Halsalm, Orbach and Voelcker describe Crown Lodge, Ffordd Isaf as a 'slightly baronial in sombre stone with shouldered and kneelered gables awkwardly combined with small-paned sash windows. Older rear wing’ (2009) The Buildings of Wales: Gwynedd (p. 615).

Crown Lodge is Grade II listed 'as a particularly fine and largely unaltered early C20 Arts and Crafts house attributed to the architect George Walton; one of a series of highly interesting architect-designed houses built for the circle of the millionaire philanthropist and aesthete George Davidson.'

According to Cadw, 'Crown Lodge was built in 1903 for W H More to designs by the Scottish Arts and Crafts architect George Walton. More (d.1934) was the Crown Agent for Wales and was inspired to make Harlech his chief residence by the example of his friend George Davidson, the millionaire aesthete and philanthropist, who bought nearby Plas Amhurst before building Plas Wernfawr (later Coleg Harlech) in 1908. Crown Lodge belongs to a series of Arts and Crafts houses built in Harlech by Davidson's circle of friends who established an artistic and intellectual community centred around Plas Wernfawr. Amongst these were the composer Sir Greville Bartock, A P Graves (the War poet Robert Graves' father), and the eminent American photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn [see Cae Besi, NPRN 701052]. Various members of the Fabian Society were associated with the Harlech group, most notably Sir George Bernard Shaw, who was a frequent visitor.'

Externally, Crown Lodge appears to be a 'medium-sized two-storey gabled house; in restrained Arts and Crafts idiom with loose baronial-renaissance theme. Roughly T-plan, with a main 4-bay section and a rear service range. The house is constructed of local slatestone, the principal elevations with snecked, quarry-dressed facings; tooled granite dressings. Slate roof with tiled ridge and dentilated eaves to the front, with central and projecting end chimneys having wide moulded capings; shaped triangular gable parapets with slab copings and curved kneelers. The main (entrance) elevation is asymmetrical, with a 3-bay principal part and a further bay advanced to the L; each bay is defined on the roof line by a gable. The main section has a central entrance with advanced single-storey gabled porch. Modern boarded doors and narrow small-pane sashes to the returns; further, similar windows flank the porch. To the R of the porch is a rectangular, flat-roofed, single-storey bay with parapet and moulded stringcourse below. This has a triple sash group with elegant small-pane sashes, unhorned and with thick glazing bars; similar, narrower sashes to the bay returns. L of the porch is a smaller triple sash group with heavy, flat returned label. The advanced bay to the L has paired sashes to both floors, with labels as before; single sashes to the returns. Similar paired sashes flank a central single sash on the first floor of the main section. Above the central window is an inset sandstone plaque with the monogramme of Edward VII and the date 1903. The rear of the main block has an entrance on the R half, in the corner with the service range; 2-panel door with 2-pane upper section and multi-pane overlight. Above this and to the R on both floors are single sash windows. Further sashes to the N side of the service range, 3 to the ground and 4 to the first floor, asymmetrically-spaced. The roof of the service range has 2 skylights and a catslide dormer to the N pitch and a long catslide dormer to the S; all are later C20.'

RCAHMW, 5 August 2021

Site Record

Crown Lodge, Harlech