Ty Hen (including garage room to Penygroes)

Cadw's description

Location

On S side of Dinas road.

History

Early to mid C19 vernacular cottage. Blaenau Ffestiniog owed its existence as a town to the development of slate quarrying during the nineteenth century. Lower Quarry was established on Rhiwbryfdir Farm in 1819 and merged with two other quarries also owned by the Oakeley family in 1882 to form Oakeley Slate quarry. Ty Hen was built along the former boundary of Rhiwbryfdir farm, which became the road to the original Dinas Station of the Ffestiniog railway. By the end of the nineteenth century both the farm and the train station had been buried under the Oakley quarry slate tips, as doubtless had many other examples of worker’s cottages of this kind. A two-room extension to the south was likely a separate cottage added later in the nineteenth century. The house was used as a dormitory in the 1970s for volunteers working on the Deviation of the Ffestiniog railway. A gable brick chimney was lost in the 2010s.

Exterior

Two storey cottage in slate-rubble construction with double-pitch Welsh slate roof with projecting eaves and timber fascias. Entrance in north gable frontage which is canted to Dinas Road with single storey lean-to extension to left side in same material. Extended unit to south is later and now used as storage space.

Front door is in right corner of gable with 16 pane recessed hornless sash window to its left and 9 pane hornless sash above, with the gap between the door and the upper storey window rendered. Front gable is otherwise blind with single pane modern window in lean-to, below which is rendered area indicating this is an infilled doorway. East facing left elevation with three early recessed hornless sash windows to upper floor; central 9 pane and 16 panes to either side. Slate cills. Lean-to at ground floor is rendered and roofed in recent slate with lead flashings and two modern rooflights. To left of main range on this side is double door with massive slate stone lintel, likely always a workshop and currently a garage for the neighbouring house. West-facing elevation is mostly obscured by neighbouring property, single modern rooflight towards rear.

Interior

Essentially single-room plan with added lean-to, and flying freehold giving larger floor area at first floor. Entry from Dinas Road into small timber framed vestibule in corner of living room, with timber staircase to upper level and step down into lean-to kitchen both aligned along rear wall. Separate ground floor room used as garage by neighbouring property not inspected. Up the stairs is a small landing with three doors, the middle one facing the staircase is the bathroom with its single window over the front door, the door on the right is to the front bedroom with two windows and a modern internal window onto the staircase, door on left for the second bedroom, a “flying freehold” over the neighbours’ garage room.

Living room has slate flag floor, early pantry cupboard doors and fireplace stove with slate hearth. Narrow staircase has thin square cut balusters and turned vasiform newel post. Lean-to kitchen is modernised, retains recess in wall believed to have been an infilled doorway out to east side of building. Single exposed timber roofbeam and large trapezoidal slate windowsill in ‘flying’ bedroom. Secondary glazing added to sash windows. Garage room below ‘flying’ bedroom has slate flags by entrance.

Reason for designation

Listed for special historic and architectural interest as a rare surviving example of a well-preserved industrial vernacular cottage associated with the development of the slate industry in Blaenau Ffestiniog, retaining an unusual level of architectural detail. The later adjoining cottage to the south is not of special architectural or historic interest.