Village House, St Mary Hill

Cadw's description

Location

Immediately southeast of the medieval cross base at St Mary Hill (Listed Building 81317), set in a roughly triangular field with stone boundary walls between a fork in the road going uphill on the north side towards Gelli Garn and downhill on the south side to St Mary Hill Court, with a short steep road on the west side linking these. The house faces south down the slope of the Vale to Llangan.

History

Farmhouse built (or rebuilt) in the C16 century, taking on its current exterior appearance and height in the second half of the C19. The earliest surviving phase probably dates from the reign of Elizabeth I when the village of St Mary Hill was undergoing strong population recovery and benefiting from consistently high wheat prices. This was a three-unit, single hearth farmhouse with a central hall with a fireplace between an unheated outer room to west (incorporating the entrance to the building, a room in which some animals may have been kept) and unheated inner room to east (most likely a parlour bedroom for the farmer’s privacy). In this period a farmer investing in a stone house of this kind is likely to have been either a rich yeoman connected to Bristol channel trade or a boneddigon, a member of the minor gentry descended from medieval uchelwyr nobles but not themselves part of the C16 upper class. Earlier in the C16 St Mary Hill was acquired for the Llantrithyd Estate by John Bassett MP, a High Sherrif of Glamorgan and councillor to Queen Catherine Parr. The property then descended through the Mansells to the Aubrey family.

At the tithe survey in 1844 the village was owned by Sir Thomas Digby Aubrey, 7th and final Baronet of Llantrithyd (1782-1856). Village House was at this time divided with the western ‘outer room’ used as a barn associated with the large field to the north farmed by David Edmund, while the eastern half was a cottage occupied by Thomas Jones. Subsequent to this the house was reunited as a single large house and the western ‘barn’ much upgraded as living accommodation, with the eastern house raised to two and a half storey height with servant accommodation in the loft space. Three substantial brick chimneys were erected, and the thatched roof replaced in slate in this phase of building.

Exterior

Long house oriented east to west on a slope so that west end is a little taller. Primarily rubble stone with render with pitched slate roof and three substantial red brick chimney stacks with inverted ziggurat tops, one placed centrally extending the original rubble stone chimney and one at either blind gable. South facing façade reads as a pair of double fronted houses with a blind area under the central chimney dividing an east unit and a west unit each of three bays with its own central entrance. Line-out render surrounds simulating dressed stone to east front door and front windows.

West unit given higher status in the Victorian refurbishment with wide central timber porch on rendered stone footings with monopitch slate roof. To either side large window openings with modern small pane units with open gable dormers above. These west side upper storey windows are 16-pane sashes surmounted by decorative brickwork imitative of Tudorbethan half-timbering with brick diagonals and arches doing the work of timber. Between these gabled windows narrow 8 pane bathroom window under cat-slide dormer.

On the east unit a wider cat-slide brim in the slate roof frames the front windows, 12 pane sashes to upper floor. On ground floor east middle doorway is created from an earlier window opening and post-dates 1990, 12-pane sash to right and larger window to left.

East gable is unrendered rubble stone with some brick filling visible near gable apex. Modern lean-to storage shed built against this gable. Rear elevation of east unit is blind except for a small ground floor window beside a modern porch over rear exit. Rear elevation then steps out to north in an outshut accommodating the original stone staircase in the hall. Blind middle section as at front with windows to rear of west unit arranged irregularly; 12 light casement on first floor to west of central chimney, west of this 9 pane window to ground floor, then another 9 pane window to ground floor with a 6 pane window to stair landing directly above and at far west 12 light casement to first floor with 6 pane pantry window below. West gable blind and rendered.

Boundary wall aligns on land division portrayed in the Tithe map including dividing wall between the east and west units on north side. Victorian water pump set against this wall on east side and stone built Ty Bach (outside toilet) in northeast garden area near modern sheds. Stone lined water cress bed at eastern extremity of garden.

Interior

The Victorian layout has four principal rooms on each floor facing south with a middle staircase in each of the two units, with smaller service rooms at rear and a linking lateral corridor at rear of first floor.

The Elizabethan interior remains highly legible on the ground floor, though the original entrance into the western outer room (the barn in 1844) has been lost. Victorian dressed stone fireplace in sitting room against back of the original hearth, to left of which is a C16 dressed stone doorway with late Gothic four-centred arch head, chamfers and pyramid stops, beyond which is a single step up into the original hall, now dining room. Hall fireplace with chamfered dressed stone jambs supporting timber bressummer, to its right cross-corner spiral stone staircase has been retained but is now blocked off by floor of the room above. Bake oven within fireplace jamb under the stone stair has brick arch over. Ceiling timbers have medium chamfers with round stops and continue into kitchen which may relate to the original inner room.

The eastern unit has three loft rooms with thin timber partitions formally used for servants accommodation, reached by a timber circular stair accessed from a cupboard in the lateral rear corridor. It is uncertain whether this stair linked on to the blocked off circular stair at the ground floor in an earlier period but they are in close proximity. An early photograph of the refurbished Victorian house shows three narrow rooflights since slated over.

Reason for designation

Listed Grade II for its special architectural and historic interest as a rare surviving late C16 farmhouse with legible plan form and well-preserved interior features, with further interest in its later Victorian refurbishment.