Pen-y-clawdd House

Cadw's description

Location

Situated on S side of lane running E from junction some 250m S of Pen-y-clawdd church, some 200m down lane.

History

C17 3-room and passage plan house, formerly Upper Penyclawdd. Noted by Fox and Raglan as a Renaissance version of Old House, Llangoven. Much remodelled in later C19 and in 1905.
Recorded in 1349 as manor house for Pen-y-clawdd, then held by Walter de Rymbaud of Lawrence de Hastings, Earl of Pembroke. The lordship of the manor was subsequently held by the Cecil family, Sir John Herbert of Neath Abbey, by Francis Greville, 4th Lord Brooke in the C17, and from the mid C18 to 1799 by the Wilmot family. Sold 1799 to Hugh Powell, treasurer of St .Bartholomew's Hospital, London, in 1821 passed to his godson William Powell Rodney. In 1904 the Rodney family sold it to Mr. R. Baker-Gabb.
Extensions and renovations to the house and outbuildings were undertaken in the later C19, including the archway into the courtyard, dated 1861, and some enlargement of the house. Bradney records the enlargement and archway as carried out by John Hodges Winslow of Trelech. Externally the significant alterations were those made after 1904 by R. Baker-Gabb in an Arts and Crafts style. A photograph taken from the inner moat published in 1912 shows the house before restoration on a T-plan with blocked-up four-light mullion windows, Tudor drip moulds, stone slate roof and string course.

Exterior

Small country house, roughcast with slate roofs, and large roughcast lateral chimney on front wall, topped in red brick. Two-storey facade with a gable each end, all the detail either C19 or Arts and Crafts style of 1905. Gables have bargeboards, windows are timber-mullion with square leaded panes. Left gable has a small loft light, first floor triple casement and ground floor C20 window. Centre range has large early C20 sandstone ashlar porch with coped shouldered gable over 2 narrow cusped lights. Segment-headed doorway in right side wall. Small casement pair under eaves above, then big lateral chimney the shaft stepped in above eaves level. To right, first floor pair and triple casement, under eaves, over triple casement and early C20 flush ashlar doorcase with segmental head and plank door with fillets and strap hinges. Right cross-wing has big 3-light mullion and transom wtimber window each floor. Chimney on cross-wing rear gable. Windowless right side wall. To the rear a long single-storey attached cart range, open-fronted with slate roof.

Interior

Not available for inspection (December 1999). Information at RCAHMW, Aberystwyth, records a 3-room and cross-passage later C16 plan of parlour to W, hall with lateral chimney, cross-passage and then E cross-wing with kitchen, the large fireplace at S end. The W cross-wing was thought entirely C19. A timber pre-glazing double 2-light window with diamond mullion and 5-sided post between lights was found in a wall between chamber over the hall and the cross-wing, suggesting that the hall-parlour range predates the cross-wing. There were 2 doorways with shaped heads, one in the kitchen, the other between kitchen and cross-passage.

Reason for designation

Included as an important C16 to C17 house which may have originated as a medieval hall house. Remodelling of 1905 has added attractive Arts and Crafts Gothic porch and doorcase.