Vaynor Park is a country house in a landscaped park, standing on high ground to the south-west of Berriew village, in the historic county of Montgomeryshire, now Powys. The origins of the house date from the mid-15th century, but the house was extensively re-built in brick about 1640. The house was further re-modelled in 1840–1853 by Thomas Penson. The house is listed Grade II* and the garden and park is on the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales
Early ownership
The substantial medieval house built for Edward ap Hywel ab leuan Llwyd is described by the poet Guto'r Glyn (c.1412 – c.1493) in the C15.
17th-century rebuilding
In the 1570s the house was purchased by Arthur Price, a son of Mathew Price of Newtown Hall. Arthur Price was the Member of Parliament for Montgomery Boroughs from 1571 to 1572. The house then passed down his granddaughter Bridget, who in 1633 had married George Devereux.
George Devereux was the son of Sir George Devereux of Sheldon Hall, Warwickshire and the nephew of Walter Devereux, Viscount Hereford. He played a leading part in Montgomeryshire politics and was a ‘recruiter’ M.P. for Montgomery in the Long Parliament (6 April 1647). He was suspended as a ‘delinquent’ the following May, but signed the Montgomeryshire declaration for Parliament on 20 May 1648. After the king's execution he remained in retirement till he began to sit on county committees in 1657 and accepted office as sheriff in 1658. Haslam attributes the building of the brick house shown in John Ingleby's watercolours to him around 1640, but it could also be after the Civil War.
Vaynor is one of only four big brick houses of its date in the county and is built in Flemish bond. John Ingleby's drawings show the back of the house with two storeys of eight bays beneath four equal gables. The west front, facing over a courtyard, had a five-bay centre flanked by hip-roofed wings two bays wide by one deep: this all looks like a re-working of c.1670. External chimneys on the side walls can be compared with Llandrinio Hall of 1682.
After Sir George's death in 1682 (or possibly 1665), the house passed to his grandson Price Devereux (1664–1740), whose father had died young. Price was M.P. for Montgomery Boroughs until becoming the 9th Viscount Hereford in 1700. Following the death in 1748 of his son, the 10th Viscount, the Hereford viscountcy passed to a branch of the family in Nantcribba near Montgomery but the Vaynor property was bequeathed as part of the residual estate to his executor and lawyer Robert Moxon. In 1793 Robert Moxon's nephew left the house and estate to his sister Ann and her husband John Winder, since when it has descended in the Corbett-Winder family to the present owners.
The house is a Grade II* listed building and its garden and park is also listed, at Grade I, on the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales.
John Ingleby's views of Vaynor 1796
In 1776 Thomas Pennant stayed with his friend Arthur Blayney at nearby Gregynog while making a tour through Montgomeryshire. When this Tour was included in the second edition of ‘‘Tour in Wales’‘ which was published in 1783, he only included a short description of Vaynor. He intended to revise the Montgomeryshire tour, and, as it was un-illustrated, he commissioned the artist in John Ingleby in 1794–6 to produce a series of watercolours of Montgomeryshire houses and churches. These watercolours are now in the National Library of Wales and included two watercolours of Vaynor. In one of these, Ingleby shows himself on horseback sketching Vaynor. Ingleby's watercolour shows the S W aspect of the house which now looks onto a rectangular court yard at the opposite end of which is a long stable block. The two forward wings of the house remain but the buildings to each side have been removed.