Gwydir Uchaf

Gwydir Uchaf is an irregular double-pile house built on a hillside, with the front section facing south-east across a level forecourt. The front pile is single storey, while the rear pile rises to two storeys above a basement, itself set on a high battered plinth. The walls of the front section retain broadly original character, though all openings have been altered and ground level raised. Both sections are built of rough-dressed rubble with slate roofs. The rear section is entirely 19th-century work, though the battered rubble plinth beneath it is original, with dressed slate cills and lintels throughout.

The front facade comprises a central two-window main block with slightly lower flush flanking wings. A large 19th-century gabled porch with moulded bargeboards and simply cusped wooden spandrel pieces shelters the central entrance, accessed by five slate steps. The porch sides are rubble with two re-used limestone columns from the original building, each with plain two-stage square bases and three-tier abaci. The doorcase is pegged oak with ovolo moulding, containing a 19th-century studded oak door decorated with iron hinges in 17th-century style and flanked by small narrow lights with lozenge glazing. On either side of the porch are wooden mullioned windows in 19th-century openings with slate lintels and projecting slate cills: two lights to the left, three to the right, with 20th-century lozenge glazing. The left wing has similar two-light windows contained within simple gabled dormers with plain bargeboards, while the shorter right wing has a three-light window beyond which sits a modern boarded entrance to a lower hipped-roofed lean-to. Plain end chimneys appear at the left of the main block and at the centre, with squatter versions at the wings and plain cornices throughout. Modern basement lights serve the central block and left wing.

The rear elevation is plain, with simple paired and single 19th-century sash windows on two floors and exposed rafter ends. A flush rubble gabled bay to the right has dressed quoins, partly original to the primary house. The north-east end has a boarded entrance and sash windows beneath a slate-hung upper gable with chevron decoration. At the south-west end, the front pile projects beyond the rear section's plane, with an upper entrance to its gable accessed via stepped and parapeted stairs. A round-arched entrance with ashlar voussoirs and simple Y fan lies to the right of the rear section, now with a modern boarded door. A large three-pane window appears to the left, with two two-pane gabled dormers above. At the rear quoin of the front pile's west corner is a deeply-cut graffito date: 1666.

Internally, a square reception hall features a coved ceiling with moulded cornice. A mid-19th-century four-panel oak door with stopped-chamfered detail and simply-moulded architrave opens to a wide niche on the left. A large 19th-century fireplace dominates with marble columns and mantelpiece; the columns have carved and moulded bases on square stepped plinths with similar abaci and square capitals. The tripartite mantelpiece, with advanced outer sections above the columns, is enriched with strapwork, lozenge and cable decoration in carved relief. A large heraldic plaster overmantel displays the arms of the Wynn family with the motto "Nec Tumet, Nec Timet" in raised letters and the date 1622 below. This overmantel is ex situ, brought from Gwydir Castle where identical 19th-century photographs confirm its original placement; later polychromy has been applied. Moulded oak dado and skirting run throughout, with plain flush-oak panelled window reveals extending into the large room to the north.