Kinmel Hall

Kinmel Hall is a mansion near the village of St. George, close to the coastal town of Abergele, in Conwy county borough, Wales.

The present chateau style house, the third on the site, was built for the Hughes copper mining family; the house was designed by W. E. Nesfield in the 1870s, and the adjoining Venetian Gardens were designed by his father, W. A. Nesfield. The adjoining Neo-palladian style stable block is attributed to William Burn, with construction completed in the 1850s. Materials for construction were bought from the nearby Lleweni Hall.

The house is set in walled gardens of around 18 acres (73,000 m²), which are themselves set in grounds of around 5,000 acres (20 km²), encompassing open fields, parkland and forests. The 1870s structure is an example of the myriad of new types of buildings that were arising during the Victorian era to fulfil increasingly specialised functions. For example, there was a room in the mansion that was only to be used for the ironing of newspapers, so that the ink would not come off on the reader's hands. It was called a 'calendar house' as it had 365 rooms.

Ownership of the house has been dominated by the Hughes, Lewis and Fetherstonhaugh and Gill families. There are many heraldic shields displayed throughout the house which show evidence of the unions between these families. The property was last used as a private home in 1929, after which it was converted to a 'rheuma spa', a health centre for the treatment of people with rheumatism, by Mrs Florence Lindley, formerly headmistress of Lowther College, at the nearby Bodelwyddan Castle. The spa remained until the outbreak of World War II, when the hall was taken over as a hospital.

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