Llwyn-erddyn

Cadw's description

Location

Approximately 1.8km NNE of Lixwm and reached by private road W of a minor road between Lixwm and Brynford.

History

A late C16 or early C17 house originally comprising hall with lateral chimney, a heated parlour, and a service room beyond the cross passage. The hall fireplace was subsequently replaced, probably early C18, by a fireplace backing on to the cross passage that also encroached upon the hall and may have required the screen dividing hall and parlour to be part removed. The house was improved in the C19 when the fenestration was altered, sash windows replacing the original diamond mullion windows. A byre and subsequently a stable were also added at the service end in the third quarter of the C19 and are shown on the 1871 Ordnance Survey.

Exterior

A 2-storey house rendered and painted white with slate roof replacing original thatch, large gable stack to the L and small stone ridge stack to centre replacing an earlier probably C17 stack. Windows are small-pane, horizontal sliding hornless sashes under wooden lintels and with stone sills. The doorway to the former cross passage is R of centre and has a cyclopean head with boarded door. To its L are 4 windows, 2 each lighting hall and parlour, with a single window lighting each of the corresponding 2 rooms in the upper storey. On the R side of the doorway is a wider window placed in front of surviving diamond mullions, and a single window in the upper storey. Against the L gable end is a massive external chimney. A small and narrow upper storey window is to its R.

The rear of the house is at a lower level. The cross passage has a cyclopean doorway L of centre, similar to the front, and has a boarded door with inserted glazed panel. To its R is the stub wall of the former lateral hall stack, into which a sash window has been added in the upper storey. To its R are single windows to the hall and parlour and a first-floor window above the parlour to the R. The service end has a single window in each storey.

Set back on the L side of the rear of the house is the former byre, which has original doorways R and L and central loft opening, all of which are now converted to windows. The stable further L is higher and has a boarded loft opening under brick segmental head in its gable end. Facing the front, the stable has a boarded door on the L side under a segmental brick head, and a 3-light fixed window to its R under a stone lintel. The byre has a central feed-passage doorway with boarded door under a brick head, and a narrow vent, now glazed, to its R.

Interior

A C19 stairway occupies the former cross passage. On the L side is a single cross beam above the former screens passage which must have been removed when the hall fireplace was altered in the C18. In the original hall, part of the timber-framed partition screening off the parlour has survived, although the 2 rooms are now combined. The hall fireplace is infilled. The parlour fireplace is also infilled but part of its original timber lintel has survived. Wooden diamond mullions from the original windows have survived in the service room, but also in one of the hall windows and the room above it, where the sashes that replaced them were narrower. In the room above the parlour is a fireplace with timber lintel, to the R of which is a blocked possible former latrine.

Reason for designation

Listed grade II* as an especially well-preserved sub-medieval farmhouse retaining early character and detail.