.' He then went on to 5J. D. K. Lloyd. 'A Montgomery Notebook', p.37. 6'Jane Owens, the illegitimate daughter (as supposed) of Arthur Davies Owen, Berriew, and Rachel Smith his concubine, was born the 2nd and baptised the 8th Day of April 1795 Parish register, St. Cadfan's Church, Llangadfan. 7See the article on Bromfield in 'A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600-1840' by Howard Colvin. 8H. E. Forrest. 'Shrewsbury Burgess Roll,' 1924, p.40. 9N. L. W. Glansevern MSS 5469-5589 contain the correspondence from Bromfield and others to A. D. Owen, and are filed in chronological order.