Plas Penisarnant

Plas Penisarnant

A remarkable early 19th-century house of distinctly unusual construction and design. As noted at the time, "the square house is surrounded by a piazza". It is 2-storeyed, square in plan, with a heavy slate roof gathered to a central chimney and oversailing hips. A slate-roofed veranda carried on cast-iron columns runs continuously round all four sides. The plan is symmetrical on two axes.

The extraordinary construction is revealed despite modern white rendering: the upper storey and pantry wings are clad in large slabs of slate. Each principal elevation is identical, with a central door and a window either side. Both side elevations have small single-storeyed pantry projections with hipped roofs.

The principal elevations display pointed arched window and door openings. The panelled doors have simple Y-tracery overlights in slate-hung reveals. The flanking windows have interlace tracery in their heads and contain inward-opening small-paned metal casements, possibly brass. Upper windows are small-paned horizontally sliding sashes. The side windows are 4-pane sashes with blind window recesses in the upper storey. The dairy, to the right of the front door, is identified by small ventilation holes drilled into its window sills.

The interior follows a symmetrical quadrant plan bisected by a through passage. The main entrance leads to what was probably originally the service half. The dairy to the right retains slate-lined walls, now painted over, and the remains of a sink set into the front window, noted as being "curiously supplied with fine water". The kitchen to the left, set back behind the staircase, has a large fireplace in its long internal wall. The rear hall has walls with slate-lined dado, now covered, and contains a fine staircase with simple balusters and swept rail.

The south-west half contains a sitting room distinguished by panelled shutters with coloured glass in their tracery. The other room, with pantry opening off, was possibly a show-piece kitchen, though it now has a small later 19th-century cast-iron fireplace. The pantry retains original shelving and slate slabs, together with an impressive range of meat-hooks. Richard Fenton's account describes the kitchen as "a model of convenience and neatness…with furniture in the most appropriate style, of which the pendant rows of bacon are not the least becoming and valuable articles".

The upper rooms contain 3 early fireplaces of distinction: one is a hob grate with fine Neo-classical cast decoration; the other two are identical and of unusual design, possibly a precursor of the register grate intended to concentrate draught, both having embellished casting. The linen room between the two front rooms retains original fitted cupboards and a folding table.