Llwyn-Y-Go Farmhouse

Llwyn-y-go Farmhouse

A farmhouse, now a house. Dating from the late 15th century and remodelled in the early 17th century with later additions and alterations, it was comprehensively restored in the late 20th century. The building is timber-framed of cruck construction with rendered infill, much of which has been renewed, particularly to the front. It has a machine tile roof that is half-hipped to the right.

The original plan was that of an open-hall house comprising a hall of two cruck-framed bays with a partition and solar to the right (now removed), and a through-passage with a two-storey single-bay service end to the left. The hall was floored over in the 17th century when a central stack was inserted and a central gable to the front and two projecting gables to the rear were added. The present external stack is probably a late 17th-century addition.

The building is two storeys. Much of the framing has been renewed and is partly clad and rebuilt in brick, now rendered. The centre gable to the front has diagonal bracing above the tie beam and late 20th-century carved corner brackets. Two carvings of human heads are attached to the wall plate below the gable and are either late 20th-century work or recarved at that date. The rear has square and rectangular panels. The left gable is jettied to the first floor and attic with carved corner brackets. The right gable, jettied only to the attic with carved corner brackets, has close studding and herring-bone bracing to the first floor. A true cruck truss with a cambered collar to the left gable end is partly obscured by a massive external rubblestone stack with its top rebuilt in late 20th-century red brick. A similar cruck truss to the right gable end is repaired and truncated and partly obscured by a late 20th-century porch.

The front has late 20th-century casements, one on each floor to the centre and to the left and right on the ground floor, along with contemporary gabled eaves dormers to either side of the centre gable. Late 20th-century casements are also to the rear except for paired 19th-century casements on the ground floor to the left and right of the right gabled projection. Each gable has 3-light wooden mullion windows with latticed lights directly below the eaves on both sides, repaired in the late 20th century following the discovery of infilled 17th-century windows during restoration. The present entrance is through a late 20th-century door in the left gable end. A late 20th-century red brick stack stands immediately in front of the ridge to the right of the centre gable.

Interior

The right ground-floor room, now knocked into one with the centre room, has an early 17th-century deep-chamfered cross beam ceiling and heavy chamfered joists with stepped and ogee stops. A large stack has an inglenook fireplace to the left. The centre ground-floor room has a deep-chamfered spine beam with stepped and ogee stops. An oak-panelled screen, plastered over to the left of the doorway, separates it from the present kitchen. The kitchen has an elaborately moulded spine beam running through the screen to meet a chamfered cross beam, supported in the centre by a post with a carved bracket, straddling the space between the two cruck blades of the truss to the right of the screen. The presence of this spine beam suggests that this end of the house always had a first floor, and the cross beam straddling the two cruck blades suggests that there was a screens passage and spere truss at this point.

All four cruck trusses, except for the truss to the right gable end, are visible on the first floor. The first truss from the right, formerly the centre truss of the open hall, has an arch-braced collar supporting a cusped king-post visible in the roof space; the cruck blades are also cusped above the collar. The first truss from the left is closed and has a short plain king-post above a yoke (not seen at the time of resurvey in October 1986). The collar and tie beam truss immediately to the left of the former centre truss of the hall is probably associated with the insertion of the centre stack in the 17th century.

A plank and muntin screen running along the axis of the building on the first floor to the centre has a doorway to the right with fluted carving to the lintel that looks Jacobean. This screen is not in situ and was formerly situated under the cruck truss to the present right gable end.