Hendre'r-ywydd Uchaf Farmhouse

Cadw's description

Location

One of the re-erected buildings in the open-air collection of the Museum of Welsh Life.

History

Brought from Llangynhafal, Denbighshire. Late medieval, said to have been built in 1508. Before renovation and reconstruction an extra room had been added to the house at a later date, a chimney and later windows inserted and a corrugated roof added to cover the thatch, while the thatch had been removed from the outbuilding. The building, as re-erected, has been made to resemble as closely as possible its original form, in which it had four cruck trusses, with the three-roomed house completely partitioned off from the two-unit outbuilding by an internal timber-framed wall. It was re-erected at the Museum in 1962.

The Museum Council had recommended in October 1943 that 'an open-air museum was an essential auxiliary to the National Museum of Wales.' ; 'a Wales in miniature where in the confined area of one hundred acres the visitor will be able to wander through time and space.' This vision was made reality by Lord Plymouth's gift of St. Fagans Castle and Park to the National Museum of Wales in 1946. The gardens were opened to the public in 1947 and the house in 1948 but it was recognised that 'some time must elapse before any ancient houses can be re-erected in the Park'. The purpose of the Museum was that 'from different parts of Wales, farm-houses and buildings which would otherwise fall into ruin or be destroyed will be secured for re-erection, the chosen houses will of course be architecturally, historically and socially significant of Welsh culture'. The first building thus re-erected was the Stryd Lydan barn in 1951 and the ones which are included in the list are those re-erected between that date and 1972 and are thus all more than thirty years on their present site.

Exterior

Timber-framed single storey house and outbuilding with common roofline of wheat straw thatch. Timber framed walling over a five bay cruck structure, the walling panelled with wattle-and-daub and the whole limewashed.
North-east elevation of house with doorway with shaped head and two mullioned windows to north, 4-light and 5-light. The outbuilding divided into two by a cruck-truss, and in present north-east elevation, with a separate doorway to each room, with a low doorway nearest the house; two window openings in south-west wall. Outer walls of both house and outbuilding with partly renewed timber-framing; wood mullioned windows with renewed mullions; some shaped door heads. The rear wall has a 4-light window to the housepart and two shuttered openings to the hayloft at the lower end.

Interior

Earth floors re-instituted in house according to description of donor. Some shaped door heads; renewed thatched roof of wheaten straw with underthatch of oak rods on riven oak stakes.

Reason for designation

Included as one of the first complete buildings re-erected at the Museum of Welsh Life, then the Welsh Folk Museum. This building is of considerable historic interest as one of the early exhibits, both for itself and for the way it has been displayed.