Cynhinfa

Location

About 1.5 km south-west of Pontrobert, to east of a minor road. The site is now Parc Cynhinfa Caravan Park.

History

A late mediaeval hall-house of cruck construction retaining its post and panel partition at the rear of dais position. This partition is not to the full height of the room and appears to predate the insertion of the upper floors. In the early C17 the house was given a two-storey cross-wing (two steps higher) and the original part was probably converted to two storeys at the same period. The porch and main entrance facing west probably also date from the same period. Cynhinfa provides an interesting variation on the usual manner of converting a hall house to post-mediaeval form, as there is no inserted hall chimney.

The bedroom in the north unit does not communicate with the rest of the house and the steep staircase at the north [north-west] end of the house may have been inserted in the C18 or C19 for the use of farm servants.

In 1849 the house was recorded as the farmhouse of a tenancy of 132 acres.

Exterior

A two-storey T shaped house consisting of an early north/south [north-west/south-east] range plus a crosswing to the south. The house in its present form faces west and is entered by a small porch at the middle of the early range.

The early range of the house has been rebuilt in stone and rendered on the north and east. The later crosswing has a timber-framed lateral wall facing south but is otherwise also rendered. The framing of the latter is in irregular oblong panels, with small quadrant braces in the corners of the upper panels. The framing is now brick-nogged. Both parts are roofed in slate and there is a brick chimney serving the crosswing and another (concealed by ivy) at the north gable.

The porch is of light timber construction with rendered side walls. The main door is timber boarded. In the porch gable is a timber shield but any carving on it is no longer identifiable. The house has modern timber windows throughout apart from four C19 iron casement windows on the east side of the early range.

Interior

The middle and north units of the earlier range of the house are separated by a fine post-and-panel partition presently only visible on the north side. It has one doorway, at the west side.

The crucks are detectable as marks and bulges in the plaster of the crosswalls each side of the hall unit upstairs. (At the time of inspection the roof space was not accessible.)

Reason for designation

A cruck-built hall house altered to storeyed form in an unusual manner and retaining a fine post-and-panel partition.