Plas Teg in Flintshire could never be called a poky house – not by anyone’s reckoning. And yet you can’t help wondering where on earth Cornelia Bayley, the fiery crusader, collector, conjuror and eccentric who saved this Grade I-listed three-storey Jacobean mansion from certain ruin, put all her stuff. It would perhaps be indelicate to mention the sheer number of antique dinner, tea and dessert services, ironstone platters, porcelain vases and Leeds creamware that she amassed in the years after she bought the place – reputedly haunted and then minus its roof – for £75,000 back in 1985. But as we’re here: her ceramics alone realised about £20,000 at a recent auction held by Rogers Jones in Colwyn Bay, north Wales, the proceeds going towards paying care costs for Cornelia, who is now in her eighties.
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And that was just for starters, an appetiser or entrée, if you like, before the plat principal: an epic online sale on 13 March 2025 consisting of hundreds of lots, from monumental garden statuary to parcel-gilt torchères, Regency sofas to a sarcophagus bath, that looks certain to garner fevered interest from decorators and dealers. Biedermeier, Baroque, French Empire, Victoriana and lots of antique birdcages and fire baskets – they’re all here, with knobs on. That said, just occasionally some of the knobs, a drawer or the leg of a chair appear to be missing in action.
‘The thing about Cornelia is that she never stopped buying. She would trawl sales picking up stuff no-one else wanted,’ says a friend who used to work for two of the big auction houses that then had a presence in Chester, the nearest big centre to Plas Teg (WoI Jan 1988). Which is not to say that she was at all indiscriminate or lacked discernment; it’s more that she was catholic in her tastes – very, very catholic – and, like some set designer manquée, highly inventive with the spoils of those saleroom sprees. Impatient make-do-and-pretend rather than make-do-and-mend was her thing, with effect and atmosphere frequently given greater importance than absolute authenticity. Exhibits A, B and C: the fabric remnants stapled to armchairs in approximation of a slip cover, a plinth naively splodged to resemble (sort of) scagliola, and the faithful reproductions of old masters that bear the odd suggestion of cockatoo guano (a menagerie of squawking exotic birds were allowed to fly free at Plas Teg, a bit like the châtelaine’s creativity, much to the alarm of those who paid to visit or sleep over in her magnum opus).
In fact, in all this Cornelia Bayley had much in common with Dennis Severs, that other saviour of imperilled built heritage, who was known to improvise with abandon, covering market-bought plastic fruit with gesso to create period ceiling roses for his Huguenot house-museum in Spitalfields, east London. The evidence is everywhere in the vast hangar-like unit on the outskirts of Wrexham that Rogers Jones felt obliged to rent to accommodate all the lots for by-appointment viewing prior to the sale. Where just weeks ago this modern concrete, breeze-block and steel warehouse might have been ready to house palettes of fertiliser, say, or freshly sawn timber, now it’s as if l’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, the Provençal town famed for its antique shops and markets, has been uprooted and taken up temporary residence there. Three men in high-viz tabards scurry around, shifting and frantically photographing consignments under the watchful gaze of, inter alia, cast-iron sphinxes, stone dogs, statues of centurions, a taxidermy whooper swan and the bare-breasted subject of a copy of a Sir Peter Lely portrait. On and on it goes.
It is a surreal sight and no doubt thrilling for those looking forward to having a good truffle for treasure; but it is also one marked by a certain poignancy, for the serried rows of suites of chairs, ormolu candelabra and the rest represent the abrupt dismantling of one woman’s dream and life. A question mark now hangs over the future of the historic house she occupied and which preoccupied her, though it’s been suggested Cornelia plans to gift Plas Teg to the National Trust. Whatever, I suppose we should be very grateful that, thanks to her indefatigability, it’s survived that bit longer – 40 years to be precise – than it probably ever would have. Meanwhile, if anyone is in the market for umpteen copper pans or a fake Van Dyck…
The ‘Plas Teg: Principal House & Garden Contents’ auction takes place online on 13 March. For more information about the sale and viewing, visit rogersjones.co.uk
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