Denbigh / Tros y Parc

Though Tros y Parc dates from the seventeenth century and is a good example of a minor gentry house, it’s the 1920s interior design that is of greatest interest.

Tros y Parc was built in 1688 for Foulk Salusbury, church warden of Denbigh in 1702. The Salusburys were one of the most significant Tudor families of North East Wales.

The house was cosmetically remodelled in the second-quarter of the 19th century, when the main facade acquired its present appearance.

In the 1920s there was another ecclesiastical coincidence – the Dean of St Asaph bought the place, and seems to have been the man responsible for a major refit of the interior.

What is interesting is that the new fittings are all in the aristocratic style of the 1920s, not the new Art Deco designs that were coming in from France. So we have Georgian revival fitted cupboards, Neo-Tudor oak doors and panelling and it is only the bathrooms that take the modern style.

And what great bathrooms they are! These ceramic baths must weigh a tonne! Great to see it has survived as so many good bathrooms from this period have been ripped out in the last 20 years. In the days when this was tiled people made assumptions as to your social standing by the height to which you could afford to tile bathroom walls. So judging by this full height tiling the Dean of St Asaph wasn’t short of a few bob!