Ty Mawr

Cadw's description

Location

Located on a platform site adjacent to the by-road leading SW off the B4345 to Berriew, S of Castle Caereinion.

History

Mid C15 hall house of high gentry status. Possible long-house derived plan, with the partially open-framing of the passage partition reminiscent of a feeding walk. The building was later narrowed and converted to a storeyed house with the insertion of floors and a smoke-hood by the second quarter of the C17, but fell out of domestic use in early C19, and survived as a barn.

The chronology of this complex building has been recently clarified by exact felling dates obtained from the timbers by a dendrochronological (tree-ring dating) survey commissioned by Cadw:

1460 construction of hall-house;
1594 floor inserted in upper bay;
1630/31 smoke-hood inserted in hall.

In the late C18/early C19 it was part of the estate of Walter Davies (Gwallter Mechain), the agriculturalist, and subsequently was purchased by the Powis Castle estate. Restored in 1997/98.

Now re-instated as a dwelling in a reconstruction of its original wider form - an open hall flanked by storeyed end bays. The inserted chimney has been retained.

Exterior

Hall house of 3 unit plan within a simple rectangle. Down-hill sited, and timber framed on a high stone plinth. Hipped roof, re-covered in graded slates. The external framing is entirely as reconstructed in the two long walls (square panelled framing), though some original timbers survive in the two gable ends. In the lower gable, the aisle posts and arch braces to collar, together with the intermediate posts for an upper-level window survive, whilst in the upper gable, only the upper queen posts and the elbowed braces to the collar survive. The building has been lime-washed in the restoration. Window and door detail is all as reconstructed, with wide doorways onto the cross passage at the lower end of the hall.

Interior

The plan takes the form of a 2-bay central hall, with storeyed outer bays, comprising a small room at the upper or dais end, a through passage separated by a spere truss, and a larger lower room. Gable and partition trusses are aisled and box-framed, but the central hall truss is a base cruck. This has knee braces to the cambered collar which carries a secondary collar truss, with cusped angle braces over the base cruck, and cusping forming quatrefoil at apex. Long curved wind-braces braces rise in each bay to a square-set lower purlin or arcade plate running through the building. Straight angle braces rise to the upper purlins. Spere truss defining passage has octagonal aisle posts rising to brattished capitals, with large braces forming decorative quatrefoil panels (reconstructed) in each aisle bay. Aisled dais partition is square panelled with straight braces to collar, while the aisled passage partition incorporates open panels and has a cambered collar and arched braces. 4 secondary trusses in the end bays rest on the arcade plate. Stone-flagged floor to hall. Timber-framed fireplace (with graffiti date of 1751) inserted against the dais partition retains wattle and daub panel infill (exposed on the inner face of the chimney), and incorporates a later stone side oven on its inner side. Staircase against the fireplace in the hall to the upper chamber is a reconstruction. Inner (parlour) bay partitioned to form two rooms, though perhaps originally undivided: the arched doors at either side are reconstructions: surviving mortices indicate that this was probably the original arrangement. This end bay has 3 chamfered longitudinal beams, and deep chamfered joists. The staircase to the upper room of the outer (service) bay rises from the hall and is reconstructed, employing original mortices.

Reason for designation

Listed grade I as a rare surviving example of a medieval aisle-truss hall house in the timber-framed tradition associated especially with the border areas of mid and north Wales. The building had retained sufficient elements of its original plan form and constructional scheme to represent an especially clear example of its type, a clarity enhanced in restoration.