Trephilip Farmhouse

Location

Set with its axis N-S on a hilltop site, 300m N of the main Bronllys to Brecon road, and accessed by a farm road. The farm buildings lie immediately N of the house.

Exterior

History: Built in the C17 by Philip Bullen, and later passed to the Vaughans of Porth-aml by marriage. Said to have been on a site of a house belonging to Marie de Bohun, queen of Henry IV.

Exterior: C17, with C18 additions and remodelling of E front. Colourwashed stone with brick dressings, interlocking tiled roof hipped at S end. Two storey, 3 bays, plan with cross passage behind main axial stack, and hall to left, kitchen in former service room or cowhouse N of the through passage, and a further service room to the rear (W) probably coeval with the early plan. In the early-mid C19 a parlour bay was added to the S end, with two windows to south, and the cross passage covered by a two-storey gabled porch set forward at the same time, containing a 6-panelled door and overlight in a C19 doorcase, and narrow 6-light casement window to the chamber over. Part-glazed door to kitchen, and external gabled porch. Nine-pane sash windows but late C19 6-pane sashes to S end bay. Cellar under the rear service room. House is attached to a one-storey and attic farm building at the N end; set at right angles to the axis of the house. Whitewashed rubble with slate roof. Door and three openings on ground floor facing the farmyard.

Interior: Three chamfered cross beams to the main living hall. Early C18 stair with twisted balusters. Jones (1964) suggests that the kitchen was the original hall with inner room, the present hall being of the C18, the date of the stair behind the axial stack, and remodelled in early C19.

Included as a mostly well preserved farmhouse illustrating the development of accommodation from the C17 to C19.
Reference: Jones S and Smith, J 'The Houses of Breconshire' Pt II Brycheiniog X. 159 and plan Fig 16.