Taltreuddyn-Fawr

Taltreuddyn-Fawr

A large two-unit house of two storeys with attics, consisting of a main north-facing range with a rear wing and a later block added to the southeast. The buildings are constructed of rubble stone (mostly fieldstone) with modern Welsh slate roofs retaining coped gables throughout. Gable-end stacks rise prominently from the main range and rear wing, all tall with pronounced cappings. The rear wing has a lateral stack advanced as a small gable to the west, and the southeast block has a similar chimney of rendered construction.

The original north-facing range has a doorway to the right of centre with an arched head featuring voussoirs and a modern glazed replacement door. Two wood-mullioned windows with small panes sit to the left of the doorway on the ground floor, with one to the right. The first floor has two similar windows to the right and smaller four-pane casements to the left. Four gabled dormers project from the roof, each containing two-paned casement windows. The east gable features a pointed arched stair window with a small-paned mullioned and transomed window. The rear wing has renewed windows on each floor beside its advanced gabled stack, based on small-paned sashes though the openings appear to have been reduced in height. An offset sixteen-pane sash window sits at first-floor level in the gable end. The additional southeast range parallel to the main range has a small-paned sash window on each floor in its south elevation.

The main range interior comprises a two-roomed plan with modifications. The former existence of a cross-passage is indicated by aligned front and rear doorways and confirmed by a slot for a post-and-panel partition visible in the beam west of the doorways; this partition has been re-used upstairs. The division between the two rooms now lies to the east of the cross-passage, with the larger original hall beyond. This room has heavy cross-beams at each end wall and centrally, all with simple chamfers. A wide fireplace to the east has a curved chamfered bressumer set below and behind the end ceiling beam. A chimney stair occupies the southeast corner. The smaller room has a smaller though still wide fireplace with a straight bressumer featuring a curved stopped chamfer. A modern staircase in the southwest corner partially conceals an early pre-glazing timber window of two lights with a diamond mullion.

The rear wing has a ceiling divided into quadrants by heavy beams: the main beam running across the room is chamfered with a simple diamond stop, while a smaller longitudinal beam jointed into this is chamfered with stepped stops. Additional beams run alongside each end wall. Broad stop-chamfered joists, originally counter-changing (indicated by slots in the central and end-wall beams), support the ceiling. A lateral fireplace has a cambered bressumer with curved stops to the chamfer. A semi-circular internal buttress against the gable end presumably supported a former fireplace and chimney at first-floor level. A small southeast room contains a fine built-in cupboard, perhaps of early 19th-century date, and a good contemporary door.

The first floor retains significant vernacular joinery. The chimney stair features reeded detail including a gate at its head with chamfered newels bearing reeded detail and shaped finials; reeded upper and lower rails receive plain balusters with finely shaped heads. A fine post-and-panel partition, assumed to be relocated from the ground floor, separates the rear landing from the front bedrooms. A separate partition divides the landing according to the principal plan division (corresponding to the ground-floor division between cross-passage and main room). The larger partition has two doorways with double ogee heads: the westernmost bears reeded detail to the architrave and door, with hinges enriched with engraved detail, presumably originally the parlour door; the other doorway is simpler with plain hinges. A doorway into the room over the wing has an early boarded door with reeded detail and decorated hinges, possibly originally belonging upstairs where the partition contains a double-ogee doorway. Dado panelling extends across the landing. The room in the wing has a plastered cross-beam ceiling and unusual herringbone-laid floorboards arranged about a central rectangle. A fine two-panelled door leads from the landing into the southeast bay.

The attic contains simple A-framed trusses in the main range with traces of collar visible in the truss over the principal plan division. The rear wing has a similar truss without collar, and the added southeast bay contains a rougher truss isolated from the present roof-line.