Warmley, a spacious and beautifully renovated Edwardian villa in Sketty, south Wales, is widely recognised to be the home in which the creative talents of the 20th-century Welsh composer Daniel Jones OBE and his dear friend, the great poet Dylan Thomas, flourished. A house full of artistic life, the two friends collaborated here, producing rudimental sculpture, music and poetry and later forming Warmley Broadcasting Corporation. The elegant living space of over 2,840 sq ft now extends four storeys, with every room exceptionally well restored, and private courtyards and gardens extending to the rear. Warmley is ideally located for easy access to the Gower Peninsular, with Limesdale and Caswell Bay reachable in around 15 minutes.
Setting the Scene
The ‘Warmley Period’ of the late 1920s and 30s is acknowledged as significant in the creative development of both Daniel Jones as a composer and Dylan Thomas as a poet. It is believed to be here that Dylan learned to be an experimental writer rather than an imitative one, and where he had the opportunity to hone his oratory skills. Using a doctored radiogram, Daniel, his father, and Dylan all did ‘broadcasts’, performing plays, poetry and music compositions played on piano and a series of unorthodox instruments.
It was also here that they also developed a writing technique of saying words backwards, which Dylan revisited in later life with ‘Llareggub’ in Under Milk Wood. They also invented composers with peculiar names for whom they wrote biographies. Daniel Jones would go on to win the Mendelssohn scholarship and become, arguably, Wales’s greatest 20th-century composer.
The Grand Tour
The house is set back from Eversley Road, a quiet, tree-lined residential street, by its own private driveway. The façade, typical of its era, is characterised by red brickwork and a pitched roofline, with the primary entrance set discreetly on the westerly side at the top of a short flight of external steps.
The wide entrance hallway provides an impressive introduction to the reception rooms at ground-floor level. A soft southerly light filters into the main living space at the front of the plan through restored box sash windows, recently refinished in slaked lime white. High ceilings bring volume, while soft neutrals on panelled walls add to the room’s timeless appeal. Set within the slate surround of the original fireplace, a modern log burner forms a natural centrepiece, while solid floorboards stripped back to a pale washed pine run underfoot. A second reception room or study lies to the west of the hallway. From here, the original staircase connects down to the kitchen and up to the bedrooms.
The most recent additions, the kitchen and dining room have been beautifully finished with bespoke lines of hand-crafted joinery, a range and a wall of glass bifold doors that open the entire space to the courtyard garden. A useful utility room is positioned on the far northerly side, housing laundry facilities and a sink.
Ascending the central staircase from the hallway, the first-floor level has been designed with excellent flexibility of layout. A pocket door at the half-landing divides a self-contained living space/bedroom with its own bathroom; with separate access to the outdoors, it makes for a brilliant retreat for visiting family, guests or for older teenagers.
The rest of the first floor is given over to the main bedroom, where an excellent quality of light streams in through large, south-facing sash windows. While currently configured to provide a quiet retreat and sleeping space, this room would equally well befit an additional living space. This room and the bedroom directly above it have views that stretch as far as the delightful coastline at nearby Mumbles.
Another double bedroom is also situated on this storey, with walls washed in Little Greene’s ‘China Clay Deep’. The sensitive window details, coving and ceiling rose displayed here were all crafted by a local carpenter. The bathroom lies adjacent, with a roll-top, clawfoot bathtub by the Cast Iron Bath Company and a sink unit by the same company finished with a Carrara marble top. Marble tiles by Mandarin Stone are paired with walls in Little Greene’s ‘Slaked Lime’ and strokes of Farrow and Ball’s ‘Sulking Room Pink’.
The eaves of the house accommodate two further double bedrooms, serviced by their own bathroom, with both a bathtub and shower.
The Great Outdoors
The outside spaces follow a similarly meticulous approach. A paved terrace extends from the kitchen and dining areas in a seamless flow between inside and out, with plenty of space for eating and entertaining outside. Steps ascend to an upper level, where there is an elevated and private seating area enclosed by scented climbers and mature shrubs.
Out and About
The home is ideally located for the seafront and coastline, the wider Gower Peninsular and the rolling Welsh countryside. The open green spaces of Singleton Park and Clyne Gardens can be easily reached on foot from the house, and the seafront and charming bay at Mumbles is around half a mile away. The popular coastline at Swansea Bay, Limeslade Bay, Bracelet Bay, and Langland Bay are all less than five miles away, with the Gower coastline a little further beyond.
Carmarthen is a 40-minute drive north and has a good selection of independent shops and restaurants. One notable establishment is Wright’s Food in nearby Llanarthne, which is known for hosting food events with renowned chefs such as Honey and Co and Rachel Roddy.
The pretty town of Llandeilo is also within easy reach in around 30 minutes by car, alongside extensive walking and cycling routes through The Tywi Valley, up onto the Carmarthen Fans, the breathtaking Brecon Beacons and the nationally important mountain biking trails in the Brechfa forest.
Swansea train station is a 10-minute drive or 14-minute cycle away and runs services along the south Wales coast as well as Cardiff, Manchester, Shrewsbury and London.
Council Tax Band: F
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