Brogyntyn, or Porkington, is a mansion in the parish of Selatyn to the north-west of Oswestry in Shropshire, England. Brogyntyn Hall was the home of the Ormsby-Gore family from 1815, and had previously been the estate of their ancestors the Maurices and Owens since the sixteenth century. It was abandoned and uninhabited from around 1985. [1] [2]
It was a residence of members of the princely dynasty of the Welsh Kingdom of Powys, belonging to the House of Mathrafal, and one of the taî'r uchelwyr (houses of the gentry) in late medieval Wales. [3] It subsequently came into the possession of the Ormsby-Gore family (Lord Harlech). Its English correspondent is sometimes given as Porkington. [4] A manuscript known to have been in the possession of Brogyntyn in 1574 was a copy of the Hanes Gruf(f)udd ab Cynan.
The house itself is of brick dating from circa 1730 refaced and much added to between 1813–20 by the architect Benjamin Gummow. [5] It is noted for a portico of four giant unfluted Ionic columns with scrolls and pediment. Outside can be seen an arch with 2 pairs of unfluted Ionic columns. In the entrance hall survives an elaborately carved fireplace dated 1617.
Brogyntyn Hall and its 1,445-acre estate, was sold by the 6th Baron Harlech in 2001 for less than £5 million to a local developer, who divided up the estate, and investigated the potential for a retirement community development in and around the Hall. [6] [7] However, the Hall and 234 acres went up for sale for £5 million in December 2013. [8]
It is known that Sir Robert Owen of Brogyntyn (d. 1698) was a bibliophile who continued the family's traditional patronage of poets and a collection of printed English literature was developed by his grandfather Lewis Anwyl of Park. Nevertheless, the early history of the library at Brogyntyn is obscure. Some of the family had collected early printed books during the nineteenth century but this does not account for the fine collection of manuscripts that the library held.
There is some evidence contained within the manuscripts which suggests that the collection was formed circa 1700 from other manuscripts collections in the surrounding area. [1] The thirty Welsh language manuscripts that the third Lord Harlech deposited in the National Library of Wales in 1934 was, at the time, the largest collection of manuscripts in Welsh that was still privately owned.
The fourth Lord Harlech deposited a further fifty-nine manuscripts in the National Library in 1938 and subsequently donated most of the deposits in 1945. The remaining items were purchased from the sixth Lord Harlech, the incumbent in 1993. [2] [9]
The manuscripts from the Brogyntyn Library include a medieval psalter and a version of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniæ, both from the thirteenth century, a fifteenth century miscellany in Middle English, a volume of the Welsh laws of Hywel Dda, and pedigrees, genealogy and heraldry of families in Wales. [1] [2] [9]
Oswestry is a market town, civil parish and historic railway town in Shropshire, England, close to the Welsh border. It is at the junction of the A5, A483 and A495 roads.
Baron Harlech, of Harlech in the County of Merioneth, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1876 for the Conservative politician John Ormsby-Gore, with remainder to his younger brother William. He had previously represented Carnarvon and North Shropshire in the House of Commons. Ormsby-Gore was the eldest son of William Ormsby-Gore, Member of Parliament for County Leitrim, Carnarvon and North Shropshire, and the great-great-great-grandson of William Gore, third and youngest son of Sir Arthur Gore, 1st Baronet, of Newtown, second son of Sir Paul Gore, 1st Baronet, of Magharabag, whose eldest son Paul was the grandfather of Arthur Gore, 1st Earl of Arran.
William David Ormsby-Gore, 5th Baron Harlech, known as David Ormsby-Gore until June 1961 and as Sir David Ormsby-Gore from then until February 1964, was a British diplomat and Conservative politician.
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William Richard Ormsby-Gore, 2nd Baron Harlech, was an Anglo-Irish peer and Member of Parliament.
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The National Library of Wales, in Aberystwyth, is the national legal deposit library of Wales and is one of the Welsh Government sponsored bodies. It is the biggest library in Wales, holding over 6.5 million books and periodicals, and the largest collections of archives, portraits, maps, and photographic images in Wales. The Library is also home to the national collection of Welsh manuscripts, the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales, and the most comprehensive collection of paintings and topographical prints in Wales. As the primary research library and archive in Wales and one of the largest research libraries in the United Kingdom, the National Library is a member of Research Libraries UK (RLUK) and the Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL).
William George Arthur Ormsby-Gore, 4th Baron Harlech,, was a British Conservative politician and banker.
William Ormsby-Gore, known as William Gore until 1815, was a British Member of Parliament.
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Selattyn is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Selattyn and Gobowen, in the Shropshire district, in the ceremonial county of Shropshire, England. It is on the England–Wales border, close to Oswestry. In 1961 the parish had a population of 1830. On 1 April 1967 the parish was abolished to form "Selattyn and Gobowen", part also went to Whittington.
Allan Heywood Bright was a British Liberal politician.
Sir John Owen of Clenennau (1600–1666), was a Welsh landowner from Anglesey, who served with the Royalist army in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, during which he held various commands in North Wales.
Benjamin Gummow was an architect who worked from Ruabon near Wrexham in Wales. He worked almost exclusively for Sir Watkin Williams Wynn of Wynnstay, Ruabon and the Grosvenor family of Eaton Hall near Chester. He was born in St Endellion in Cornwall in 1766 and died at Ruabon in March 1844.
The Honourable Fanny Mary Katherine Bulkeley-Owen was a British historian and author. She was a member of the Anglo-Irish Gore family.
Rowland Vaughan was a Welsh poet, translator and jurist.
Jasset David Cody Ormsby-Gore, 7th Baron Harlech, is a British hereditary peer and Conservative member of the House of Lords. He has been serving as a Lord in Waiting since September 2022.
Giwn Lloyd, 18th Baron of Hendwr (1699–1774) and squire of Tyfos, in the county of Merioneth and of Gwersyllt Park and Plas Newydd, in the county of Denbigh, was a Welsh gentleman who lived in the 18th century and was notorious for his dissolute life. He is best remembered for the lengthy court battle which ensued after his death, lasting over twenty years, exhausting the finances of many of his kinsmen, and shocking much of Welsh society.
