Pen Dinas

Cadw's description

Location

Located at western end of Ffordd Dinas, a short track leading eastwards to the Iron Age fort of Pen Dinas, where it meets main road; house at right-angles to road with low rubblestone wall to front (Ffordd Dinas) and to road side.

History

There is known to have been a dwelling here by c1746 and evidence for this can be seen in the lean-to section at the rear of the existing building, which was remodelled in its present form in the 1890s with the consent of the Penrhyn Estate by the father of Sir Ifor Williams, who was born here in 1881. Sir Ifor was head of the Welsh department at the University College of North Wales, Bangor from 1929-47 and a noted scholar of early Welsh poetry, a field he transformed through his numerous publications. The house is currently lived in by Sir Ifor's daughter.

Exterior

2-storey building, aligned east-west with full-length catslide outshut at rear. Painted roughly coursed rubblestone with slate hanging to right gable end; slate roof with exposed purlin ends. Symmetrical front has central entrance with ribbed door under wide glazed porch flanked by 3-light casements with slate cills and 2 horizontal glazing bars to each light; 2-light casements with same glazing bar pattern in gabled eaves dormers directly above ground-floor windows; integral end stacks, right with slate drip and dentilled brick capping, left rebuilt above drip.

Interior

Thick walls to lean-to at rear, which is not in fact an addition as the external appearance of the building may suggest, but the remnant of a single-storey cottage. Plain joists to main part of house, which has C19 straight-flight staircase in line with entrance.

Reason for designation

Included as a substantially unaltered late C19 house with mid-C18 origins, also notable as the birth-place and home of the scholar, Sir Ifor Williams (1881-1965).