Pwll

Cadw's description

Location

2km N of Raglan, and about 950m SW of Tregare church, in a low-lying and isolated position at the bottom of an L-shaped track off the W side of a minor road.

History

Probably medieval or late-medieval, altered in the C17; occupied until at least 1948 (when Fox & Raglan visited), subsequently derelict, restored 1990-5. Fox and Raglan interpreted it as a single-cell 2-bay hall with contemporary chimney stack, "hardly later than c.1500", subsequently partitioned, ceiled and extended; but a Royal Commission report of 1989 has re-interpreted it as more likely to have been an orhtodox 3-cell house with an open hall and a lofted bay at one or both ends, originally built perhaps in the C14 and altered in the C17.

Exterior

A very small cruck-framed farmhouse, the walls partly random rubble, partly timber-framed and partly brick, now painted white; with a roof of modern red clay pantiles, half-hipped at the NW end, and a short square rubble chimney. It has 3 main bays on a NW/SE axis, facing SW, with a chimney stack at the junction of the 2nd and 3rd bays and a cross-passage on the SE side of that. One low storey with a loft. The SW front has a square-headed doorway offset to the right of the chimney, with heavy oak jambs and mason-mitred lintel. Immediately to the left, on a plinth about ¾m high, is a cruck-stud with the exposed end of a cruck-tie in its top right corner; and at the junction of the 1st and 2nd bays is a similar cruck-stud likewise on a plinth and with the exposed end of a tie in its top right corner. The plinth continues across the hall-bay as far as the NW side of the chimney-wall, carrying a sill-beam tenoned into the foot of the cruck-stud to the left, and 5 relatively thin studs, the first 2 more widely spaced and linked by a rail forming the head of a renewed 2-light window. To the left, the 1st bay is narrow and entirely rubble-built, and contains a small renewed 2-light window. To the right of the doorway, the 3rd bay has a slightly lower plinth and five slightly taller and broader studs, with a mid-rail between the 3rd and 4th forming the head of a small 1-light window. In the NW gable is an exposed cruck truss, underbuilt with rubble up to the tie-beam. The rear wall, the lower half of which is rubble (the plinth) and the upper now of brick, with the exposed ends of cruck-ties at the junctions of the bays, has a simple wooden doorway to the cross-passage, a renewed 1-light window to the left, and a renewed 2-light window to the hall-bay. In the roof above is a renewed flat-topped dormer window, and to the left are 2 small skylights.

Interior

Towards the rear end of the cross-passage is a doorway to the hall-bay with a massive square-headed wooden frame, chamfered and mitred, containing a Tudor-arched doorhead, and the jambs incorporating a rebate and draw-bar slot. In the hall-bay the chimney-stack (which infills the cruck-frame) has a fireplace about 2m wide, the left jamb chamfered, with a massive oak lintel. Left of the doorway is an inserted winder staircase built when the upper floor was inserted. This is carried on 4 lateral beams, chamfered with ogee stops, the ends supported on half-beams along the side walls. Just behind the beam at the N end of this room is the tie-beam of the 2nd cruck truss, the foot of the E blade mounted on a high masonry plinth. Less than ½m behind the cruck-tie is the original dais partition of broad feather-edged boards, which has at the right-hand end an original shouldered head worked in the head-beam. The room behind, which is narrow (about 2.2m), has a raised stone-flagged floor. Its ceiling appears to have been renewed, but at the time of the Royal Commission survey in 1989 it was reported to be "of post-and-panel construction cantilevered over the head-beam of the dais partition and locked against a rebate on the underside of the cruck tie" - indicating not only that the partition was contemporary with the cruck frame, but that the cantilevered portion of the loft floor had formed a dais canopy. In the attic, the top of this cruck truss has a king-strut to a collar, and a wattle groove in the top of the tie-beam shows that the truss was originally closed at this level. Heavy smoke blackening on these timbers shows that the hall must have had an open hearth until the chimney stack and upper floor were inserted in the C17.
(The Royal Commission report suggests that the 3rd bay, beyond the cross-passage, might also have been lofted; but heavy alterations in the past, and recent renovation, have made it impossible to determine this question.)

Reason for designation

Listed grade II* as an extremely rare survival of a small cruck-framed medieval house.