Maes-Caradoc

Cadw's description

Location

Remote roadside position on minor valley road running parallel with the A5 along the Ogwen valley; low rubblestone wall in front of right end of farmhouse with stone-on-edge coping to sides and iron gate and horizontal railings to front.

History

The farmhouse was probably built c1880 as part of the continuing expansion of farming in the remote Ogwen valley at this period, much of which sponsored by the Penrhyn Estate. The road on which the farmhouse is situated is the so-called "old road", an improvement by the Estate in 1790-1 of what Thomas Pennant had described as "the most dreadfull horsepath in Wales". Several other farms are sited on this road, which was effectively superseded as the main through route along the Ogwen valley by the building of the turnpike road on its eastern side in 1802.

Exterior

Long rectangular 2-storey building, aligned roughly north-south and divided into 2 distinct, although contemporary units. Roughcast rubblestone with painted brick window and door surrounds; slate roof with pebble-dashed brick stacks. Front has 6 regularly spaced recessed sash windows with slightly cambered heads and slate cills on first floor, all 6-paned; fenestration pattern repeated on ground floor with central entrance to each unit, C20 door to left and boarded door to right under wide shallow-pitched lean-to porch with cambered outer doorway; integral end stacks and ridge stack roughly to centre. Catslide outshut to rear of N house, and 6-pane sash windows. Rear of S house is blind.

Interior

Interior not accessible at time of Survey.

Reason for designation

Included as a well-preserved rather unusual late C19 'double' farmhouse, with contemporary farmbuildings, illustrative of the fact that colonisation of marginal agricultural land by the Penrhyn Estate was continuing well into the late C19. With its adjoining farmbuildings, Maes-Caradoc forms a typically distinctive component of this rugged upland landscape.