Cefn-caer

Cefn-caer is a house dating back to the medieval period, constructed from local limewashed stone, incorporating stone taken from a Roman fort. The roof is slate covered. The main house comprises three bays, with the upper section of the right-hand bay projecting as a gable. The building extends two further bays to the right, likely originally farm buildings. The entrance is centrally located, featuring a narrow stone doorcase with a three-centred arched head and a stone hood supported by brackets. Sixteen-paned sash windows are present on both the ground and attic floors, the latter within small raised dormers, all with matching stone hoods. A substantial stone stack is situated on the left gable end, and a secondary stack is located to the right of the entrance passage. A blocked opening, similarly hooded, survives to the left of the entrance. The two bays on the right-hand side exhibit a modern door and irregular glazed windows, culminating in a garage door in the end bay, with a modern brick stack. The rear elevation mirrors the front, with three small gables, the central one being narrower, and sixteen-paned sash windows in each bay.

Attached to the southwest gable end is a lower-level farm building with rubble walls, openings to the southeast, and a galvanised metal roof.

A modern porch and door accesses the west bay of a three-bay hall. This hall originally featured an open fireplace and raised dais at the east end, sheltered by a canopy formed by a projecting upper floor chamber. Beyond a fine, chamfered post and panel partition lies a parlour or withdrawing room, entered via doorways with double-elliptical heads at either end of the partition. The west bay was divided into small and large service rooms, one unusually designed as a semi-cellar. The two medieval roof trusses above the hall exhibit arch-braced collar beams with cusped raking struts that create a quatrefoil and flanking trefoils at the apex. Two tiers of purlins are braced by cusped windbraces, with slight evidence of a former ridge louvre. Tie and collar beam trusses are located at each end of the hall, retaining traces of 17th-century wall paintings on studded partitions. A large inserted fireplace is present, alongside a fine open-joisted ceiling with chamfered bar-stop joists, some decorated with a carpenter's gouge on the underside. The interior was undergoing restoration and opening up at the time of inspection.