Ye Old Mansion House

Cadw's description

Location

Fronting the street SW of Plas Mawr.

History

A C16 or early C17 house with a rear wing that is possibly contemporary. The front was remodelled in the C19, incorporating a shop front that has since been altered.

Exterior

Belongs to a group of 20-22 High Street.

A 2-storey 3-window house and shop of whitened pebble-dashed front with black-painted smooth-rendered plinth and imitation timber-framing in the upper storey, steep slate roof, reduced stone stack to the L, central brick stack and projecting 1st-floor stack to the R gable end. The building has been subdivided at ground-floor level into a 2-window house on the L (No 22) and 1-window shop on the R (No 20).

The shop has a symmetrical front with panelled stall riser, plate glass windows with colonnettes, fascia and billet frieze to the cornice. It has a central recessed glazed door with lower panel, and overlight. No 22 has pilaster strips in the lower storey. Its central entrance is reached up slate steps, with scrollwork iron railings. Its replacement half-glazed fielded-panel door is under an earlier lozenge-pattern overlight. The entrance is flanked by a 20-pane hornless sash window on the L, and similar 16-pane window on the R, both with eared and lugged architraves with pediments. First floor hornless sash windows are 20-pane to the R and L and 16-pane in the centre.

Gable ends and rear are of rubble stone. In the L gable end the stonework is uneven, suggesting partial rebuilding. On the L side are inserted ground and 1st-floor windows. The rear has 2 1st-floor 2-light casement windows above a pebble-dash lean-to with fixed small-pane and C20 steel-framed 2-light windows. A replacement doorway is in its splayed L end.

The 1½-storey rear wing is in line with the L gable end. It has a large rear lateral stack offset to the L, the upper part of which is rebuilt in brick. Facing the courtyard at the rear of the house the openings are all altered. At the L end is an original timber lintel over a later half-glazed door and small-pane window. Next R is a half-glazed door under an original timber lintel. Further R are a fixed inserted window, then C19 brick segmental heads to a boarded door and another fixed window. The attic has a shuttered opening to the L and a larger opening to the R infilled with C20 glazing. The gable end of the rear wing, where the ground level is higher, has an inserted panel door in a concrete surround to the attic. The rear, facing the entrance to Bull Cottages, has a small-pane 3-light casement window under a wooden lintel.

Interior

In the 1st floor, at the R-hand end over the shop, is an original fireplace with stone shouldered lintel. The rear wing has 2 rooms with joist-beam ceilings, one with run-out stops, and a large fireplace with timber lintel.

Reason for designation

Listed with No 20 as a house of C16-C17 origin retaining original detail but with C19 front of definite character, and for group value within the historical townscape.