Cae'r Llechau

Cadw's description

Location

1km approx. due south of the village of Dwyran, approached from a lane running south-west from the small road that links the village to the shore at Menaifron

History

The property appears, though without detail, on the Tithe Map and survey of Llangeinwen, 1840, as a 75 acre (30 hectares) farm owned by Mr Hugh Prichard and occupied by Edward Roberts. There is also a graffito date in an outbuilding of 1845. It seems probable that the buildings date from c1830. The house is also notable as the home of John Owen Jones (ap Ffarmwr), 1861-1899. He began his career working in London for the Welsh National Press (Cwmni Newyddiaduron Cenedlaethol Cymru), which published several newspapers including Y Werin, but returned to Anglesey in 1885 where he set up a school in Dwyran and wrote numerous articles (published for instance in Y Cymro and The North Wales Observer and Express) drawing attention to rural issues, and where he espoused the cause of farm labourers in particular. His campaigns on their behalf led to significant improvements in for example working hours, though attempts to found a Union of agricultural workers in Anglesey were ultimately unsuccessful. He later moved first to Merthyr and then Nottingham, where he died in 1899. He is buried in the chapel cemetery in Dwyran.

Exterior

House with stable etc. in-line. Local rubble, roughcast and lime rendered, and with graded bedded slate roofs. House is a relatively long 2 storeyed, 2-window range with gable-end stacks. Doorway at centre, flanked by 12-pane sashes. Upper windows are 2-pane sashes (the original sashes with the glazing bars removed). Single storeyed kitchen wing in-line to left, with split boarded door to right, and small window to left. High stack on left-hand gable end. Adjoining the house to the right and with a lower roof-line is the former cart-house and stable range. This has cambered timber lintel over cart-entry to left, then external stone steps to loft with paired doors in raking dormer cutting through the eaves. Small loft window to right, over split boarded stable doorway. Lower range beyond was out-kitchen or dairy and retains stack in front roof slope at gable-end; small gable-end window with timber slats below glazed upper light. Rear elevation has 2x4-pane sash windows to ground floor, and 3 windows above. Of these, that to left and centre are renewed12-pane sashes (with lower sill to central stair window); the right-hand window is a 4-pane sash, presumably altered from its original form.

Interior

House has 2 room plan, with central staircase, offset slightly from doorway. Large fireplace in left-hand room, with timber lintel over. 2 bolted collar trusses to roof. Former dairy or out-kitchen retains slate slabs and some tiling to walls. Date of 1845 scratched into plaster torching of roof.

Reason for designation

Listed as a traditional linear farmstead of the early C19 retaining vernacular character - a regional type once common on Anglesey, but now rarely well-preserved. Association with John Owen Jones lends additional interest to this traditional Anglesey farm.