Mount Pleasant

Cadw's description

Location

Situated at corner of Garnon's Mill Road and road to Boncath, some 500m S of Llechryd Bridge.

History

Circa 1845-50 estate house built for Abel Gower of Castle Malgwyn. Said to have been the bailiff's or agent's house. It looks as if an earlier house were remodelled but the 1843 Tithe map does not identify the building on the site as a house.

Exterior

Whitewashed rubble stone with slate roof and stone end stacks, larger to left. Two-storey, three-window range with outshut rear. End stacks originally in stone, larger to left, later rebuilt in brick on original bases. Elizabethan-style timber front detail, a jettied centrepiece and flanking first floor oriels, with large trnasomed casements, originally diamond-paned, now plate glass, under three plastered bargeboarded gables. Gables are ornamented with moulded roundels, the outer roundels marked AG and the centre one with Gower crest. 4-light, 4-light and 3-light upper windows, with mid transom, the oriels on fretwork brackets. Coved eaves cornice between and under gable overhangs. Centre is jettied with two attached timber columns framing ledged door, fretwork brackets, moulded bressumer and thin timber framing in four panels under first floor window. Three slate steps. 4-light casement window to ground floor left, 3-light to right. A single storey outbuilding to right has casement pair with plastered gable over and triple casement, both with stone voussoirs.

Reason for designation

Included despite altered windows and chimneys as an unusual example of a picturesque estate cottage, prominently sited on the road up from Llechryd Bridge.