Pen Bwlch Bach

Location

Spectacularly located in isolated upland position on road between Carmel and Y Fron; the cottage is set within its own small field system immediately below the road with a vast slate waste heap directly to the east.

History

Shown on the 1840 Tithe Map, when it was known as Pant y Pwll, the cottage is likely to have been built in the early C19 as part of a smallholding, the occupants of which are likely to have supplemented their income by working in one or more of the surrounding quarries. In 1841 Robert Lloyd, quarryman, lived here with his wife Anne and 8 children. The family was still here in 1851, by which time the cottage was called Pen Bwlch: the present name is recorded in the 1861 census, at which time Thomas Lloyd, shoemaker and journeyman, was head of the household. The attached former cowhouse now forms part of the domestic accommodation.

Exterior

Single-storey 2-room cottage, aligned roughly north-south, with contemporary cowhouse attached under same roof line to south gable end. White rendered rubblestone under white slurried slate roof with black and blue painted ridge. Original house part to left has C20 window in original opening with slate cill to left of C20 flat-roofed porch; substantial stack to right at junction with former cowhouse, which has lean-to former dairy to front and similar lean-to on rear. Further small lean-to at rear on left.

Interior

Right-hand room of original cottage has open fireplace with rough timber lintel; lower part of roof truss visible in same room.

Reason for designation

Included as a well-preserved early C19 cottage with outbuildings in line, built in the local vernacular tradition, and illustrating the importance of the dual agricultural and industrial economy at this period. The building is a typical feature in the landscape of small fields and scattered cottages, characteristic of the upland settlement pattern associated with the development of quarrying in this region.