Yard House

Location

Located beside a lane leading across Yard Bridge on the south side of the A4067. The cottages are on a precipice over the River Tawe next to the bridge.

History

Yard House was the manager's house and office for the Lefel Fawr colliery. This was established around 1800, following the opening of the Swansea Canal, by the Abercrave Colliery Co of Daniel Harper. The adjacent Yard Bridge or Pont-y-Yard was built by Daniel Harper c1824 to replace a timber bridge carrying a tramroad from the colliery to the Swansea Canal. Yard House was built around this date. A plan of 1840 shows it as the Lefel Fawr colliery office. The half near the tramroad was the office, with a weighbridge and a stable adjoining. The further side contained the manager's house. No other colliery office and managers' house of the early nineteenth century is known to exist in Wales.

Exterior

The house is rubble sandstone with limestone dressings and chimneys and a slate roof. It is a two-storey gabled building with end chimneys and a lean-to on the west gable. Two bays to the north elevation have tall windows with segmental arches. The upstairs left window has a small-paned timber sash, three panes by three. Downstairs there is a later sash with marginal glazing bars, three panes by two. In the centre of the ground floor two small casement windows lit both stairs from a single opening. A similar pattern of windows is found on the south elevation, but there are two doors at the centre, one formerly giving onto the office and the other to the manager's house. The lean-to on the west has been partially rebuilt: the stone part was the stable, and the brick part replaces the weighbridge house. The weighbridge was in the track outside.

Reason for designation

Listed as a rare surviving example of an early colliery office, and for group value with the listed Yard Bridge and Scheduled Lefel Fawr adit entrance.