Whoever is lucky enough to nab this property won’t just be a getting a family home, they’ll also be getting a piece of history.
On sale for £2.15million, Coes Faen Hall, known locally as The Clock House, is located in Gwynedd, Wales, by the picturesque Mawddach Estuary and right on the border of Snowdonia National Park.
Its setting is stunning, but the mansion itself holds secrets and stories that span back through the centuries since it was built.
Academics dated one room in the Gothic houseback to medieval times when Henry II reigned, but the majority of what stands today was added in the Victorian times, when a new railway line turned neighbouring Barmouth into a bustling seaside town.
Most notably, The Clock House was previously used as a prison – and it bears a few reminders of its grisly past.
Records revealed that the Grade II Listed home was once a courtroom and jail, with inmates being brought to the cliffside location via boat and entering cells at water level.
These days the pontoon is used for leisure purposes, so residents can sail up to their home, and the two cells have been renovated into a wine cellar and pantry in recent years. Dungeons that existed in the lower parts of the property have also been filled in.
A glass window in the floor of what’s now the movie room, however, gives a glimpse into the stone tunnel systems where prisoners would have walked.
Previous owner Sara Parry Jones told Wales Online: ‘The family room is actually the old courtroom because Barmouth only had holding “drunk” cells really.
‘So prisoners were brought here by boat, tried in the courtroom and held in the two cells here, one of which is now a wine cellar and the other is a pantry.’
Agents Strutt and Parker stressed on the listing that, although Coes Fan Hall is ‘an iconic building,’ it’s ‘first and foremost a family home.’
It has six bedrooms, four bathrooms, and four reception rooms – including a cinema and gym space.
The ‘outdoor’ kitchen leads onto the property’s veranda, which stretches round the structure for panoramic views of the mountains and waterways on the doorstep.
Floor-to-ceiling windows flood the space with light (except for the converted cells which don’t get the same views), and original stonework combines with modern touches throughout.
The North Wales estuary where it’s located offers all sorts of activities, from sea fishing to dolphin and seal watching, as well as sailing, kayaking, canoeing, and paddle-boarding.
People may have been involuntarily locked up here in the past, but buyers will be desperate to get the keys for The Clock House now, not for an escape bid, but to make it their home.
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